How do you defend yourself against a terrorist attack such as that which horrified us on Sept. 11? 

What do you do when a jet crashes into your office building? When a skyscraper collapses on top of you? I doubt anyone has an answer. If they do, it's probably the same old stuff -- stay away from crowds, symbolic places and events, etc. Maybe I'm more fatalistic, or perhaps just more pragmatic. But, I'm not spending much of my training time working on solutions for fending off an incoming aircraft. 

There is no doubt that we have entered into a war with person or persons unnamed. However, I still have to say that your chances of being involved in a terrorist attack on a day-to-day basis in the U.S. is substantially lower than being a victim of a robbery, carjacking, rape, home invasion or drive-by shooting. There will be other scares and attacks. But I'm confident that America will move resolutely against her enemies while preserving the highest standard of living anywhere in the world. Spend your time training for the situations that are MOST likely to happen to you as an individual.

That is not to say that you CAN'T do anything against evil perpetrators. Action is better than inaction. Movement is better than meditation. Even in unusual circumstances, people with the will and the skill can make a difference.

A special tribute should be noted for the heroes of the attack on America:

The New York firefighters and cops dashing into the doomed World Trade Center when everyone else was streaming out;

Individual New Yorkers rising to the occasion and aiding others;

The rescue personnel, overcome by the gigantic proportions of the catastrophe, who continued to search for survivors;

U.S. Citizens all over the country rushing to donate blood;

And the passengers of United Flight 93 who fought back against the hijackers.

The controlled fury that is welling up around the country might be best summed up by Leonard Pitts in his column "Bloodied but unbowed, we will not be divided".

"Still, I keep wondering what it was you [the terrorists] hoped to teach us. It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.

"If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in return: You do not know my people. You don't know what we're about. You don't know what you just started.

The number of adults in the nation's criminal justice system reached a new high of 6.5 million last year, though the increase in the correctional population is slowing after decades of growth, the Justice Department said in a study. Overall, one in 32 American adults was in prison, on parole or on probation in 2000, the report said, which some experts considered startlingly high.

Still, the 2 percent increase in the prison population from 1999 to 2000 was half of the average increase over the previous decade. It is one of several signs that after 30 years, the astronomical growth in the nation's penal population is beginning to level off as a result of the drop in crime in the 1990s.

My new hero is a woman named Jennifer who doesn't believe her story belongs in the newspaper because she didn't quite kill the two punks who attacked her. Of course, the punks didn't get what they wanted, either, which was to rape Jennifer and not suffer any broken bones.

"In the end, no one got what they wanted," Jennifer tells me. "That doesn't work in a newspaper, does it?" I'm reluctant to disagree with her, since she could kick the commas out of a hack like me. Not that she ever would. She is a gentle, generous soul, which is what got her into trouble in the first place. It was a hot Sunday afternoon. Jennifer went alone to the small clinic where she worked to do a favor for one of her clients. "All the businesses in the area were closed," she said. "I noticed as I walked to the front door that there were two guys sort of hanging around, but I didn't give it much thought. After a few years of living here I guess I let my guard down." As she opened the door of the clinic the two men, whom she most often describes as "the big one and the blond one," came up swiftly behind her and shoved her inside.

"I don't know what their original intent was," Jennifer says. "I assume it was robbery. They might have thought we had drugs or money. At first they pushed me up against a wall and for a second I had this crazy belief that I could reason with them. Maybe that's a woman thing. But then the big one had his hands on me in a way that told me he was going to rape me, and I wasn't going to be quiet and compliant. At a certain point, I guess my training just kicked in."

For a number of years Jennifer studied martial arts, eventually earning a black belt. This was the first time she had to put it to use. "I was getting banged around pretty good," she says, "and because there were two of them it was tough to get a good shot. But then the big one put himself in a position where he was vulnerable."

He had punched her in the face, Jennifer said, and was going to do so again. Only this time she was ready. She performed what she called a "windmill block" on his arm. It left her in position to bend his elbow in a direction elbows weren't meant to bend. And she did. "I broke his arm," she says, "and was going to hit him again when the blond guy grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled me to the ground."

The two of them tried to kick her into submission. "I got a good angle at the blond guy and delivered a solid leg kick to his knee," she says. "He fell back and was limping badly." The punks had enough and took off. After time in the hospital emergency room and interviews with the police, Jennifer went home to recover. It was her friends who contacted me. Jennifer figures I should write about them, not her.

"In my opinion that is probably the better story. How our friends pull us through difficult times and the profundity of their simple kindness." It's true. But in these violent times I believe we also use a crime story in which the victim isn't the only one who gets hurt. Jennifer's assailants haven't yet been caught. "I only wish I had left them dead on the floor for the cops to cart away," she says. "But I didn't."

One reason not to print Jennifer's last name is because the bad guys are still out there. A better reason, I figure, is to keep the punks guessing. I don't want them to know who she is, but when they go looking for their next victim, I want them to know that someone like her is out there.

More Cameras Watching, Probably More to Come 

Ever get the feeling someone is watching you? In Britain it is more likely to be true than anywhere else in Europe.

A government decision to broaden the network of roadside speed cameras to cut traffic accidents has raised fresh concerns among civil liberties groups that people's privacy is being invaded far more than they might care to believe. ``There are estimates of 1.5 to 2.5 million closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Britain, and I don't believe any other country comes near that (per capita),'' Roger Bingham, of civil rights pressure group Liberty, said.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S., you will probably see even more of the camera systems in industrialized nations. Many of these systems also have software that allows them to identify criminals if spotted. Such a system was already used at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida this year.

A new study seems to substantiate what most of us have known for some time -- people cannot drive and talk on a cell phone simultaneously. The study indicates that the brain has to share the duties required to drive and talk, so it can't fully focus on either one. While this is certainly annoying when you see drivers whose brain is obviously focusing more on their conversation rather than their driving, this info has significance for us from a defensive tactics standpoint. The cop's best friend is his radio. And for a private citizen, it should be your cell phone.

From a daily risk standpoint, you are more likely to be killed or injured in a car smash-up than a criminal or terrorist attack. So engaging in an activity that you KNOW diminishes your ability to drive is ill-advised. However, since we all practically live in our cars and we NEED to use the phone while we drive, use a hands-free set up or get a headset so you can keep both or your hands on the wheel. For executive protection operators, let the navigator/observer operate the phone or the radio while the driver concentrates on the task at hand. If you are a solo operator, it is recommended that you drive a vehicle with an automatic transmission. It's incredibly difficult to shift gears while juggling your phone, your coffee and your doughnut. If you find yourself in a pursuit or in some sort of evasive driving, you'll no doubt be contacting the proper authorities on the phone at the same time. This will be a most challenging task if you are trying to hold the phone and drive at the same time.

Similarly, operators and investigators who are performing surveillance or trying to write down information as they drive would be better served if they used a hands-free cell phone to call their own voice mail and dictate the information for later retrieval than trying to jot down info while in motion.