Situational awareness can extend beyond just one's own situation. I have always, as far as I can recall, exercised such situational awareness.
My only non-duty incident where I thought I would have to use deadly force did not involve danger to me or mine. I was still an LEO then, but off-duty. One night we were on Broadway in San Francisco at Enrico Banducci's coffee house. Broadway during that era had a proliferation of topless/bottomless joints. We were sitting on the patio at Enrico's watching the passing parade on the sidewalk, a theater of the bizarre. At one point a group of young women passed by us. Although not then dressed provocatively, their make up and general appearance gave us (my bride and I) the impression that they were performers from the local nightclubs. So far so good. However, right beyond them was a small man harassing them by loudly shouting obscene insults of a sexual nature. The girls were doing their best to ignore him. Even assuming they were local performers, there was no justification for what this individual was doing. While we were watching this, a Mercedes convertible, with the top down, arrived. The sole occupant got out, leaving his car in the street, reached behind the seat, withdrew a motorcycle chain, and started walking towards the harasser. The Mercedes driver, who I assumed to be a night club manager, was about my size, so any match between him and the harasser would have been completely one-sided, even without the motorcycle chain. The fact that the Mercedes driver even carried such an implement convinced me of his willingness and ability to use it.
The girls reacted to this imminent confrontation by running off. The Mercedes driver was focused on the small harasser. The intended victim was backing away from the Mercedes driver into the parking lot next to Enrico's. The problem was that this parking lot was surrounded on the rear and sides by buildings, so it was a box canyon from which there was no escape. I told my wife that I did not want to get involved in this situation, but I could not ignore it. I walked into the parking lot and closed with the confrontation by remaining off the flank of the assailant so he would not be aware of my presence until I announced myself. As I was almost in position, and the would-be assailant was now closely approaching the intended victim, San Francisco PD rolled up in two doubled units. That stopped everything. Since I had not yet interceded, all I did was turn around and depart.
The point to all this is that true situational awareness means you may encounter situations where the threat is to an unknown third party, and you will face the ethical dilemma of whether or not to act. I was convinced then, and still am now, that without someone interceding there was going to be, at the very least, an extremely violent assault with a deadly weapon (a felony), and worst case scenario, death as a result.
Under the law of deadly force, at least in CA, a person my use deadly force to defend themselves or third persons against assaults likely to produce death or great bodily harm. When teaching the law pertaining to this, I would use the example of a mother protecting her children, because even the most enlightened social justice warriors have a tough time making their self-righteous counter arguments. But it applies equally to unknown third persons, such as in my example.
The lesson I would derive from this is that while we can be as cautious as possible to not place ourselves in situations where we may have to use deadly force to defend ourselves or our families, that does not mean we may not have such an situation just dropped in front of us.
Then we will have a decision to make. Whatever we decide, we must do so quickly, and we must be right.
I have used this incident in my classes to underscore the responsibilities that one assumes when one decides to go armed.
