Newsletter for June 2003

Welcome to the new members of Defend University, thanks for subscribing.

Inside this issue:

Good Guys' Ruse Nets Rape-Murder Suspect
Max Factor heir, fugitive rapist Andrew Luster captured in Mexico
Australian Hijacker uses Wooden Stakes in Attack

Seek out New Instructors

DT Quacks

Portable Mats for Grappling

Officer kills naked man in fight after pepper spray failed

Speaking of pain compliance
Your new uniform?

"The courage of a soldier is heightened by his knowledge of his profession."   Flavius Renatus Vegitius

Good Guys' Ruse Nets Rape-Murder Suspect

Seattle detectives got creative recently to solve a 21-year old unsolved rape and murder.

When John Nicholas Athan, 35, received a letter at his home near Palisades Park in New Jersey asking if he wanted to be part of a class action suit for people overcharged on parking tickets, he had no way of knowing it would be his downfall. 

Athan raped and strangled Kristen Sumstad in 1982 (she was just 13-years old and he was only 14!) Detectives had recovered a semen sample from Sumstad's body, but had not enough evidence to charge anyone for the crime.

That changed recently with advances in science and the creativity of Detectives Richard Gagnon and Gregg Mixsell.  The Washington State Patrol crime laboratory was recently able to get a DNA profile from the sperm.  The detectives had a list of witness (Athan was on the list) but had to devise a way to get sample DNA from potential suspects.

They came up with the lawsuit ruse.  When Athan licked the envelope flap he seal both the envelope and his fate.   The lab was able to match Athan's DNA to the crime.

This is a guy I've mentioned before in this newsletter.  Finally!  After five months on the run, he's been tracked down and caught by bounty hunters.  He was holed up in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. 

Luster (how's that for a name) -- great-grandson of makeup legend Max Factor -- fled during a recess in his trial on accusations he drugged three women and raped them in his home between 1996 and 2000. The California court went on to sentence Luster in absentia to 124 years for multiple counts of rape, poisoning and drug possession.  This creep would slip a date rape drug into his victim's drink then would actually video tape himself raping the unconscious woman.   Go here for an article on date rape drugs on the Rape Escape site.

The great part about this story is that American bounty hunters from Hawaii chased Luster in his car and managed to stop him, and a loud fight in the street ensued as they tried to drag him from his car. Neighbors called police to complain about the noise.  Unfortunately, the bounty hunters are now imprisoned because bounty hunting is considered illegal kidnapping under Mexican law.

But let's hear it for the daring bail enforcement agents willing to keep up the chase.   Luster has been extradited to the U.S.

Australian Hijacker uses Wooden Stakes in Attack

Okay.  We've had box cutters and explosives in tennis shoes.  Now we have an attack on an airliner from a man wielding two wooden stakes.  

The sharpened wooden stakes were both about six inches long and the attacker on a Qantas flight rushed the cockpit in an attempt to take it over.

The unidentified man rose from the seventh row stabbing two cabin crew members as he passed them, shouting threats and pressing towards the cockpit. 

There were no sky marshals on board and the cockpit door was not reinforced (although it was locked).  The man had to be subdued by passengers and a couple of crew members.  Two passengers were slightly injured while subduing the attacker.

A couple of points here:

1. Almost anything can be used as a weapon, you need to train to defend against weapons;

2. You most likely will be on your own when some moron tries to crash your plane.

Check out the article on what you can do to stop an air rage attack on your flight.

Seek out New Instructors

I'm watching a well-known DT instructor for military and police teach a ground combatives class for police recently.  

I noticed a couple of things about the class that I want to share:

1. The instructor was very knowledgeable and showed dozens and dozens of techniques.  He would show a technique and then usually between one and three modifications or alternatives.  After about an hour even my head was swimming with all of the techniques and I know them!  The old Brazilian saying came to mind, "If I show you everything, you'll remember nothing." 

2. The techniques were generally solid, but there were major holes in a number of them.  To be fair, these holes might not be able to have been exploited by your typical mope on the street, but someone with some groundfighting knowledge would be out in a heartbeat.  The main problem I saw was that the technique did not block the most common counter to the technique.  In other words, the technique left the door open to the exact counter needed to beat the technique.

3. The major, major problem I saw was that ALL of the techniques were presented with no regard to the officer's firearm.  I checked the name of the seminar and it was "Ground Combatives for Police" so I'm assuming that the students will be armed.  Most every technique and position exposed the instructor's gun side to the free hand of the bad guy.

4. To be fair, the instructor had a good section on weapon retention.  I liked the simplicity of his techniques for dealing with the bad guy grabbing your weapon as you are grappling.  However, if more thought was given to the original positions and techniques you wouldn't have to deal with weapon retention issues in the first place.

5. There were a few techniques that were demonstrated on a compliant assistant that I can tell you are complete B.S. when tried on a non-compliant opponent.  They were just flat-out incorrectly demonstrated.

These observations are not so much a knock on the seminar or the instructor, it's to bring up a point about lashing your personal and professional hide to one instructor.   If you were this guy's student and you had no other instruction, you would miss all of these points.  You do it your instructor's way.  And the longer you follow just one instructor, the more entrenched you become in his method or style.  The children all begin to look like the father.

There is a very real phenomenon that can be called either "style" or "instructor bias".  People teach what they think is the best.  But there is a personal filtration system that rejects methods that are not congruent with the instructor's belief system even when there is a better way out there.  Go here for a more detailed explanation on the subject of style or instructor bias.

Seek out the best instructors you can, but realize that no one wears a cape.  They all have personal foibles.  Read books, watch video tapes, go to seminars.  Mix up your training with different people and instructors.  Do yourself a huge favor and get a broad input when it comes to defensive tactics and personal protection.

When you find yourself fighting for your life, your instructor won't be there.  You need to tap into the best methods and techniques that you can perform under stress.

DT Quacks

Besides the bias noted above, there is another, darker, side of the instructor business.  Namely that some people instructing -- shouldn't.

That's probably kind.  The truth is that there are people who are actually teaching life and death skills that are going to get someone killed.

Listen to some of these absurd comments from actual police academy instructors teaching cadets:

• "When using a palm heel strike, be careful that you don't drive his nasal bone into his brain and kill him";

• "Use a rolled up newspaper or magazine and drive the tip into the space just below his nose";

• "We don't teach the carotid neck restraint anymore because, when applied properly, you need to use CPR to revive the subject";

• "Don't ever go to the ground -- 80% of officers that go to the ground die there";

• "I guarantee that if you hit his median nerve, he'll let go".

I've had some of you Defend University members comment on this very subject privately by e-mail to me.  I'd like to hear some of the best doozies that you've encountered either in an academy or some type of instructional setting.  Internet chat room morons don't count.  These should be from "instructors".

E-mail me at defenduniversity@yahoo.com with the ones you've heard!

Portable Mats for Grappling

It turns out that many of you out there are looking for a solution to your grappling mats needs.    You've tried old wrestling mats that are occasionally available or the tumbling mats that are easy to find.   But you either have problems with portability  (the wrestling mats are bulky and heavy), they are too unstable (the tumbling mats) or they are just too expensive (almost any of the cool interlocking mats you see in the magazines).

We've had really good luck with some 10-foot x 5-foot portable mats from a company called Tiffin.  They have velcro on the ends and sides so you can mate them with sister mats to build as large an area as you need. 

They aren't necessarily cheap for the 2-inch heavy duty mat, but they are of excellent durability  (we've got some that are 7 years old)  and they fold up like an accordion so you can stow them or transport them easily.

Even if you are solo, you'll need at least two.  Call Tiffin at 800/843-3467 or go to http://www.tiffinmats.com/html/tumbfold1.htm.

We have no connection with Tiffin, just passing along info about a good product.

Officer kills naked man in fight after pepper spray failed

I've posted an article on the Rape Escape site about relying too much on pain compliance techniques.  The same should go for other tools at your disposal including pepper spray.

An officer on San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was forced to shoot and kill a combative naked man when the officer's pepper spray had no effect on the subject.

The officer contacted the subject who was found naked and unconscious at a BART station.  The subject awoke and began fighting with the officer who retreated twice, spraying the subject each time apparently to no effect.  The subject was able to gain control control of the officer's baton forcing the officer to employ his duty weapon.  The subject was shot once in the chest and died at the hospital.

A girlfriend of the subject told investigators that he was a black belt in some unspecified martial art.

As much as I like to recommend pepper spray for civilians, the reality is that you cannot count on it working all the time.   Have a Plan B.

Speaking of pain compliance

One of the most common questions I get when demonstrating escapes from rear bearhugs is "What about using a foot stomp?"

Using the Socratic method of teaching, I usually have the questioner come out and show me what they mean.  I grab them and they stomp on my foot expecting me to let go of the hold.  Usually the stomp itself does not hurt that much and even then, as I am pulling and pushing the student around, they cannot get a good shot on my foot because the bad guy doesn't just stand still.  If I really wanted to be a jerk I would just take them down to the ground as they were concentrating on stomping on my foot.

I feel that the foot stomp does not cause enough pain to force me to let go -- at the point of attack anyway.

Case in point:  I had  DT trainers from one of the most elite Federal law enforcement agencies attempting to close the distance on me and clinch (I was role playing as the bad guy).  During the drill, one of the guys (he's about 210 lbs.) caught me square on top of the instep with his heel as he entered.  Essentially, it was the perfect foot stomp.   However, I did not even notice it as we completed the series of drills.

Now, however, it is a different story.  My foot is killing me!  For about two weeks I've had exceptional discomfort from that foot stomp.  But I'm sticking with my initial recommendation. 

While eventually the guy's foot might begin to hurt, the foot stomp won't get you out of a jam while you are in the fight.  Forget it and concentrate on other -- more productive --  target areas.

With the threat of chemical/biological/nuclear weapon attacks, this might be your SWAT uniform of the future.

Members from Miami/Dade police Special Response Team suit up (left)  and prepare to enter Pro Player Stadium in Miami, Florida during a mock attack drill.

The Southeast Florida Regional Domestic Security Task Force held an exercise focusing on the region's ability to a terrorism incident at a sporting event. Over one hundred agencies from a four-county region along with 2,500 professionals and nearly 1000 volunteers were involved. REUTERS photo

Have you been doing your conditioning?  I know we are all busy, but your fighting ability depends on your physical fitness.  Train like your life depends on it, one day it might!

Go here if you want to access the newsletter archives.

Stay safe,

Brad Parker