Situational Awareness: GRAPHIC CONTENT

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
5,158
46
1,225
Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
In this clip, a young woman enters the vestibule of her apartment complex. Notice that she doesn't pay any attention to the guy who "follows" her in after she has unlocked the door. This type of 'head-in-the-sand" behavior is a hallmark of victims. Assaults like the one shown occur EVERY DAY. Very simple changes to one's behavior pattern can almost completely remove one's chances of being attacked like this. As this one is from Russia, I have no follow-up data about the perpetrator or victim. Once again, note the absolute disregard for the victim's well-being.. the only intent being an easy pay-day.

We are fortunate to have video records of assaults such as this, since they provide information that drives our educational tools. This one is quite brutal, for those who would like to know this before viewing.

[video]http://copi.ru/tmp/monstr.swf[/video]

Lee
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
I wonder why this ******* felt the need to keep stomping this poor defenseless woman. It reminds of the other clip you posted from NJ.
 

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
5,158
46
1,225
Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
We just don't realize the extent of ultra-violence that criminals can employ by whim. Sociopaths have zero remorse for what they will do to someone, often for very little $$$ reward. Take the Nike shoe incidents, etc. as examples of a known small payoff.

Lee
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
37
0
Seattle, WA
Lee is very right that we see criminals through our eyes, not theirs. I had my boat stored at a yard that was next to a massive naval base. My boat faced the naval base with barbed wire, security cameras, etc. I go to launch my boat in spring and to my horror, I see that someone had stolen both of my lead acid batteries with the cables danging in the back of the boat. These are massive batteries that were bolted to the terminals inside another case. Someone spent good 30+ minutes undoing all of this and then dragging them out of the boat. All the while in an open yard, with lights and said naval base looking onto it. All for what? Two $100 used batteries? Go to jail for that??? But whoever took it doesn't think that way. If they did, they wouldn't do it.
 

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
5,158
46
1,225
Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
this clip shows how little time one has to react and defend themselves, even if they have a handgun in thier purse, its too late, even if it were me, in my thirties and even with a handgun in a shoulder holster, it probably would have been too much to overcome. That situational awareness thing, keeping a distance, and if cant keep distance then one should grasp their gun in their purse cause you got about one half a second to squeese the trigger in a case like this.

i remember an old james bond gizmo ( i think it was james bond but maybe the wild wild west ?) where he flexed his forearm muscles and a pistol popped down into his hand (it was in his sleeve), that might have been fast enough in this case, barely.

That was Robert Conrad in The Wild, Wild West. Conrad was a certified bad-ass in reality, not a "poser" actor.

Lee
 

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
5,158
46
1,225
Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
The comment about limited time is very interesting. When one does not monitor their surroundings, does not pay attention to unknown persons within a close distance, and does not take care when "opening a locked door to a stranger", then the huge time compression in the video occurs. The victim sequentially failed at several steps in the process of carrying out a Personal Protection Plan. Each failure places one further into danger, with a larger deficit to overcome. There reaches a point where the deficit is so great that virtually nobody could surmount it.

Lee
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
24,305
1,323
435
Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada
Also Lee; there are badder neighborhoods than others. ...And the more you get out of populated areas (cities, etc.), the more the chances of getting assaulted and brutalized evaporate.

Get a cat! A viscious one, a catzilla!
 

jfrech

VIP/Donor
Sep 3, 2012
2,152
749
1,160
Austin
The other thing is the guy had no fear of what might be coming down in the elevator...I see what the elevators open twice? then he drags her in one...he does look like a normal joe walking behind her... a little close...which is what first bothered me...

I know this is disturbing to watch....but I plan to show my wife...she needs to see it.
 

RBFC

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
5,158
46
1,225
Albuquerque, NM
www.fightingconcepts.com
I hope that it is becoming apparent that merely having "offensive capability" is not enough to provide effective self-protection. The criminal paradigm encompasses victim selection, environmental awareness, planned approach, and rapid (sometimes viciously brutal) dominance of the chosen victim. By definition, we will be in an initiative deficit if we are selected as a victim. As stated by tomelex, overcoming the criminal's "head start" can be difficult to impossible.

So, in order to avoid the deficit associated with criminal assault, we must possess (and actively utilize!!) a skill set that makes us a "hard target" and controls our environment to the extent that the deficit is reduced. Further, unlike much traditional martial arts training, we must practice fighting our way out from various archetypal assault deficits. Note that this "fighting back" might not mean overpowering our attacker, but rather using tactics and tools that are available.

It is with an understanding of initiative deficit that we train officers to draw their firearms while wrestling with suspects, and why we teach them to use a "drive stun" with their Tasers ( pressing the contacts directly against the opponent at close range instead of shooting the electrodes ). For civilians, immediate-access hand-held weapons of opportunity like silverware, books, etc. provide opportunities to multiply the force we use against our attacker.

More as we continue.....

Lee
 

mdabb

Member
Jul 10, 2010
54
0
6
N.E. Ohio
Also Lee; there are badder neighborhoods than others. ...And the more you get out of populated areas (cities, etc.), the more the chances of getting assaulted and brutalized evaporate.

Get a cat! A viscious one, a catzilla!


Unfortunately here in U.S. a person is just as likely to be a victim in a rural or urban setting. It is impossible to 100% prevent these situations in any setting. Psychopaths are completely unpredictable. What quality of life is there when a person has to "get prepared" to go about everyday life here in the U.S.A. (as well as other countries). Being aware of your surroundings and the people in it is a start. However, from my experience in a town of 13,000 +/- it is a new "norm" that everyone is packing a gun. No one fights with their fists. High unemployment, heroin, crack, alcohol, hardcore substance abuse is widespread in every community. Lots of small time drug addicts and mentally ill people enter the criminal system to only to come out the other side as "super criminals". It would be a great world to live in if drug/substance abuse and mental illness were rare. However, the current ways of dealing with these types of problems have not and never will be any kind of a solution. We make animals out of the less fortunate, mentally ill, criminals, drug addicts. We turn criminality, drug addiction and mental illness into big business, nothing more. We purposely make people in this country stupid in order to take advantage them. The public educational system in this country is a joke. How can we expect people to create better lives for themselves when they are set up for failure to begin with.

Myself, friends, and family have been victims of crime on more than one occasion. I don't feel compelled to run out and buy a gun as some of them have. I don't want to be a part of the New Wild West. I guess I could go buy a cat.... :D
 
Last edited:

Duke LeJeune

[Industry Expert]/Member Sponsor
Jul 22, 2013
747
1,200
435
Princeton, Texas
I hope that it is becoming apparent that merely having "offensive capability" is not enough to provide effective self-protection. The criminal paradigm encompasses victim selection, environmental awareness, planned approach, and rapid (sometimes viciously brutal) dominance of the chosen victim. By definition, we will be in an initiative deficit if we are selected as a victim. As stated by tomelex, overcoming the criminal's "head start" can be difficult to impossible.

So, in order to avoid the deficit associated with criminal assault, we must possess (and actively utilize!!) a skill set that makes us a "hard target" and controls our environment to the extent that the deficit is reduced. Further, unlike much traditional martial arts training, we must practice fighting our way out from various archetypal assault deficits. Note that this "fighting back" might not mean overpowering our attacker, but rather using tactics and tools that are available.

It is with an understanding of initiative deficit that we train officers to draw their firearms while wrestling with suspects, and why we teach them to use a "drive stun" with their Tasers ( pressing the contacts directly against the opponent at close range instead of shooting the electrodes ). For civilians, immediate-access hand-held weapons of opportunity like silverware, books, etc. provide opportunities to multiply the force we use against our attacker.

More as we continue.....

Lee

I've never been in very deep initiative deficit - that is, already under criminal attack - and am not at all confident about my ability to cope with such.

The closest I've come was once when I was getting my then-two-year-old son out of his car-seat, and a man that I hadn't seen (and yes I had scanned before pulling in) suddenly appeared at the edge of the carport and in two steps he's blocking our exit path. He stops and is focused on us. We're trapped in between the two cars, mine and my grandparents' (we shared a duplex), with nowhere to run. Not that I could have outrun him... this guy is eight to ten inches taller than me and athletic (I'm a desk jockey). His presence projects pure predatory evil. I don't think his eyes actually glowed red, but that's what it felt like.

He is less than one car-length from us, and I'm holding my son in my left arm (as I recall). I don't remember doing this, but evidently I've retrieved something from my right hip pocket, because it's already in my right hand, hidden behind my hip. And I am totally fixated on his posture... I've already decided that, if his weight so much as shifts in our direction (much less he takes a step), OR if his hands move towards his waist, all hell breaks loose and I'll be the one to start it. I've sized him up and accepted that this will be a hard fight and I'm going to get hurt even if everything goes my way in the initial exchange, but I'll at least tag him so that he has to seek medical attention, and hopefully my son will survive, and for me that would be a "win". If I hesitate because of indecision to explode the instant I see him move, because of his proximity, I may not even tag him before I go down, so that's why I'm right there at the verge. But I've already made the decision to act, so the action is only waiting on his slightest threatening move, and I'm confident that I can at least make him pay a price and... he doesn't really know what I've got because he hasn't seen it. We hold our positions like this for several minutes... okay it was probably several seconds, but those were the longest seconds of my life. Fortunately for all three of us he decides to back down, and walks on down the sidewalk, out of view. Maybe he knew that a dad would fight to the death for his kids, and that was more than he wanted. As he leaves I stay where I am, in case he draws a weapon and returns, in which case I don't want to have given up separation distance. Shortly afterwards I hear him loudly growl, "Just gimme your money!" I think, omigosh, he's robbing someone right there, just a few feet away!! I can't see him, but I can tell from his voice where he is. Taking advantage of the fact that he's obviously occupied, I full-sprint across the street with my son to about fifty feet away (I will feel much safer with some maneuvering room). During my sprint I realize that I'm going to have to choose between staying with my son and returning to the situation to assist whoever the guy is assaulting, and am not looking forward to that. Soon as I've completed my desk-jockey sprint angling across the street I whip around to orient to the situation. And aside from the tall guy, there's no one else there! I watch in disbelief and relief while he pantomimes a mugging (knife I think; didn't see a gun). He's in between me and the entrance to my house, so I wait until he's done and has moved on down the street to the next block, and then we go home. I'm pretty shook up, but my sphincter muscles haven't failed me.

That was probably the closest I ever came. But it still wasn't the deep deficit you describe, of being already under attack. I'm not equipped to deal with that (though I would try). The above incident was too close for comfort already.

Let me elaborate on the beginning of the encounter... my back was to the opening of the carport as I got my son out of his car-seat, and then suddenly all the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I don't remember hearing the guy, I just looked up and there he was coming into view. I can't really credit my conscious situational awareness, as he'd evaded my scan, but maybe my habits had primed my unconscious detection system to be on duty as well.

In hindsight, my son would have been safer on the ground. I probably should have set him down while keeping eyes on my guy. I would have been much more effective on the offensive with two hands, and likewise more effective on the defensive if I could engage without my son getting crushed in my arms. It is possible that I did put my son down when the guy left, and then scooped him up again after "just gimme your money"; I remember scooping him up at some point, and I think it was just before the sprint, but I'm not sure. Now I'm not even sure he was in my arm throughout the encounter - I may have put him down early on after all, or he may already have been on the ground, as I do remember being more confident than having him in my arm would have warranted, so now I don't know. My memory lapses and uncertainty about major details like this tell me that if the fight had happened, I'd have made an amazingly poor eyewitness.

I probably should have issued some verbal warning, as mentally I had rehearsed in practice, but it was like the verbal part of my brain had gone completely offline (this was not the first time words had failed me under stress). My attention was totally focused on his posture and hands, and I don't think I had any CPU capacity available for anything else. Reacting immediately and competently to either his weight shift or hand movement was the only problem I had to deal with, and in that moment nothing else mattered. And I probably would have been easily outflanked by a second assailant, as I had "tunnel vision" real bad.

To this day I don't know where the guy came from. He was either hiding in the bushes next to the carport, or had moved in quickly from down the street after seeing me pull in, because I had scanned the block before pulling into the carport like I always do. Anyway I cut down the bushes after that, just in case.

What if he actually had been mugging someone else? I really don't know what I would have done. Even in retrospect twenty-five years later, two thousand miles away, and safe behind my computer screen, that choice is still hard for me to face. Might have depended on whether he was physically assaulting the other person or not.

I added another step to my arrive-home routine: I made a habit of quickly exiting the car and walking out beyond the end of the carport to scan the street again before taking kids out of car seats.

One other change was made; merely "tagging" an assailant instead of stopping him had somehow lost its appeal.

Lee, please feel free to critique. My ego is invested in my crossover design prowess, not my whatever this would be. I'd like to learn from my mistakes.
 
Last edited:

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing