Newsletter for March 2005

Inside this issue:

Red Lake Security Guard Hailed as Hero
How Much is That Punch Going to Cost You?
Negligent Mismatch Root to Atlanta Killings
Bright Spot in Atlanta
Workplace Violence Called 'Epidemic'
You Must Plan for Dealing with the Active Shooter
U.S. - Mexico Border Still Easily Crossed
Federal Bureaus Opt Against Tasers

"Your training has to be harder than your competition.  The toughness doesn't come from your competition, but from your preparation."

Carlos Machado

Red Lake Security Guard Hailed as Hero

The slain security guard at the Red Lake High School (Minn.) shooting is being called a hero by a co-worker who says his actions probably saved many lives during the massacre. 

The 28-year-old security guard, Derrick Brun was stationed at a desk next to a metal detector at the school's entrance when 16-year-old gunman Jeff Weise began shooting outside the school.  As Weise entered the school, Brun left his desk and approached Weise.

Whether Brun was attempting to talk to Weise or attempt to stop him, he was almost immediately shot by the shotgun-toting murderer.  Another security guard at the entrance, 20-year-old Lee Ann Grant, said "He saved my life.  He held him [Weise] back -- even if it was only five seconds -- but it allowed me and the other kids to get out."

Apparently Grant's actions were also outstanding during the confrontation.  She was able to shout warnings to students who were mistakenly trying to flee out the entrance of the school, right into Weise.  Grant's warnings got the students to turn around and flee the other way toward safety.  Grant says right after she turned the corner herself, Brun was shot.

As heroic as Brun and Grant were, it is readily apparent in hindsight that only an armed response would have stopped the psychopathic Weise.  

How Much is That Punch Going to Cost You?

How about $8.7 million?  For former Oakland Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski, that's how much one punch could end up costing him if ex-teammate Marcus Williams wins his court case.

An economist came up with the figure based on what Williams could have earned if he had not been punched in the face by Romanowski.  Williams claims that the punch, thrown during a practice, broke his left eye socket leaving him with blurred vision, poor balance, depression and post-traumatic stress.

If you think you're immune from a similar fate, consider the litigious nature of our society these days and how easy it would be for your opponent to claim he is disabled after you struck him.   Start adding up lost wages, pain, suffering, punitive damages and attorney's fees, and you'll basically be wiped out financially.

And it doesn't have to be just your punch that causes the damage.

Take the case of the two young men who get into a verbal altercation outside of a college bar.  One man punches the other with a closed fist to the head causing him to fall backwards striking his head on the edge of a concrete planter.  The victim dies of the head injuries caused by the fall, not by the punch.  Still, the result is that the man throwing the punch is charged with manslaughter.  He is now doing serious prison time.

This should give pause to all of you who subscribe to the "No Mercy!" Cobra Kai mentality.   You should be training to have a number of options available to defend yourself without having to resort to "unreasonable" force. 

If your ONLY training is in an art where the objective is to destroy your opponent, you would probably do well to consider looking for training and instructors who can provide you with a system or techniques allowing you to respond at lower levels such as evasion and/or immobilization as well.

Negligent Mismatch Root to Atlanta Killings

When you look at the root cause of Brian Nichols murderous rampage in Atlanta, you don't have to look far.

Someone actually thought it was a good idea for a 5-foot tall, 51 year-old female officer to escort Nichols by herself.  Nichols is 33 years old, 6-foot 1-inch and 205 pounds.  He is a former college linebacker and is described by one official as incredibly strong and more than a handful for two large male deputies.  In addition, Nichols was found to be carrying two shanks in his shoes before an earlier appearance.

Nichols easily overpowered the smaller, older lone officer, taking her firearm and shooting her in the head, leaving her in critical condition.  He then fatally shot a judge, a court reporter and deputy sheriff with the stolen gun.  Nichols is also suspected of killing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent David Wilhelm, who had been shot to death about 15 miles away inside a house that the agent was having built.

This could have all been avoided if someone had not been so complacent and realized that there was a huge size, age and strength disparity between the officer and the prisoner whom had already been identified as violent.

If you are put in that position at work, don't hesitate to ask for backup.  All the bravado aside, get the help you need to prevent such a situation from degenerating.

Secondly, recommit yourself to working on your weapon retention skills and your defensive tactics.  If your department does not or will not provide it to you, get help on the outside.

Bright Spot in Atlanta

One seemingly small victory in the heinous scene surrounding the Nichols rampage is that of Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Don O'Briant.

Nichols beat O'Briant and demanded his car after fleeing the courthouse, with a gun he stole from Deputy Cynthia Hall after shooting her, then killing the three others.

O'Briant wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he had just parked his car when a young man pulled beside him and asked for directions to a nearby mall. Before O'Briant could answer, the man pulled a gun and said, "Give me your keys or I'll kill you," then told him to get in the trunk.

O'Briant made the right decision.  He refused and started to run.

"I figured it was better to be shot at while I was running than to just stand there and be executed," O'Briant wrote.
The man pistol whipped him as he tried to escape. O'Briant fell, but got up and ran again.  "I scrambled into the street, waiting for the shots to come, but they didn't come," he wrote. "I guess it just wasn't my day to die."

Knowing what we know now, O'Briant would probably have been killed by Nichols, who at that point had killed 3 others and had nothing left to lose.

His decision to put distance between himself and the gunman undoubtedly saved his life.

"As an athlete you have to know how to take down a striker as well as how to keep a grappler away from you.  You have to become knowledgeable and acknowledge both aspects of fighting."

Frank Shamrock

Workplace Violence Called 'Epidemic'

With an average of 17 workplace murders per week, the level of workplace violence is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. according to Paul Michael Viollis, Sr., a national expert on workplace violence. Viollis recently made the comments to businesses leaders from the Toledo, Ohio, area, where a fatal workplace shooting occurred on Jan. 26.

Workplace violence victims are overwhelmingly from the ranks of management--86 percent--and the typical workplace homicide harms companies by depressing their stock prices by an average of 15 percent for several weeks.  There are additional costs to the company in terms of lost productivity and work days.  Viollis says workplace violence is always avoidable and never random, noting that perpetrators normally provide clues to their intentions. Many perpetrators even brag about their plans to harm someone, but family and co-workers often fail to take threats seriously.

He sees a correlation between school violence and workplace violence later in life.  He says the vast majority of perpetrators of workplace violence have been bullied or felt demoralized.   Efforts to stop bullying and other forms of school violence could have a positive result in violence in the workplace.

You Must Plan for Dealing with the Active Shooter

The shootings described in Atlanta and Toledo as well Red Lake High School in Minnesota by Jeff Wiese, again brings up the need for security directors and personnel to develop prevention and intervention procedures and plans for dealing with the active shooter.

The typical active shooter scenario lasts between 4 and 18 minutes and involves multiple victims.   Police department response times can be anywhere from 2.5 to 25 minutes depending on a number of variables including your location, the time of day, and the size and layout of your facility.  In the past, violent intruders often had the "hostage-taking" mind-set in which their crime was more of a cry for help.  Now, it seems like more intruders specifically enter schools and workplaces with the "kill-them-all" mind-set from the start.

There is also a good chance that your typical patrol officer will be outgunned when they arrive on scene forcing them to withdraw or stage from a distance -- adding to the amount of time you can expect before an intervention and resolution to the problem by law enforcement personnel.

Your planning should include gathering of critical information about your facility now before a crisis, developing multiple lines of communication and intelligence gathering,  developing procedures for a lock-down or evacuation of the facility, and the consideration of training and equipping an on-site response team.

What makes the active shooter scenario so devastating is that the perpetrator has an excellent tactical plan in place -- go to a target rich environment, seek out and shoot as many people as possible before being stopped and forced to make a surrender/fight/suicide decision.

Unfortunately, no community is immune to this phenomenon now.  Plan now to avert a massacre later.

"It is not defensive in nature (i.e. defensive tactics) when you tell somebody to get down on the ground and they elect not to do so.  You must step across the gap and proactively make them do what you need them to do in an efficient manner.  Struggling with an actively defensive or actively combative person on the ground when trying to put on handcuffs is not defensive in nature.  Nor is wading through a crowd of panicked people in an active-shooter situation.

"The skills needed to prevail in hands-on encounters should not be encased in the idea of offensive or defensive in terms of general categories.  You simply move in a manner consistent to any given situation.  You must be able to justify your actions following the encounters."

Ken Good

U.S. - Mexico Border Still Easily Crossed

Every day of the year, U.S. authorities catch more than 3,000 people along the 2,000−mile U.S.−Mexico
border. Yet despite the unprecedented investment in technology and manpower, illegal immigrants are still
coming in waves −− and their numbers are increasing. U.S. officials made over one million
apprehensions along the border last year, a 24 percent increase over the year before. The
officials said they have caught more than 53,000 people with criminal records −− including
about 9,000 felony offenders −− since September, when a new computerized system was
started to allow agents to quickly check a migrant's background against the FBI's database. But
experts in both countries estimate that perhaps 500,000 or more still make it through each year.
 

"It's easier for a stand-up fighter to learn groundwork, than for a groundfighter to learn stand-up skills."

Maurice Smith

Federal Bureaus Opt Against Tasers

The bureaus of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have opted against deploying tasers with their officers.   The acknowledgement of the internal decisions comes at a time when there is increasing scrutiny on the safety of the devices which are currently used by more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S.

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Brad Parker, Defend University