Coincidence or attack avoided?

[Sangiovese]

About a week ago the better half and I went to see an evening showing of Batman. It was a little after 11pm when we exited the theater from a little used rear exit (goes straight to the parking lot).

We were walking along the sidewalk between the building and the parking lot and the place was pretty much deserted except for us and two "oscars" who were walking down the sidewalk toward us. (Oscar is what we call people who by their apprearance or actions cause us to watch them a little closer than normal - i.e. condition orange.)

I use my often practiced "I'm watching you but not challenging you" look as they pass by us. No incident or indication of anything out of the ordinary yet.

After they are about 30 feet behind us, they change direction and start following us. I was really proud of my wife's situational awareness when she immediately said, "Oscar six" to let me know that there was something behind us that needed watching.

As my first course of action, we changed direction and cut off at a 90 degree angle into the parking lot to see if they would alter their course and attempt to close with us. If they would have, my plan was to turn toward them and challenge them with a loud, "Can I help you?"

Turns out, that wasn't needed. They kept on going down the sidewalk and never turned off to follow us.

I'll never know if it was an attack averted or just a coincidence that they changed direction... but I'm happy with the result. We went home safe and neither of us had to draw our weapons (I am sooo happy that wifey carries). Any thoughts on what we could do better?

[KC5AV]

It sounds like you did very well. Excellent situational awareness can make all the difference. It's good that you and your wife are on the same page, and are able to effectively communicate in that sort of (potential) situation.

[Excaliber]

I'll never know if it was an attack averted or just a coincidence that they changed direction...

You were definitely targeted. After they passed you, getting a good look, they decided you fit their target profile and changed direction to follow you. Anytime someone focuses on you and keys his actions to yours, something that you need to do something about right now is happening.

The next step for your "oscars" would have been to close the distance, and then the confrontation would have begun. By demonstrating situational awareness and taking immediate evasive action before they were within striking distance, you interrupted their plan. You also were prepared with a follow on action in the hopper if they continued to track you.

The reason they continued on instead of following you is that your actions gave them the feeling you weren't going to be a "good victim" and may well be dangerous (read: armed), so they dropped you as a target and went looking for another.

The 90 degree move was a good one, as I've advocated in other posts. If they wanted to follow you, they would have had to execute another change in direction to do so, confirming their focus on you. You didn't mention if the parking lot was deserted or not, but if there were people there it was an even better move. An alternative to keep in mind for next time is to make that 90 degree move into the street so anything that happens occurs under streetlights, is observable from long distances and multiple angles, and may be interrupted by the arrival of a vehicle or police patrol at any time.

A couple of things to think about:

1. Was this reported to police immediately when you reached a point of safety? It should have been, because when the BG's left you they were hunting to make someone else a victim and a prompt report could get them stopped and either arrested (possibly for past crimes of the same type) or discouraged from doing something that night.

2. If the incident had progressed to the point where you needed to resort to armed defense, do you and your wife have a plan to split up and engage targets with triangulating fire from multiple angles? (If you stay close and without cover, it's easy for an opponent to engage you both at once. From the BG's perspective, incoming fire from different directions is a nightmare to deal with and would give you another very significant advantage, particularly if the BG's stayed close together during the encounter, giving both of you the opportunity to engage them both at once from different angles.)

[fm2]

Looks like a good job of awareness to me.

...my plan was to turn toward them and challenge them with a loud, "Can I help you?"

My suggestion is to not "invite" a conversation with your verbal challenge. Maybe something like "Could you hold up right there?" .

Since they were pacing/following you, maybe you just keep moving, like you were. Working to improve your position and checking on them to see if they were closing distance and watching to see if you were being pushed into an ambush.

[Xander]

...my plan was to turn toward them and challenge them with a loud, "Can I help you?"

My suggestion is to not "invite" a conversation with your verbal challenge. Maybe something like "Could you hold up right there?" .

Very minor point, but I don't think that's an issue. John Farnam teaches challenging potential assailants with "Can I help you sir?" or a variation, and it's proven to quite effective from the anecdotal evidence of his former students. A number of those stories are documented in one of his books: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Warriors-DTI ... 965942252/

[casingpoint]

Maybe something like "Could you hold up right there?

Don't be naive in thinking maybe they were just out for a stroll. You were targeted, and threw them off with your abrupt turn, which is when they discovered you were onto them. Personally, when it gets like that, I prefer more forceful commands. Something like, "Back off, (expletive deleted)." A little brandishing, or the mere suggestion you have a gun, always cools their jets. Awhile back, I had two trespassers raising their hands in the air while I stood behind my truck door, hands at my side unseen by them. My gun was on the seat holstered all the while until the cops arrived. I was holding a cell phone, LOL. I think the trespassers had more experience than I do at such things and knew instinctively what to do. The Pavlov's dogs thing. Repetitious training. Glad you got out of your situation unscathed.

Always go to other peoples funerals, otherwise the won’t go to yours-Yogi Berra

[mr.72]

You know I had a similar situation happen recently. Me and my friend were walking along the sidewalk outside of a movie theater and a couple walked by going the other direction, and the dude's fly was down.

So I said to my bud, "hey, should we tell that guy that his fly is down?" We figured he was taking his gal to dinner and would want to know about it before we got there and so we decided to turn around and see if we could chase him down and tell him to zip up.

About that time they made this weird 90-degree turn and gave us this super-rude look so we just figured, maybe the hostess at Fridays would tell him that his fly was down when he got there.

Go figure...

[just kiddin'... good move on the 90-degree turn. I am trying to teach my daughters this kind of thing but I am afraid my wife thinks I am a paranoid nutjob]

[KC5AV]

There is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of paranoia.

[Excaliber]

There is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of paranoia.

Being terrified of every shadow is paranoia.

Evasive action taken before what appears to be a developing criminal attack is not.

The only way to ever be absolutely sure a suspicious circumstance is an attack situation is to let it play out and see what happens. In an attack situation, that's way too late to execute the best options for going home in one piece.

I separate caution and paranoia with a single question:

"Can you articulate how specific positioning and actions taken by persons in the situation fit a known pattern of pre attack criminal behavior?"

If the answer is "yes", it ain't paranoia.

[mr.72]

Well quite frankly I don't really know how my wife really feels about this.

Sometimes she seems to think I am a paranoid nutjob.

Sometimes she joins the so-called paranoia.

Reasonable awareness is also known as paranoia to those people who are truly oblivious to the reality of risk. This is true for anything including personal safety. I recently read a very good blog about preparedness in the wake of hurricane Katrina that included very reasonable and clever preparation ideas for most any "disaster" scenario and while I read it and thought it was an excellent read full of extremely good ideas that I want to implement immediately, I just can't imagine my wife thinking I am anything but a paranoid nut for even considering it to be reasonable. Likewise most of the people I know think I am a paranoid nut for owning a gun to begin with, not to mention my intent to actually carry it with me.

I would venture to say that regardless of how reasonable we all agree we are on this forum, the majority of this forum's members would be regarded as at least semi-paranoid nuts by the bulk of normal society.

I was not trying to suggest anyone is truly being paranoid on this forum, but contrasting the difference of opinion about what constitutes paranoia.

[Excaliber]

Well quite frankly I don't really know how my wife really feels about this.

Sometimes she seems to think I am a paranoid nutjob.

Sometimes she joins the so-called paranoia.

Reasonable awareness is also known as paranoia to those people who are truly oblivious to the reality of risk. This is true for anything including personal safety. I recently read a very good blog about preparedness in the wake of hurricane Katrina that included very reasonable and clever preparation ideas for most any "disaster" scenario and while I read it and thought it was an excellent read full of extremely good ideas that I want to implement immediately, I just can't imagine my wife thinking I am anything but a paranoid nut for even considering it to be reasonable. Likewise most of the people I know think I am a paranoid nut for owning a gun to begin with, not to mention my intent to actually carry it with me.

I would venture to say that regardless of how reasonable we all agree we are on this forum, the majority of this forum's members would be regarded as at least semi-paranoid nuts by the bulk of normal society.

I was not trying to suggest anyone is truly being paranoid on this forum, but contrasting the difference of opinion about what constitutes paranoia.

I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about that.

The folks who criticize or mock people for taking reasonable steps to prepare for the kinds of things that happen every day or with predictable regularity (criminal attack, hurricanes, etc.) are the same ones who are found wandering around in a daze at incident scenes bleating "I never thought something like this could happen here" and whimpering that "the (police / government / etc.) should do something" to relieve the conditions that result from their lack of preparation.

A man thought to be a fool by a fool is quite likely a wise man.

[Sangiovese]

I don't remember where I first heard it, but I came across a great analogy that I use when someone asks a question along the lines of, "Why do you feel like you have to carry that HERE?" (Implying that it is a "safe" place.)

I pose this question to them. If you could turn your life/health/car/home insurance off and on each day and save the premium for that day... what days would you wake up and say, "I don't think anything bad is going to happen today, so I'm going to turn off all my insurance and save the $25 for today."

The answer is almost always that saving the 25 bucks is not worth the risk. I then ask them why they think my life is worth less than 25 bucks.

As mentioned, reasonable precautions are not paranoia. (Of course, "reasonable" is a gray area.)

I wish I could attribute it to the right person...


As for the original post... thanks for the feedback. Thinking back on it with your feedback in mind, I should have called in the suspicious persons report.

[milkcartonkid]

Your wife said "Oscar Six." That rules. I tried to explain the phonetic alphabet to my wife and got a and a "that is dumb boy talk". LOL

glad you made it out ok.

[G.C.Montgomery]

Looks like a good job of awareness to me.

...my plan was to turn toward them and challenge them with a loud, "Can I help you?"

My suggestion is to not "invite" a conversation with your verbal challenge. Maybe something like "Could you hold up right there?" .

Since they were pacing/following you, maybe you just keep moving, like you were. Working to improve your position and checking on them to see if they were closing distance and watching to see if you were being pushed into an ambush.

I agree that this sounds like Sangiovese successfully "failed" the selection process for an attack. And I like his planned challenge just fine. I know John Farnam would be proud. Asking "Can I help you?" with a firm command presence in your stance and demeanor will work just fine for queuing up BGs to the fact you aren't food. As John would say, "…courteous to all, friendly to none…”

On the other hand, "Could you hold up right there?" is no less of an "invite" for a conversation. Knowing the mindset of the knuckleheads I've grown up with on the east side of Houston, I know that sort of opener can and will come off as a straight up challenge. It gets even worse if you seem "cocky" at the time because there will be some moron willing to try you. The result is you may initiate a confrontation that will just keep going downhill once it starts.

YMMV, but that's my experience.

[yerasimos]

I agree that this sounds like Sangiovese successfully "failed" the selection process for an attack. And I like his planned challenge just fine. I know John Farnam would be proud. Asking "Can I help you?" with a firm command presence in your stance and demeanor will work just fine for queuing up BGs to the fact you aren't food. As John would say, "…courteous to all, friendly to none…”

On the other hand, "Could you hold up right there?" is no less of an "invite" for a conversation. Knowing the mindset of the knuckleheads I've grown up with on the east side of Houston, I know that sort of opener can and will come off as a straight up challenge. It gets even worse if you seem "cocky" at the time because there will be some moron willing to try you. The result is you may initiate a confrontation that will just keep going downhill once it starts.

YMMV, but that's my experience.

In my opinion, "Can I help you?" is not as useful as, "Hold up, dude."

The former (“Can I help you?”) can be really useful to surprise and establish to the unknown individual that you are, in fact, aware of his presence when you believe that he thinks you are unaware of him. However, if the aspect of surprise fails, it can segue immediately into a back-and-forth conversation where the distance can easily close. Such conversation is not warranted at this moment, and neither is closer distance. The latter (“Hold up, dude,” or some variant) conveys that you are aware of the other person, but also sets up a little tripwire that an innocent contact (and perhaps an astute or uncommitted criminal) will respect, but a stupid or more determined criminal will disregard. This piece of information---whether the contact respects your claimed space or not---is very valuable. In the case of an innocent contact, once you have established a modicum of control over the encounter and looked after your own safety, then you can give him the opportunity to say what he wants and consider whether or not you can help him.

If someone is going to get offended and assault you just for claiming reasonable space (the context under consideration is open public space, not some swanky hipster lounge where people are jammed together shoulder to shoulder), then it seems you are facing a sociopath who does not respect other people's boundaries, claimed or unclaimed. I am very reluctant to give such a person any opportunity to physically encroach and distract me with verbiage, so even passively drawing in such a person by inquiring how I can assist said person seems counterproductive. On the other hand, requesting some type of passive compliance (hold up, dude) is a reasonable test that will help you understand what type of individual you are facing. At the beginning of an unknown encounter, it is more useful for you to control proxemics than to initiate a verbal information transfer---no matter whether you are facing an innocent contact, a opportunist criminal or the twisted sociopath (there may be considerable overlap between the latter two).

Taken together, the command presence, "say when" demeanor, fence, appropriate footwork and verbiage (in one form or another) will go a long way to discouraging probing behavior---or if not, position you more advantageously for a potential fight.