Wednesday, January 23, 2008

We interupt this program...

A long time ago I mentioned how a lot of self defense products...some that people put great store in...don't work in the real world all the time.

Here's a great link to a news story discussing Court TV (for my non US readers it's a tv channel here that focuses on true crime and criminal justice system shows). Watch the first clip of the "poor misunderstood" prisoner attacking the prison guard the second they leave the court room.

Pay great attention to the guard who obviously never bothered learning how to fight despite working amongst the most vicious members of society on a day to day basis who uses his mace to try and subdue the prisoner. Notice the mace covering him as much as the bad guy - one huge problem with it - and two, notice how absolutely ineffective it is on someone amped up, intent on doing you harm. Also, notice how long it takes him to access the gas canister (a huge problem with weapons as your only solution) and imagine if the bad guy had a knife instead of a clenched fist.

There's a slew of lessons in this one clip...if a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video clip like this worth?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22773900#22773900

6 comments:

Ronin said...

Not only lucky he didn't have a knife, but lucky he couldn't punch with any real power! An old friend - Mitch - once said to me our greatest advantage over the goblins is that most of them don't know how to punch. How many did that guy land and still not put him away?

DefendThyself said...

You are so correct, all the pepper sprays, Tasers, and stun guns in the world won't help you if you don't know what the heck you are doing.

You need to learn how to use them, practice using them, and learn basic self defense techniques to use in conjunction with them, to win and stay alive.

We wrote a couple articles about pepper sprays and stun guns for people who have no idea of how to use them or what they are, and the best part is they are free.

Defend thyself!

Christopher Winkler
Provider of Self Defense Products
http://DefendThyself.com/Articles

DefendThyself said...

He was wailing on the officer and I had to look away. Looks like one punch hit the earth when the officer was on his back. It looked like he was really hitting the hell out of the guy, huge round house punches.

Also, it's the WRONG time to pull out the spray when he is on top of you. You want to have it ready and when he is 10-20 feet away, have it ready to spray at him, not 1 foot!

Oh well, hope everyone viewing that video learns many things;

1. Don't spray someone when they are on top of you.
2. Block your face with both of your arms.
3. Loose control of all emotions and go off and fight back with as much, if not with more severity; your life is depending on it. Kick, bite, scratch, gouge, puncture, break, etc. whatever it takes.
4. Don't give up, it takes a lot to take down the average human.
5. Have a pepper spray on your keychain to keep them at a distance.
6. Keep a small stun gun handy to blast them after you spray them to put them down.
7. Learn basic self defense - no-holds-barred fighting techniques to survive a fight.
8. Know the Lord is on your side.

Keep up the great info!
Chris Winkler

Sam81 said...

Greetings from Finland (Europe). I've immensely enjoyed your blog and insights therein. Thank you for an additional great piece on "street-smarts". This clip ought to be a part of mandatory training material for all of us in the field.

Keep up the good work.

Serves as a good reminder to maintain a safe distance to the suspect as well as always making sure that the suspect walks in front of me; not behind.

Matt Albanese said...

I don't know, looked like the guy was hitting pretty hard to me. Actually looks like the officer gets flash knocked out and then comes back to at least once or twice (when on the ground). I'm wondering why the officer walked into the hallway first (leaving the suspect behind him) and why the guy wasn't in handcuffs?

Also very lucky the suspect wasn't able to get at the officer's gun, ASP, mace, whatever...

Disclaimer: I'm not a LEO, so I don't know what proper procedure is supposed to be, just my $.02

Northern Monkey said...

The backup from his colleagues was underwhelming. Evidence, if it was needed, that you need to be able to take care of yourself and not rely on others to help you if a situation kicks off.