Cautionary Tale in an Alabama Forest: When in a Gunfight, Don’t Hesitate

On August 14, 2022, Adam Simjee and his longtime girlfriend, Mikayla Paulus, were on a road trip through wild Alabama country before returning to college.

They decided to help a woman who appeared to have had a vehicle breakdown. The woman, Yasmine Hider, was planning to rob them or worse. Adam was a dedicated Second Amendment supporter. He had tucked a concealed pistol in his waistband because he was suspicious of the circumstances. After Adam and Mikayla had been working on the broke-down vehicle for an hour without success, Hider pulled out a handgun and ordered them to drop their cell phones, empty their pockets, and give up their bank and cell phone passwords. Then she marched them into the forest. Adam waited for an opportunity to draw his firearm.

“Adam had his gun on him the whole time because he said, ‘This is how people get robbed,’” she said, “So I was just waiting on him to use it.”

Paulus described what happened next, “Adam pulled out his gun and told her to get on the ground and that’s when she started messing around with her gun. It jammed once but they both shot at each other and she was shot a few times and he was shot only once.”

 Law and Crime supply a few more details. From Law and Crime:

At one point, HIDER looked away and lowered her guard, Victim #1 pulled his pistol from his waistband and ordered HIDER to drop her weapon. HIDER said, “Are you serious?” She cocked her gun and started firing, and Victim # 1 returned fire simultaneously while falling to the ground. While on the ground, Victim #1 said, “You shot me,” and fired one last time at HIDER. After the shooting stopped, HIDER said, “Why did you shoot? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

In situations where someone has the drop on you and is momentarily distracted, there is a limited time for your action to beat their reaction, in the neighborhood of 3/4 of a second.

In this case, there seems to have been a little more time, as Hider is said to have answered Adam Simjee and taken some action with her firearm before both started to fire.

When someone threatens your life, conversing with them is not a good idea. This has been acknowledged in popular movies. In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco says, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”

John Wayne, in The Shootist, says his advantage is he does not hesitate when it is time to shoot, essentially saying: most men hesitate. I don’t. Clip from The Shootist: Most men aren’t willing.

Adam Simjee showed good tactical awareness by waiting for the right moment. Then he hesitated. Shots were exchanged. He was killed. Most people do not want to take a life. At short range, it is not uncommon for both participants in a gunfight to be hit or for both participants to be missed. Hesitation can be deadly. Simjee expected compliance. Instead, he received a deadly bullet.

Life is complex. Uncertainty is common.  In the tragic case of the good Samaritan college students in the Alabama forest, hesitation was a deadly mistake.