I meant to share an incident that occurred last year with fellow forum members. First, I will discount my 25 year law enforcement career with a large metro in California since that would be impossible to count.
During the summer of 2023, we had just moved to our 20 acre property in south central Oklahoma, about 45 min southwest of Oklahoma City. I had been retired from my law enforcement career for 6 years. I would describe our area as being located in a small valley, with some nice rolling contour of red cedar, scrub oaks and grassland. The neighboring properties were other cattle and horse ranches ranging from 10 acres to hundreds of acres. An apt description would be tranquil, peaceful and quiet.
My wife had wanted some raised garden beds made, so we hired a nice local named Ronnie to build the raised beds. Our home has a rather long driveway, approximately 350 yards from the not very busy county road where we have an electric wrought iron gate and the entire 20 acres is fenced. The home is not visible from the long winding gravel driveway.
We had several contractors over during this period for painting, adding a tankless water heater and other stuff. I gave them our gate code including Ronnie so they could access our property and do their work. The gate has about a 40 second delay before closing again, this will become important later.
On the morning of the incident. The wife is inside the house and I’m out back with our dogs, we have about 3/4 of an acre fenced behind the house. I watch my neighbor, Frank, fly over in his para motor and a wave at him. Then I see Ronnie drive up to start work on the wife’s raised garden beds. Then I see Ronnie again in his truck driving off, he stopped and said, “I’ll get him!” Then rapidly drove away. It didn’t quite register, is he talking about my neighbor Frank who just flew over in his para motor?
I walked into the house and comment to the wife that Ronnie sure was acting weird when I see Ronnie drive back up and come up to the house with a worried look. I went outside, and Ronnie blurted out, “Some guy in a white 1500 Ram followed me through your gate, I thought he was maybe another contractor until I saw him driving into some trees and smashing his truck up! Then he started doing donuts and crashed into some more trees on your property! I think he’s high on meth!
I asked Ronnie where the suspect was now and he said, “somewhere on your property!”
I went and grabbed my holstered, fully loaded Glock 19, and strapped it to my belt, instructed my wife to call 911, then stepped outside. I start walking down the driveway and immediately I see the white Ram come barreling up the driveway, kicking up gravel and I immediately draw my Glock 19 as he comes barreling towards me.
In just a few seconds after having stepped outside, I am now aiming center mass at the suspect’s chest through the windshield, I feel my life is in danger as the truck is coming towards me approximately 15 yards away, my finger makes contact with the trigger as I’m a less than a second away from attempting to neutralize him!
Then the suspect abruptly stops! His eyes get extremely wide! Even in his meth induced haze, he must realize he’s looking at death! He starts to rapidly back the truck up. I’m processing this, he’s no longer an immediate threat as I lose sight of him. Then Ronnie drives up, I jump in Ronnie’s truck and say, “Come on Ronnie, follow him!” I wanted to get a photo of his license plate and call it in to the sheriff’s department.
We catch up to the suspect, and surprisingly he’s driving rather slowly, almost casually back out our driveway. He even patiently waits for the gate to open then turns onto the county road as I’m able to get several photos of the truck and license plate. We continue to follow as I assess.
Well, as far as I know it’s just trespassing, maybe vandalism to the trees, no need to get into a high speed pursuit with a civilian and well I’m a civilian now too! So I tell Ronnie to disengage and return us home while I update the sheriff’s department with the truck’s license plate number and last known direction and location.
A couple hours later, sheriff’s deputies come to the house to take my report and they give me an update. They told me the suspect just stole the truck this morning from an automotive shop in another town, and were uncertain why he followed Ronnie through the gate but surmised maybe he was looking to steal another vehicle?
Anyways, they located him shortly after we called it in and the suspect ended up ramming a deputies patrol car and deputies fired on him. The suspect was not hit however. They were subsequently able to take him into custody ending this crazy little escapade!
From my perspective, it felt like being back at work, whereupon you can go from calm and inactive one moment to an instant life and death situation in another! The reason I wanted to bring this situation up to my fellow forum members, even as unlikely as it may be seem, any of us could find ourselves in a lethal force situation in the most unlikely area so it does pay to be prepared!
) This made everyone pause for a moment and I was told to "Just stand there" while they figured out what was going on. 
