Criminal Attack Plan Revisited

It's interesting to note that the latest attack in Charlotte i.e. The Bump and Rape/Rob attack followed the S.I.V.A pattern to a tee.

For those who don't remember I wrote about almost all criminals attacking according to the S.I.V.A. acronym which is Selection, Isolation, Verbal then Attack/Assault

First he selected his victim looking out for women alone in cars (in one case two women in one car) as they headed home from night clubs.

Secondly they isolated themselves when they left the club.

Third, he used the ploy of running into their cars the same way another criminal will use a verbal ruse to get close enough to launch his attack.

As I've mentioned previously you can avoid the latter part of the program if you are diligent enough with the first three.

Could you for example reduce the risk of being selected? Yep. Have a male in the car with you, have a pile of friends in the car, have NRA gun stickers on your vehicle or don't go clubbing until he's been caught. (If you have trouble finding a guy, there used to a company that sold a male mannequin for lone women drivers that you could put in the front passenger seat to create the impression there was a man on board).

Next...could you increase your awareness levels when you're on your own? You have to be hyper-vigilant any time you leave the safety of numbers.

As for the steps to take during the verbal phase (in this case the fake accident) see the previous blog entry.

If you do those three well enough you should never end up in the final phase having to fight your way out of a planned ambush by the bad guy(s) and that avoidance and awareness is what true self protection is all about.

Refresher

With all the rain we're having in Charlotte right now I thought it might behoove us to revisit the advice I posted about using cruise control in the rain.

This originally went around the web as an email and a lot of people mistakenly thought it was an urban legend. While it's not as dire as the original email would have us believe it is true that using cruise control when it's raining is a bad idea.

If you want to find out exactly why google is your friend but the bottom line is cruise control is BAD WHEN IT'S WET, SLUSHY, SNOWING OR ICY.

Now you know.

Ignorance is Bliss

Approximately a week ago a young woman was assaulted uptown by a sexual predator. Of course, if the information in the media is to be believed, she was on her own walking back to her car when the attack happened and she was under the influence of alcohol.

Obviously that's fairly tragic but what bugged me almost as much was the - dare I say it - stupid responses by other young girls they interviewed about the attack.

The first one claimed she and her girlfriend are going to buy and carry mace. Now we've talked about this before...mace is pretty much useless. I don't want to rely on something that I have to lick my finger and determine the wind direction before I can use it, something that I might spray myself with under stress (hey, plenty of rookie cops do just that the first time) and, that even if I use correctly, may not work.

The second one said she's buying a taser. Yep, that's definitely a step up from the mace product but there's still a HUGE problem and that is that all weapons, no matter what form they may take, have to be in your hand when you're attacked to be viable.

Criminals aren't as stupid as some seem to think they are. They know people carry weapons and so they launch their attacks accordingly i.e. they talk their way in and ambush you, or they hide and then ambush you. Either way, unless your weapon is in your hand, primed for use (and that's assuming you're sober right!!) it's about as much use as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.

Sorry, but I just can't see the women I've seen stumbling out of clubs at 2am having the presence of mind to access their weapon for the walk to the car or having the wherewithal to use it given their state of inebriation.

You're pinning your hope of survival on a tool instead of pinning it on yourself...and that's a recipe for disaster.

The third lass in the story was the worst yet. She claimed she was going to get security to escort her to her car and actually had the gall to say "I know they're needed elsewhere but I'm going to have them walk me there anyway."

She's assuming that the rent-a-cops are capable, that they're going to be allowed to leave their posts to provide our prima donna with her own personal escort and that there's enough of them to go around to escort every woman who wants their own body guard back to their car. Not gonna happen.

Here's a better solution...learn to defend yourself, travel in packs, and stay lucid enough to be aware of your surroundings.

Toughen Up

A few weeks ago I was hanging out on the door of a local club with one of my former students who was bouncing there.

We were outside chatting when one of the patrons left with a buddy and, no sooner had he made it to the corner, he was in a screaming match with two other guys.

There was a fair bit of yelling and then the patron came back to ask our opinion as to whether he was justified in fighting these guys because one of them accused him of being on steroids. The accuser was there also trying to apologize and both mates were trying to calm their respective friends down as well. Usual Saturday night on the door I guess...lol.

The accused steroid user wasn't having any of it...he wanted a fight by crikey...his honor had been sullied...someone had - gasp - accused our intrepid hero of using the juice. (never mind that it looked like he probably was). There he was with his jaw stuck out (stupid idea) raging against his mate, trying his darnedest to get to the other guy so they could fight. All the while the accuser just kept apologizing and trying to shake hands.

The irate patron meantime kept asking us for justification. Finally I got around to answering him. "Mate...you're on 3 cameras and there's cops everywhere...give it a swerve. Go home. Don't worry about it."

Nope...he wanted a fight so I asked him "got a question for you skippy...if you fight this guy and his head hits the bricks and he dies, will it all have been worth it? Will you be sitting in a cell thinking it was all worth it?"

I doubted it but he didn't get the message and still wanted to fight at which point the accuser, his mate and steroid boy's mate had all but had enough and got around to leaving.

Here's the deal...I've been guilty in the past of fighting over some perceived slur to defend my honor etc. but I've learned over the years it probably wasn't worth it for a great many of them.

Develop a thicker skin for god's sake...if you don't care what someone thinks about politics, religion or a particular TV show why should you care what they think of you?

If you can do this it will go along way to keeping you out of unnecessary fights...and avoidance is a HUGE part of self protection.

STICKER SHOCK

I recently read an article about the link between people with stickers on their cars and their propensity for road rage.

The study was conducted by a Colorado State University professor one William Szlemko and he discovered that...

"The number of territory markers predicted road rage better than vehicle value, condition, or any of the things that we normally associate with aggressive driving,' quote unquote.

The really interesting part I thought, was that the type of sticker had no bearing on his findings. In other words the "earth biscuits" with their "Jesus Saves" "Co-Exist" and "Visualize World Peace" were just as likely to get in a snit driving as the "keep honking, I'm reloading types."

So, now you know. Give the sticker crowd a wide berth when you see them out there.

PS: As a matter of interest...how many stickers are on your car?

Still here

Still haven't sorted out where I'm moving to yet. I'm in negotiations with some folks about setting up a new business and it will be another few weeks before it's all finalized, one way or the other.

For those of you who've sent me posts wondering when I'll be posting again, hang in there...it won't be long.

I did just go to a seminar I was one of the keynote instructors on along with Hock Hockheim, Tim Tackett, Mark Haleck and Big Jim McCann which was held in Kansas City. It was called the Big Five and we had a blast. Apart from some really good training with some really good people I made some new friends which is always nice (especially when you consider my bouncing days when I had way more enemies than mates). Prior to that one I was in Maryland with the guys at Krav Maga doing our annual training session which was also a blast.

One thing I did want to mention is that the word seems to be getting out. I went into one bathroom stall (I want to say Atlanta but with all the connect flights and cancelled flights and re-routing I wouldn't swear to it) and they've begun mounting the hooks far enough down the door that reaching over and snagging anything hanging on it would be relegated to people with really long arms. They've also begun putting shelves in there to put valuables on which is also a huge step in the right direction.

Who knows, maybe one day enough of this stuff will be done right that people won't have to worry about having their stuff stolen.

Memphis TN

Just returned from Memphis TN where I was part of a program for SunTrust Bank speaking to local female business owners on the subject of personal protection.

The other speakers were brilliant, Alan - one of the bank's security specialists - talked about the common Internet scams and Kerry - a female US Secret Service Agent - talked about the ramifications of ID theft.

In the next couple of posts, spotty though they may be, I'll go over some of their stuff as it's always good to know. Also, given the huge amount of people who fall victim to both the Internet scams and ID theft, it's obviously good stuff for everyone to take to heart.

A quick tip that I was going to write about the other day, before it slipped my mind, is that if you carry a wallet, slip a large rubber/elastic band around it if you keep it in your back pocket. It snags just enough that it makes it incredibly hard for a pickpocket to lift it.