|
Newsletter for September 2003
Welcome to the new members of Defend
University, thanks for subscribing.
Inside this issue:
Alert: Key Ring Speed
Passes and Mini-Credit Cards
Girl's Fast Thinking Foils
Home Invasion
Think Like a Bad Guy to Defeat Their Ruses
Gun Inside 'Gift' Bear at Airport Makes a Point
Assaults Reported by 1 in 5 Female Air Academy Cadets
Prepared vs. Paranoid
You're NOT Paranoid
Shoes for Self Defense?
"“When
facing multiple opponents, you must attack first and keep attacking until the
danger subsides.”
Miyomoto Musashi
Alert: Key Ring Speed
Passes and Mini-Credit Cards
There has been a real spate of theft from people with
those Speed Pass and Express Pay fobs and those new mini-credit cards on their
key chains.
Thieves are gaining access to these items, primarily
at car washes and car dealerships. Presumably, valet parking operations
could be involved as well. But the bulk of the problems that I've seen
reported have been dealerships and car washes. While the thieves
have your keys, they are running up charges using the fobs and the credit cards.
Some criminals are actually substituting non-working look-alike fobs for the
Speed Passes so you drive off without knowing that the fraudulent charges are
being racked up for a couple of days before you catch on.
In an effort to make your purchases more convenient
and quicker, these key ring items are making it
 easier for you to be ripped off.
(Incidentally, studies show that you will spend more per visit if you can
quickly and conveniently charge your purchases).
Don't give up control of your valuable keys. An old scam by valet parking
operations is to make a copy of your house key, look up your home address on
your car registration and
 then
burglarize your home while you are away. These new scams are just a
different variation.
If you must carry these new credit items on your key ring, at least get a
key ring which can be separated in at least two sections. Have your car
key on one section and your other keys and credit items on another section.
Then make sure you and your family members have the discipline to always
separate the key rings when leaving your car in any situation outside of your
control.
Girl's fast thinking foils
home invasion
A 17-year-old girl helped thwart a home invasion by hiding
under her bed and calling police on a cell phone.
At least three men broke into the girl's home waking the residents and
demanding jewelry and cash. When the girl heard family members yelling,
she hid under her bed and called police, whispering information to the
dispatchers as officers responded.
In what is typical for home invasions, the armed robbers wore masks on their
faces and forced their way in demanding cash and jewelry. They injured residents
as they ransacked the home.
As the girl gave her address to police, she told the dispatcher she could hear
screaming and thought someone was being assaulted.
The dispatchers heard the suspects entered her bedroom and the
cell phone went dead. At that point, officers
had arrived at the residence and broke in. The suspects fled, going
through windows that aren't even open, right into the arms of police officers.
The ubiquitous cell phone once again proves to be a valuable
safety and security tool.
Think Like a Bad Guy to Defeat Their Ruses
“On the street, he who hits first, hits the fastest and
hits the most almost always wins. Street fighters know that no matter how big,
strong or skilled a person might be, he is vulnerable to a sudden, overwhelming
assault. That’s why the most proficient street fighters use deception to get as
close as possible to their victim before launching a relentless attack. They
know that if they can get the critical jump on someone, they can usually end the
fight in seconds. For the most part, squaring off for a round of mutual combat
happens only in tournaments and movies.”
Richard Ryan
Most of us know this already, but we
don't work it enough into our training, so we don't really know it
(remember, if you can't do it, you don't know it). And when you try to do
it within a class, it never really works because everyone knows what you are
doing. Everyone laughs and gets their guard up immediately.
Believe it or not, the standard "do you
have a light?" or "do you have the time?" are still the most prevalent interview
questions you'll face on the street. The experienced con will even have a
prop, like an unlit cigarette, to make the question more believable.
Most of us are nice people. We
want to help people. When someone asks us a question, we respond. We
want to trust people. But think about it for a moment, do you know any
smokers who would ever be without a light? And who doesn't own a
watch or a cell phone these days? On the face of it, 99 percent of
the time these two questions are bogus.
Okay, so you KNOW that bad guys use
ruses to get close to you. Yet, almost everyone falls for the interview
process. So how do you train to ingrain a proper response into your head?
How do you see through the typical interview in which the bad guys get close
enough to you to attack?
Simple. Walk in the bad guys'
moccasins for a while. Try to think like them. And then, try
conning your way close to different people during your day. See what
works. See which people you would approach. See which questions
elicit responses from people.
Obviously, your intent is not evil, so
chances are your "victims" will never even know what you were doing. But,
you'll gain some valuable insight into the mind of the predator. The
result is that it will be harder for you to fall for a con when you've tried the
same con yourself!
Gun Inside 'Gift' Bear at Airport Makes a Point
What first appeared to be an innocent
exchange between children has turned into a federal investigation after a
10-year-old boy tried to board an airplane at Orlando International Airport with
a teddy bear containing a hidden gun.
Surprised inspectors spotted the gun inside the bear as it passed through an
X-ray machine. The boy, who was flying with his family from Florida to
Ohio, had received the stuffed bear from a girl unknown to them who walked up to
their son at an Orlando hotel and gave him the bear. The girl,
described as being between 10 to 14 years old, came up to the boy and said, 'I
can't take this bear, will you take it?' "
TSA officials said the incident proves the importance of screening every
passenger, regardless of age.
Independent conversations that I've had with federal law enforcement officers
and airline officials indicate that there have been credible reports concerning
the use of children for possible terrorist activities.
So, don't freak out when you see kids
being pulled out of line -- or your kids are pulled out of line -- for
additional security screening.
Assaults reported by 1 in 5
female air academy cadets
Nearly one in five female Air Force
Academy cadets said they had been sexually assaulted during their time at the
academy. The Department of Defense said that a study done this year
indicated 109 of the 579 female cadets questioned, or 18.8 percent, said they
had been sexually assaulted in their time at the academy.
These numbers are fairly consistent with the rate at which women in this country
are assaulted.
Prepared vs. Paranoid
I was talking recently with an
ex-Navy SEAL Team 6 member who is now doing private consulting. He is a
person who routinely wears two handguns and carries three knives.
The conversation turned to the
concept of preparedness and when does it cross over into paranoia.
We decided that if you
continually plan for the eventuality of being attacked by one or more persons,
that's being prepared. If you continually plan for the eventuality of
being attacked by vampires, that's being paranoid.
You're Not Paranoid
Just because you worry about
things that go bump in the night, you're not paranoid. Just because you
think someone might be following you, you're still not paranoid.
There are plenty of examples of
criminal attacks all over the world that defy reason. I recently
leafed through a bunch of reports of real attacks that, on their face, seem
totally unprovoked and random.
Remember that the vast majority
of attacks are usually preceded by an "interview" of some sort and the vast
majority of burglaries and robberies are preceded by a "casing". But the
cases I looked at had a large number of circumstances that could not be
foreseen or avoided by the victims:
-
A guy is
sitting in his car stopped at a red light in Maryland. He is the second car at the
light stopped behind the first car which is bordering on the crosswalk.
Additional cars come up behind and on both sides of his car and stop at the
light. Suddenly, and without warning, a man on the sidewalk opens fire on
the first two cars in the line. There seemed to be no motive nor any
connection between the shooter and the drivers of the two cars.
-
Another gentleman in South Africa is driving home
from work on a major motorway. He notices a SUV with multiple occupants which appears
to be following him. Wondering if he is just imagining things, he speeds
up. The SUV speeds up. He slows down, the SUV slows down. When
he takes an exit, the SUV cuts him off and opens fire on him with an AK-47.
When the driver retaliated with his own handgun, the bad guys fled.
Robbery is the apparent motive, however, the driver says he is just a 'regular'
guy with little money and not driving a flashy car.
-
A couple in Kingsport, Tenn., were awakened one
night about 1:40 a.m. by a masked intruder threatening them with a knife and
demanding OxyContin.
-
Another couple in Omaha, Neb., were woken by three
men breaking into their home about 4:30 a.m. The three home invaders began
beating the male but were stopped when -- get this -- both the man
and woman each retrieved their handguns and fired on the invaders, hitting two
of the suspects.
(I included the portions about the defenders
retaliating with firearms because I thought it was interesting. I realize
the many Defend University members do not have access to firearms.)
But my point is that you can be attacked anytime
and anywhere, sometimes for a reason that might not be readily apparent.
However, just because an attack seems to come out of the blue, don't let it
confuse your response. Realize that you are under attack, regardless of
the reason or circumstances, and respond appropriately.
Shoes for
Self-Defense?
There is at least one person
I know that will not put on footwear without weighing how his shoes would
perform in a self-defense situation.
I used to think that his
particular shoe attachment was bordering on the paranoid. Recently,
however, I have had to become a (begrudging) convert to his thought process.
Two recent incidents have
impressed on me the need to have the proper footwear at all times.
It's summer. It's
hot. Growing up in California and Arizona, I have a pretty relaxed style
of dress. That might have to change.
In one incident, I practically
drive right into a theft in process in my neighborhood. It's so blatant,
that I call in the description of the vehicle and suspects. We have a
notoriously long response time in my neighborhood (we're located at the very
edge of the city at the very far end of the beat for our area). So when it
looks like the suspects are starting to wrap up their work, I have to get out of
my personal vehicle to stall them. I'm off duty and I'm not trying
to affect an arrest. I'm just a concerned citizen (who, incidentally is
furious that these guys have the audacity of trying to pull this off in my
neighborhood in broad daylight.) The guys, understandably, get a little
belligerent and start to puff out their chests and do a little intimidation
routine trying to get me to back off. It looks like there might be a fight
when one guy gets real heated and starts heading right for me.
In another incident, I'm turning
left through an intersection on the green light when a older guy in a Subaru
casually drives through the red light cutting right in front of me as he travels
from right to left. Instinctively, I lean on my horn to wake him up and
and keep him from ramming me. He never even flinches. Fortunately he
is traveling the same direction as I am turning so even if we did collide, it
would have been a glancing blow. But now his car is stopped ahead of me as
I continue turning left. And, in the passenger seat is a young buck,
corn-fed and upset that I honked at them. He opens the door of the car,
flips me the middle finger and menacingly gets out of the car and starts
stomping back toward my car.
In both of these cases,
there was no fight. Both of the guys who initially started to approach me
backed off. I'm assuming that I must have given off the signal that I was
going to hold my ground and was not going to be intimidated by their antics.
But the more distracting common
thread to both of these situations was that I was wearing shorts and flip-flops.
Here I am preparing for battle and I've got flimsy little shower thongs on my
feet. One situation happened on a dirt road just off a
paved road and the other one happened right in the middle of a main city street.
Both situations would have been dicey if I have had to fight (or run) because I would
have been essentially barefoot on a non-foot friendly surface.
While training in bare feet is
commonplace in the dojo or kwon, the only real application in which I can see
being in bare feet is either fighting out of your bedroom at night (it does
happen -- see the
article above) or defending yourself at the beach or poolside.
So am I being paranoid now that I
have become a convert in putting on proper footwear when venturing out in
public?
Go here if you want to access the
newsletter archives.
Be prepared. Train hard. Stay safe.
Brad Parker
| 
