Bump and Rob Again...

Some readers will no doubt remember the bump and rob attacks that plagued Florida back in the late eighties, early nineties. For those of you who don't know, the bad guys would rear end people in rental cars (which could be identified by stickers) and, when the victim got out to survey the damage, they'd be held up and robbed.

It culminated in one German tourist woman being killed when the bad guys drove away and ran over her in the process. As an aside the effect on the tourist industry was so great that the authorities went all out, caught the team doing it and banged them away for a long time.

Here in Charlotte, early Monday morning, we had two incidents using the same tactic. The perpetrator ran into a car and, when the driver got out, he held her at gun point and forced her to drive to an ATM. When he was unsuccessful getting any money he raped the woman and fondled her passenger.

A couple of hours later he struck again and robbed another woman under the same circumstances. Law enforcement believe it's possible he followed them from nightclubs.

Channel 14 news here in Charlotte contacted me and we did a piece covering some advice for women in that situation. For those of you who missed it, the advice is as follows (and, incidentally, it's the same procedure for a Blue Light Bandit)...

1. Assess what just happened. Is the accident likely? In other words it's hard to stage an accident and make it look real. If there's stuff going on nearby that an inattentive driver might be looking at it when he rear ends you then it could be plausible. If the roads are icy, it could be plausible. If the roads are dry, there's not much traffic and it happens then that should make you wonder.

2. Check your doors are locked and windows up.

3. Put your hazard lights on and drive to your nearest 24 hour safe haven. (We've talked about this in a previous blog but they're locations where someone is in attendance 24/7 such as hospitals, gas stations, grocery stores, manufacturing plants, police and fire stations etc.)

4. While en route call 911 and let them know what happened and what you're doing. Let them know you're a lone female, you're not comfortable dealing with the situation on your own and your intention is to drive to somewhere where there are lights and people.

I'm not going to sugar coat this..it's still a tough situation to be in. What are you going to do for example if, while you're figuring out what just happened, the bad guy appears at your window with his gun in hand. I know of one girl, a friend of my ex, who was in that situation and she drove away and nothing happened. A few weeks ago in Charlotte a woman did the same and the bad guy opened fire on the car.

My advice is (and that means this is what I would do in that situation) is head down and floor it. Every second you're putting distance between you and the bad guy and handguns are notoriously inaccurate. They also don't have the penetration Hollywood would have you believe. Many police officers have discovered that rounds will bounce off a windshield for example and I've been on a body guard course where we shot an old car up with various rounds to see what would happen and a .380 would even penetrate the door skin.

Finally, if you do decide to comply, we're back to the old "leaving crime scene 1 for crime scene 2" which we all know is absolutely taboo.

PS: They haven't caught the guy yet so be on your guard.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I have a huge problem with the propensity of reality TV shows that air details about police, special forces, DEA, forensic processes and so on. Why? Because the bad guys watch them too and they learn from them.

There have been cases where rapists are wearing condoms and making their victims shower before leaving to destroy any DNA evidence. There's another where a rapist smuggled semen out of prison so his brother could plant it on someone else in a bid to prove there must be someone else out there with matching DNA.

How about home invasions? Someone's going to have to convince me the trend isn't a result of watching SWAT and DEA teams on TV raiding the bad guys houses. Some of the MS-13 crew have even been purported to post snipers out the back of the houses they invade lest someone tries to escape that way. That is straight out of the commando play book on taking down a occupied dwelling.

Not too long ago one of my students told me about his mate in uptown Charlotte. "Steve" (not his real name) was walking home with his woman from dinner and a few drinks. Two black guys walking towards them suddenly lashed out...one grabbed her by the neck and put a gun to her head while his accomplice stood back with his weapon concealed behind his hand in front of his waist area and told Steve to hand over all their stuff (watches, phones, wallets, rings etc). The threat for non-compliance was chilling..."hand it over and don't try anything or we'll kill her while you watch, then we'll kill you."

The way the guy stood with his arm round the girl and the other guy stood back made it look, to anyone passing by, like a group of four friends hanging around chatting on the sidewalk. Even a law enforcement buddy of mine said, after seeing a re-enactment, it wouldn't have raised any alarm bells with him."

Of course at that point there's not much anyone can do. I don't care if you're Jackie Chan on six cups of espresso and Chuck Norris all rolled into one...you are in the kill box of an ambush and there's a good reason they call it that. (This is where S.I.V.A. comes into play...the Selection, Isolation and Verbal portion of that acronym is where the avoidance and awareness comes into play)

When Steve was reporting what happened to the police later he commented on the fact they seemed so organised and had their attack planned...there was non of the usual histrionics and waving guns around, holding them sideways etc. The Sgt taking the report replied that "yes, they're continually evolving and they get most if from TV."

I can only hope that one day a family member, or a member of the media, who think it's cute to air all this stuff becomes the victim of someone who's got their skills watching his show on television. To be hoist by his own petard as it were. How fitting that would be.

Pet Peeve

I was at the bookstore the other day and perused the ones alleging to teach self defense. Sadly, judging by the material within, most of the authors last fights had to be over Tonka trucks in the sandpit at day care.

Can we clear this one up for once? You cannot teach girls wrist locks and armlocks and call it self defense. Well, alright, you can, but you should be sued for misrepresentation when you do.

To begin with there isn't any such thing as an armlock. The technique is actually an armbreak. Remember that all of these techniques derived from fighting for one's life, oft times on a battlefield. Why, in the middle of a battlefield would you take two of your arms to tie up one of the enemy's? How long are you going to do that in the middle of a war going on? Till he cries "uncle" or gives in?

Nope, you broke their arm and thus rendered them "hors du combat" and you moved on to tackle the next guy.

Look at the above picture. What do you honestly think would happen if the "mugger" just stood up? Look at the inverted grip? If he just violently yanked his arm free could she hang on or would she get sliced as the knife passed through her hands, arm and armpit?

Somewhere along the line the breaks became misconstrued as pain compliance techniques...probably because in training you'd take them to the point where the joint started to break - thus causing pain - at which point your training partner would cry out and let you know.

Alright, I'll admit it. I've used them as pain compliance when removing someone from a club and controlling subjects whilst a military police officer. Here's the deal though, I still have to big enough and accomplished enough that when I let the subject go, and he decides to fight, that I can do the job and knock him out if necessary or, a cop, I'm going to control the arm long enough to get cuffs on.

What is our hapless female victim to do? She's being attacked by a rapist (and let's hope there's only one of them) and she puts the lock on him. Now what? You going to lecture him on the error of his ways and hope he repents? You going to wait till the police come all the time controlling this struggling man with superior upper body strength to yours? Are you hoping he cries "Uncle" and accepts defeat? Are you going to take it to it's logical conclusion and break the joint? Could you? Have you ever heard one break? Do you have any idea how strong you have to be to pull it off?

Bottom line is if you are much smaller than your opponent you're not putting locks on him if he doesn't want you to...at least not until you've hit him enough times to stun him. If it takes that to put it on, why not just stun him and make scarce anyway?

Nick

Hope

Recently I was talking with a woman about a rapist that was being hunted in Charlotte. The conversation turned to crime in general, car-jacking, rape, mugging and assault etc.

I asked her whether or not, knowing as she did about the crime rate, she took any self defense training and was surprised when I found out she didn't.

"Hang on a minute" I said "you know there's a rapist at large, you've heard about the home invasions, the car-jackings and the assaults etc and you don't train? So what do you do to ensure you won't become a victim?"

She went on to inform me she takes precautions and is careful. I told her I didn't think that was enough so she went on to say she "hopes" nothing will happen to her.

Hopes!!! Wow, that's pretty amazing I thought.

So obviously the next question was...

"Would you vote for a President who ran on the campaign ticket of:

'I'm going to get rid of police forces and the American military. Now now, I know there are terrorists and bad guys out there but I've decided that if we take precautions, are careful and HOPE nothing happens we should be fine.'

I think she understood (even though she didn't begin any training that I'm aware of) but the lesson is simple. Hope should never be part of your defensive plan. Training should be, weapons should be, mind-set should be, awareness should be...save hope for winning the lottery.

Nick

PS: IHOPE you get the message!