Don't Get Boiled Alive By Your Attacker

I watched the video of the female law enforcement officer in Texas who was saved from injury or death by the intervention of two citizens and it reminded me of the old story about how to boil a frog alive.  If you recall the old adage, if you drop a frog into a boiling pot of water it immediately jumps out.  But if you put it into a pot of tepid water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog becomes used to the increasing temperature and gets boiled alive.

This cop was attempting to question and detain a larger male subject who had a previous record of assault.  The subject was uncooperative and the officer could not get him to comply with the simplest of commands.  He continued to ignore her orders as she pushed him and tried to get him turned around.  The pushing and pulling became more strident as he resisted.  Both the subject  and the officer were standing and in close contact as the slow motion contest escalated to the point where he slowly, but surely, wrested the officers gun from her holster and her grasp.

The timely intervention of two citizens certainly saved this officer.  The first citizen, a soft-spoken part-time musician, saw the subject with the officer's gun and immediately grabbed onto the gun with both of his hands and, stepping away from the subject at an angle, affected a nearly text-book example of a gun disarm (surely by accident I assume).   With the officer's firearm clutched awkwardly in both hands, he ordered the suspect to the ground.  The officer attempted to cuff the subject on the ground, but he continued to resist and began to sit upright on the ground.  A second citizen, a female who looked to be approximately 30 years old and probably weighing 250 pounds, calmly walked up to the scene, grabbed the subject's shoulder and, without hesitation, pancaked her entire weight onto the subject flattening him to the ground where the officer finally cuffed him (the completely calm nature of her actions makes me wonder if she has a background in corrections or something similar.)

I've seen numerous examples like this of police officers, security officers and especially citizens becoming embroiled in a potentially life threatening fight as it slowly escalates to a dangerous level.  The common thread to these encounters seems to be two-fold:

1. The subject is only mildly resisting at the start.  Usually there is a lot of verbal discussion, low-level arguing, even pleading by the subject;

2. The good guy is just that -- a good guy (or gal in this case).  

Nice people don't necessarily like to use force on others.  They believe that most people are decent, compassionate and reasonable people -- just like themselves.  Even most cops believe that physical confrontation is the last resort and that they should be able to verbally "hook them up" or they have failed somehow.

These confrontations start with verbal disagreements, maybe someone trying to either walk away or trying to push by and physical contact ensues -- but it is at a very low level.  There is still a lot of talking, pleading, denying.  The physical part of the confrontation often looks almost comical as people are either trying to grab someone's wrist or their shirt and the other person continues to resist in an actively passive sort of way (no oxymoron intended here).   They might even be demanding indignantly "get your hands off of me!"    

But the dangerous part of this type of confrontation is that it often escalates to a dramatically higher level before the good guy recognizes what is happening.  You see the good guy get punched, headbutted or -- in the case of the Texas officer noted above -- her gun grabbed and taken away from her.  The bad guy seems to gain more strength and confidence the longer the pushing and pulling continues, most likely because he/she can see that you don't have the will or the skill to stop the escalation.

 If you are not controlling the other person, then they are controlling you and that means you are in danger.    As the other person feels that you are not in control, they can continue to up the escalation.

Recommendations:

• You need to recognize a fight for a fight, albeit even if it is a low-level fight.  (You can use the hard challenge position to set up a trip wire to signal the start of the fight).

• Be decisive.   What kind of specific action you need to take depends on your mission. But take some sort of action!

For the pros out there, you might recognize this as a classic example of being outside of someone's OODA loop.  You need to speed up your own OODA loop so you can get inside of theirs and reestablish control of the situation.

If you are a citizen and are simply trying to avoid a fight you can decisively move to gain distance.  You can accomplish this by stepping off at an angle or using what's called an "impact push" or a "body stop hit".   Use both hands and deliver a double palm heel strike to the opponent's body to simultaneously stop their forward momentum and to supply yourself with the movement to disengage.  Practice this move.  It is not a push nor is it a strike.  It is somewhere in the middle of the two.  Your arms should have some tensile strength in them (elbow slightly flexed so you are not rigid, but you are prepared for delivering force) as you drop your body weight forward and down delivering a forceful shove that can both stun and off-balance the opponent.  I have used this technique often and in one real fight (in a men's restroom) used it to literally lift the guy off his feet so he landed on his butt.   I teach cops, security guards and loss prevention officers to use it as a way to halt someone who continually ignores your orders to stop advancing on you.

If you are a cop (or security guard, loss prevention officer or anyone else acting as a protection agent) and you need to detain the subject, then move decisively toward a control position.  First start with the classic escort position and move up the ladder of escalation as needed.  This might look like: escort hold, come-along, arm drag, clinch, takedown, mount, subdue, cuff.

But the key is to recognize when the water is heating up.  That will give you enough warning and time to jump out of the pot before it begins to boil.