Category: You have to be kidding, right!?!
VALLEJO, Calif. — Two people were arrested on suspicion of murder in the death of a fellow squatter who was shot and killed by a California property owner, authorities said. The property owner was impaled by a sword during the confrontation.
“Somewhere, somehow, somebody’s going to pay,” was the tagline for the 1985 Schwarzenegger action movie Commando. This classic stylized bloodbath orbited around a retired special operator named John Matrix whose daughter is kidnapped. The archetypal evil mastermind takes the little girl in an effort at motivating Schwarzenegger’s super-soldier character to overthrow a small island nation-state on his behalf. The central theme, should you wish to think this deeply about it, explores the limits to which a devoted father might go to protect his child.
According to www.moviebodycounts.com, for his era, Arnold Schwarzenegger was Hollywood’s deadliest actor as determined by total on-screen kill count. Commando was his bloodiest movie by the same metric. His record has since been eclipsed by more modern fare, but he was the unchallenged 1980’s king of gory vengeance. As an aside, one scene that was proposed but later cut had Schwarzenegger chopping a henchman’s arm off with a machete and then beating him to death with it. His dialogue was to have been, “Thanks for lending me a hand.” Sheesh…
John Matrix logged seventy-four kills in Commando. Among them fifty-one people were shot, seven were blown up by emplaced explosives, and five others succumbed to hand grenades. Another five met their gory demise thanks to an M202 rocket launcher.
Two faceless disposable bad guys got cut into pieces by thrown circular saw blades, one person was stabbed to death, and one particularly unfortunate rascal was impaled on a hissing steam pipe. As an aside, Schwarzenegger’s youthful daughter Jenny was none other than 13-year-old Alyssa Milano, the modern face of the Me Too movement.
Commando was actually a pretty silly movie. The guns were cool, but the dialogue seemed like it was penned by a Third Grader, and the acting simply reeked of cheese. I’m nonetheless not too proud to admit that I had a life-size movie poster from the film plastered on my dorm room wall back when I was a college student. However, a year before Commando hit the big screen, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a very public example of just how far one real guy might actually go to avenge a crime committed against his child. That guy’s name was Gary Plauche.
The Setting
Leon Gary Plauche was born on November 10, 1945, in Baton Rouge. He served in the US Air Force and attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. After leaving the military he became a heavy equipment salesman and also worked as a cameraman for a local TV station. Though he had a temper, he was known for his affable demeanor and quick jokes. Plauche fathered four children—three boys and a girl. Gary was separated from his wife June in the early 1980s. This was predictably hard on his kids.
In 1983 Gary’s 11-year-old son Jody began taking Hapkido lessons from a 25-year-old ex-Marine named Jeffrey Doucet. Jeff Doucet had humble beginnings. He dropped out of school in Ninth Grade and, as a child, lost a sister to a rattlesnake bite. The discipline and exercise intrinsic to the martial arts seemed good for Jody. Doucet took the kid under his wing and cultivated a bond that appeared to be therapeutic given the circumstances. Doucet was a regular visitor at the Plauche home and frequently gave Jody a ride to the dojo for training.
Authorities later determined that Jeffrey Doucet had been molesting the young man for more than a year. In February of 1984, Doucet kidnapped Jody and took him to a motel in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland where he sexually assaulted the kid repeatedly. Meanwhile, the authorities scoured the country looking for them both.
Doucet eventually allowed Jody to make a collect call to his mother. The cops traced the call to the motel and staged a raid. Law Enforcement officers hit the hotel room, rescued the child, and took Doucet into custody without incident.
Jody was returned home on March 1, 1984. Once he was safe the details of the protracted abuse came to light. Gary, who was 39 at the time, was interviewed by a news crew in a ghoulish effort at ascertaining his feelings on the situation. He told the interviewer that he did not know what to do and just felt helpless.
The Setting
Two weeks after Jody returned to Louisiana, Jeffrey Doucet was extradited from California to Louisiana to stand trial for child molestation and sexual assault. Doucet’s Flight 595 out of Dallas landed at Ryan Field in Baton Rouge, and Doucet was led through the terminal in handcuffs. Meanwhile, wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses, the aggrieved father Gary Plauche stood nearby at a bank of pay phones speaking with his best friend. He cryptically whispered into the phone, “Here he comes. You’re about to hear a shot.”
In the immediate aftermath of what was to come it was assumed that local Law Enforcement officers had tipped Plauche off regarding the timing and location of the transfer. Plauche enjoyed friendships with many of the local cops, so this was not an unreasonable assumption. It was later determined, however, that a former co-worker from the local ABC television affiliate WBRZ-TV was Plauche’s source of intel. Then as now tragedy sells, so the media slathered the sordid story with attention.
This bit is all pretty unsettling when you think about it. Humans in the Information Age are drawn to calamity like politicians to other peoples’ money. Throughout this whole ghastly episode, TV crews hounded the major players in search of that Pulitzer-grade image that might graphically capture one man’s anguish in the face of something so epically horrible. At 9:30 pm with the manacled child molester Jeffrey Doucet passing just behind him, Gary Plauche gave the world those images.
The Killing
Plauche retrieved a small revolver of unknown make from his boot, stepped alongside Doucet, placed the gun to the right side of his head, and fired a single .38-caliber hollowpoint round. The cops subdued him immediately. Plauche’s friend Deputy Sheriff Mike Barnett can be heard on the tape asking him, “Gary, why? Why, Gary?”
Plauche tearfully answered, “If somebody did it to your kid, you’d do it, too!”
The Aftermath
The sex criminal Jeffrey Doucet fell into a coma and died in hospital the following day. Video footage of the horrific scene has taken on a life of its own. Michael Moore used it in his anti-gun documentary screed Bowling for Columbine. The clip also featured prominently in an unsettling compilation of real-life video killings titled Traces of Death 2 released in 1994. It was viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube prior to its removal.
Gary Plauche was charged with murder in the second degree but subsequently pled no contest to manslaughter. He was given a seven-year suspended sentence along with five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service. He completed all of this in 1989.
Opinions were mixed on the outcome of the Plauche case. Some felt that shooting a man in the head in cold blood in an airport warranted more than probation and community service. Others believed that the circumstances surrounding the crimes committed against his child absolved him of responsibility. Plauche’s defense team made a compelling argument that Doucet was a charismatic manipulative predator who had used Plauche’s family challenges to take advantage of his son.
Psychological assessments alleged that Plauche was so traumatized by these events that he was unable to discern the difference between right and wrong at the time of the killing. Any parent can imagine the unfettered anguish this might precipitate. The judge in the case, Frank Saia, ultimately agreed and opined that Plauche represented no risk of further criminal behavior. He felt that sending Plauche to prison would serve no material purpose for the state.
It was later revealed that Doucet and Plauche’s wife June were having an affair at the time. This revelation just served to muddy the waters further. However, forensics determined that Doucet’s assault on Jody occurred just as had been alleged.
In 2019 Jody Plauche released a book titled, Why, Gary, Why? The Jody Plauche Story. The book was described thusly, “Through his own incredible story of using his past for good by helping others, he shares how any reader who has suffered great trauma can move on and not let the past define him or her.”
I’ve not read it myself, so I can’t comment on its contents. However, the excerpts I have found do yield insight into Jody’s subsequent attitudes about the shooting.
He wrote, “I think for a lot of people who have not been satisfied by the American justice system my dad stands as a symbol of justice…My dad did what everybody says what they would do…Plus, he didn’t go to jail. That said, I cannot…condone his behavior. I understand why he did what he did. But it is more important for a parent to be there to help support their child than put themselves in a place to be prosecuted.”
In his final interview prior to his death, Gary Plauche showed no regret for killing Jeffrey Doucet and stated that he would do it again if given the opportunity. In 2011 Plauche had a stroke as a complication of diabetes and was placed in a nursing home. He died in 2014 at the age of 68.
Of his father, Jody wrote, “A lot of people remember the guy who shot somebody. I remember someone who would pick up stray animals…someone who was just a kind soul, a gentle person.”
Sometimes our attempts to have the best shooting firearms cause us to lose sight of an important principle: Knowing how to use them safely and effectively should always come first. That does not mean you cannot buy a nicely appointed rifle and then learn how to use it. It simply means you cannot place that same rifle under the bed and expect it to make up for your shortcomings when it is time to pull the trigger.
I was reminded of this during a recent conversation with an old SOF buddy. He is one of the few guys I know who I can trust with my life, because I have. We worked together in uniform overseas for many years and had each other’s backs on several hair-raising occasions. A master of articulating common-sense solutions to everything, my friend inspired the title of this column while we were discussing different approaches to helping people learn to shoot well.
As a tactical instructor, he often sees students who are more focused on the features of their tricked-out guns than on learning how to shoot them. This is a common problem, and we need to remind ourselves from time to time that learning to crawl before walking is important in all things requiring any amount of skill. Running should be somewhere far down the line.
Before buying a high-end tactical long gun, first consider whether some of your hard-earned dollars might be better spent on professional training. A beginning or self-taught shooter can become quite proficient behind the sights of a basic rifle or carbine once he or she is taught to use it properly. Conversely, having a top-of-the-line blaster will not provide any edge if you do not first have a solid foundation upon which to build.
We have probably all seen at least one overzealous person show up at a range appearing ready for Armageddon. I used to work with a guy who would strap a handgun on each hip and sling on both a rifle and a shotgun anytime he showed up (uninvited) at informal shooting events. He would blaze away with one gun until it was empty, literally throw it down, and then move on to the next and the next until his personal thrill ride was over. No one could talk any sense into him, so we simply stayed far away—on and off the range. This clown always made sure he had cutting-edge guns and gear. Not surprisingly, he hit very little of that at which he aimed. In the end, he was all bark and no bite. Fortunately, guys like him are the exception rather than the rule, and most of us are humble enough to admit we need to train more.
Familiar shooting schools like Gunsite and other well-known mobile training groups have much to offer shooters of any skill level. Most of them do good work and if you can afford the time and money, they are worth at least one dance. Oftentimes, just having someone fine-tune your technique is all it takes to get on track. A good instructor will show you where you are weak and what to do to fix it on your own. But, you have to check your machismo at the door and open your mind to get the most out of formal instruction.
I was blessed to receive a lot of specialized tactical firearms training while in uniform. Those courses later paid off by helping me hold my own in both close- and long-range gunfights overseas. Still, I recognize I have much to learn and I always enjoy picking up solid techniques from fellow instructors and shooters. Not every new method works for me, but I home in on the ones that do and try to perfect them.
What if you cannot afford to attend a big-name instructional outfit in these tough economic times? Seek out one of the handful of discreet instructors and companies with impressive pedigrees hovering around the periphery of the firearms training world. These smaller companies tend to be more cost-effective and flexible, without requiring you to provide 20 other students or a month’s salary to attend. Many teach tactical shooting with all firearm types and provide other specialized services.
Field Advisory Services and Training, Fulcrum Concepts and TMACS are a sampling from this category, and I can vouch for all of them. They are staffed by one or more operators with whom I worked—and, in most cases, fought alongside—in my former life.
These guys are the real deal. They eschew the limelight and focus their efforts on helping military, law enforcement and civilian shooters learn to fight and survive. If you are in the market for quality tactical training without the usual ego or glitz, I recommend checking them out. Each offers a slightly different range of courses and options.
I thoroughly enjoy customizing firearms for people who want an edge in comfort and performance, but I would rather steer a customer to an off-the-shelf gun at a local shop than build them a custom rig if their shooting needs and skills are basic. A lever-action .30-30 Win. in the hands of a highly skilled shooter is worth more than a heavily accessorized tactical carbine in the hands of a novice any day of the week. Spend a little time studying under the watchful eyes of a quiet professional and you will come away with new skills upon which you can bet your life. Then, you can rightly shift your focus to improving your fighting arms while regularly sustaining the techniques you learned.
An armed robbery attempt was foiled last month in Chicago when a business owner grabbed the suspect’s gun and chased him out.
James Suh, owner of Car Care Auto Spa in the Windy City, was at work one evening when “all of a sudden, it’s just, ‘hey give me all of your money,’” he told ABC7Chicago in a recent interview.
He looked up to see a man with a gun leveled at his face. At first, trying to de-escalate the scenario, he stalled as the man continued demanding money, explaining that a key was necessary for the cash drawer to be unlocked.
Suh is a concealed carry license holder, although his firearm was unfortunately absent during the incident.
During the verbal exchange, Suh noticed something about the robber’s pistol.
“He kinda like tries to rack his gun and it looked to me like it got jammed, the slide was locked back,” Suh explained.
In a moment that Suh later identified as a purely emotional decision, he grabbed at the gun, and the robber tried to evade him.
Surveillance footage shows the fight that ensued inside the shop, in which Suh eventually gained control of the pistol. The attacker then fled the scene.
Police are saying that while the footage has been studied, no arrests have been made yet. Luckily there were no injuries, a detail that could easily have been different had Suh not been prepared.
Emphasizing that the decision he made was risky, police instruct others to not follow Suh’s course of action if faced with a similar circumstance.
But with crime on the rise, perhaps it’s time for more business owners to get their CCL the way that Suh did — they just need to remember to have it on their person while at work!