Citizens Defense League
In the year 2000, W. Hock Hochheim created the Citizens Self Defense League as a regular section of his monthly, international Close Quarter Combat Magazine. For years this publication's section, reached 29 countries and dealt with crime trends, crime prevention and counter-crime methods.
Since 2000, periodically, Hock would conduct two-day, counter-crime schools as well as cover this material in related segments of regular training seminars. These "Counter-Crime Schools" and sessions deal directly with all aspects of avoiding, detecting and combating crime and criminals, and then dealing with its ugly aftermath on personal and legal dimensions.
Hock knows the inside. Few people are actually qualified and capable of really teaching these topics as Hock can, himself a veteran Texas and US Army detective and patrolman. He amassed some 1,500 arrests spanning three decades that range from catching common thieves to hunting down paid hit men and serial rapists and killers. He has personally interviewed thousands of witnesses, complainants and suspects and done case prep and testified in hundreds of trials. He is a graduate of over 100 schools and academies on street survival, assault/rape and violent crime symposiums, profiling, homicide, gang crime and many other crime and security topics.
Hock has also conducted protection for many actors, singers, bands, authors and political figures such as Tom Clancy Rudy Giuliani and President Jimmy Carter. He has synthesized all this experience and training into survival and achievement courses for police, the military, and the common citizenry. (Just see Hocks Biography and Endorsement pages for more details). You will find that Hock has actually done what many instructors claim they have done, or wish they have done, and even pretend they have done.
"I use my 12 Step, Self Defense Primer Program as a basis for these Counter-Crime Schools and sessions in general tactics seminars. This program is well-researched, well-received and highly reviewed among experts from all walks as the most comprehensive platform from which to prepare for the common and uncommon criminal attack. The program includes lectures, demonstrations, skill development, exercises and hands-on, active scenarios. It answers the big questions, Who? What? Where? How? Why? in a depth and manner few can teach. " - Hock
Contact Hock if you are interested in a short lecture, or business meeting, or consultation, or a one or two day, Counter-Crime School training seminar. Or ask for any martial subject displayed on the webpage and ask to include counter-crime materials. Click here
Or attend a seminar already scheduled. Click here
The CRASH COURSE for Citizen Self Defense 3 DVD Set!
This 3-DVD Set consists of three hours of internationally recognized and proven, self defense strikes, kicks, escapes and takedowns to end an attack as quickly as possible. Many seekers are content learning just these moves, but many progress on to advanced solutions. This set also includes segments of Hock's 1990s TV show "Your Personal Safety Moment," shown in the Dallas, Ft Worth, TX market. These were highly produced, re-enactments of crimes and how to prevent and survive them.
Plus, get the 12 Step Primer for Self Defense Article. For more click here!
And Now, A SPECIAL EDITION FOR YOU!
Win! Survive! Escape!
A 12 Step Self Defense Program for Citizens, Police and the Military
by W. Hock Hochheim (Join us here weekly as sections are published)
Everyone and every malady these days has a 12 step program, right? Don’t they? From Alcoholics Anonymous to Dr. Phil on dieting to a Home Depot home repair job. For years I too have my own 12 step list for the basics of crime prevention, survival, and even military encounters. I usually pick and choose topics from this list when teaching and use points in different modules of physical training. About 7 years ago, Joe Hubbard of England urged me to publish the list, even to do a book or a film on my 12 Steps. He said:
“This is what all these new reality-based people are doing! You do it much better!”
Thanks, Joe. I should have listened back then. And since, I have been reminded again to do so by many others. And so I go on here. I think you will find this the most comprehensive and thought-provoking text on the subject. No brag. Just fact. In fact, I have spent the last two decades bridging the information gap between the military, the police, the martial artist and the aware citizen. Each know things about fighting that the other doesn't, and each benefit by the knowledge of the other. I have always felt that, other than operational intelligence, there isn't a thing a cop knows about crime and criminals that a citizen shouldn't know. Many terrorists and guerilla fighters today prepare and perform like criminals. And, we all desperately need the insight and the research that the aware citizenry delivers. So, at times, what seems to be a military strategy is actually a street survival tip, and vice versa. At times the latest report from the Harvard Journal of Medicine explains human response and abnormal psychology. We need each other to optimize our chance of survival.
We will start with laying some ground work, then move onto the 12 Steps. Lets establish a few foundations and parameters first. You might say primers to the primers. We must start by asking ourselves first, “what exactly is winning and to whom?”
Foundation 1: What is Winning? Surviving? Escaping?
You find yourself in a 6-man foot patrol in the Mekong Delta during the Vietnam War. You suddenly are confronted by an entire battalion of North Vietnamese. Do you stay, fight and win? What if you are surrounded by a gang on supermarket parking lot? Must you win, win, WIN, as so many “Win Instructors" declare and pound into your psyche with their courses? No. Everyone's definition of winning is different.
It is small-minded, inexperienced, immature and plain wrong for instructors to preach this “must always win” mentality to everyone, every time. Their perspective isn't from a high enough altitude to see these win messages spread across the board to police, military and citizens, all the while creating a generic, confusing and dangerous message. Missions are different. Daily life is different. Citizens, soldiers and cops have different goals. Even so, for all these groups, we share the temporary solution that discretion may be the better part of valor, at times. Live now to fight another day when there is chance to win.
To a police officer winning usually means arresting the suspect, or at times. just staying alive. To a citizen it usually means escaping a crime or escaping injury, or possibly confining a criminal until the authorities arrive. For the officer or citizen, this may also mean killing a criminal. If you are in the military, winning means - winning. Both small and big battles. And it may mean also winning the hearts and minds of the populace around you. Winning may mean also mean escape to fight another battle another day. A prisoner of war wins by escaping, not stopping and fighting every guard and soldier along the way in hand-to-hand combat.
Who are you and what is winning, surviving, escaping? We all share these same possibilities and goals in the situational combat of crime and war. I warn you to be leery of these Win-Only courses and Win-Only teachers. Their altitude and perspective are unsophisticated, short and low. Their message is dangerous. Crime and combat are not like a Sunday football game. In real life, even a tie or yes, even a loss, can be a win.
Several ways to "win," or to "finish" a fight:
1) Escape from the opponent (using the "Orderly Retreat" concept)
2) Threats, demands and actions to make the opponent surrender and/or desist and leave.
3) Less than lethal injury to the opponent. Injure and/or diminish to a degree that the opponent stops fighting and chasing you.
4) Control arrest, contain and restrain. Capture and escort the opponent. Or, you detain/capture the opponent and await the proper authorities.
5) Lethal methods. We fight criminals and enemy soldiers. Sometimes we kill them.
Foundation 2: Research and Intelligence
 Critical to proper planning is good research and intelligence and wise analysis. An in-depth study in the history of crime and war is an essential basis from which to proceed. Many systems and instructors miss their mark or completely fail when providing training because they really do not know what criminals and enemy soldiers can and cannot do and you lean much of this by knowing what they have and have not done. Your instructor must be a learned, intellectually hungry and people-savvy professor of humanity, from the very DNA and science of life to psychology and cultural, social science. College degrees in sociology psychology, military history, biographies crime and police science, then experience in the field, or reading books about them and from vets are some of the best ways ways to learn the latest methods of crime and war. Great places to hunt for information are college bookstores that also sell used books. Often you will find academic paperbacks on crime studies conducted on convicted criminals. Interviews. Statistics. Narratives. Commentary. Know thy enemy.
"Know thy Enemy"
“The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools,” - so said Sparta’s King Leonides. So goes martial training.
Foundation 3: You/Him Duality
Dualism is a two-fold division in several spiritual, religious, and philosophical doctrines. Confusing sometimes, but at times the best and necessary means to proper explain the diverse aspects of complicated life.
When we ask a question or pose any of the primer questions to follow, each category possesses a duality and asks, “his AND yours.” For example in Primer 1, we ask "who will you be fighting," and then we dissect this enemy. But there is another personality involved here. That would be you. I then will also ask you, “who are you?” Who are you actually? Really? A superhero, or a guy with a bum knee and a glass jaw and not in our best physical shape?
In the classic movie Magnum Force, Dirty Harry reminds us, “every good man knows his limitations.” At first it was a cool, throw-away line movie line, somewhat off-putting because it reminded us that even our favorite tough guy had weaknesses and limitations? Yet, we still hear this 1970s phrase repeated by police and military trainers to this day. It is a mantra to realism.
Play to your strengths. not to your weaknesses.
Foundation 4: The Continuum from The Big and the Little Questions
When I ask you the big questions like, “when do yo think you might be mugged?” You might answer with something like, “at the ATM.” Good answer. Big answer to the big question. But the “when” question has many little ‘whens “ to it also. Like - when does he step too close to you? When does he actually pull and show his gun? When does he actually turn and leave?  Why are the little questions worth mentioning here? All fighting is situational and positional. The big when question is the situational part. The little questions are the small positional parts. A lot of fight training eventually concerns itself with positions. These precise answers, the small and little physical steps of the enemy are important when planning to fight or run for your life.
As you learn these upcoming twelve steps, please remember the big-through-the-small issues surrounding your planned confrontation. We cannot ask every single question, big and small, every time, and keep at it, over and other again. Remember the big picture and therefore, the little pictures inside it.
"When will he actually draw the weapon? When will he say something? The small questions.
Foundation 5: The Continuum of Military, Police and Citizen Combatives Planning
The Mission, the Tactics, the Situation, and the Position are all imperative studies in a continuum to organize proper training and take proper action. This is the macro (big) -to-micro (small) preparation needed to design a fighting system appropriate for your goals. I break this down into four categories. The Mission - Chalkboard planning. What is your big, overall mission?
Tactics - Exercise generic tactical training to execute your plan.
Situational - Define the exact situations you will be fighting in. Fine tune those tactics.
Positional - Define the precise and exact positions you may find yourself?
The Mission, the Tactics, the Situation, and the Position are all imperative studies all in a continuum to organize proper training and take proper action.
The Mission - The Overall Strategy
What is your overall mission? To stay alive and/or win as a citizen against crime and criminals? Is it a mission of enforcement against crime and criminals? A soldier against the enemy? Lets place this questions in terms we all can understand by using a D-Day analogy. D-Day Analogy: We are all familiar with D-Day of World War II - the great invasion of Allied Forces on the coast of Europe. The generals got together and decided the master plan, being the over all mission is to land and invade Europe. The Strategy? What will the overall strategy be? Boats first, delivering man and equipment with an element of surprise. Then air and sea support. The army invades. Big picture, mission strategy.
Mission examples do not have to be about world wars. Here are some common wishes:
“I just want to defend myself.”
“If my family is attacked I want to know what to do.”
“I want to make it back and forth to work and shop everyday.”
“I want to survive my patrol shift.”
“I want to survive fights against UFC fighters.”
“I want to survive my stint overseas in the military.”
“I want to train people to survive their common predicaments.
“I want to turn little children into upstanding citizens through exercise, morality and karate.”
“I want to become rich teaching people anything I can to trick them into thinking
they are learning self defense or martial arts.”
Select your mission. Take care to select the system and teachers. Then start training for it.
The Tactics
These are the general, basic tactics, the generic nuts and bolts that seem to cross-over into so many diverse applications and situations, moves such as working on a pistol quick draw, slashing a knife, or palm-striking a heavy bag in a sterile environment such as a gym or a school so as to get a command and mastery of the move, You might call this basic training.
D-Day Analogy: You have your invasion mission decided. What big tactical movements will be needed? The tankers tank. The gunners gun. The planes bomb. The men shoot and fight. Medics medic.The participants must be trained the generic skills involved with accomplishing these tasks.
Tactical (and practical) training is the general tactics that seem to cross-over into so many applications, such as - working on a pistol quick draw, slashing a knife, or palm-striking a heavy bag. You might call this basic training. Next we’ll take these generic skills and fit them into the expected situations.
Develop command and mastery in the individual tactics. Develop conditioning, balance with speed and power, target
acquisition and body synergy- full body support as needed
The Situations - The Actual Situation
We know the mission. We have the basic tactics. Then the problem arises. Fighting is situational. Circumstantial. Situational training requires more study. What are the exact situations you will be in. Where? This is done with crisis rehearsal in replications of scenarios. Who are you? (we are back to Ws and the H again!) Where do you think you will be? What will you need to make through? You might call this the start of advanced training. D-Day Analogy - Now that we have forces trained in the basics, what situations can we predict the soldiers will face? Rain? Darkness/ Beach? Jungle? Desert? The army must then take these basics and fit them into situational fighting.
We teach citizens and cops to fight. Simple fighting in gyms and schools. But, then we have to look seriously at the actual places and situations they will actually and fight and die in. For a police officer, events surrounding a traffic stop is just one common place of a “cop fight.” A doorman/bouncer can guess his where and whom he will fight. A factory security guard will be fighting at the factory. What are the specifics of these identified environments?
What about street tricks, bank tricks, bar tricks? Robbery tricks? Domestic disturbance tricks? Swamp tricks? Jungle tricks? Simple fighting moves become more broad and complex when ensconced inside the real situation - the before, the middle and the after of a confrontation. Many people simply cannot make this connection from the air-conditioned class room to the muddy, back roads of the real-deal without help in the from of advice and training.
The Positions- The Actual Precise Position
If the situation is a mugging? Then the positional concerns are thing like “where does the mugger stand? What hand does he grab you with? Is his knife tip at your rib or at your throat? Small things. The Devil in the details. D-Day Analogy- “When you thrust the bayonet into him. Twist it like this!”
This is the last level of training, the smallest, most personal, close aspects of a fight. Expertise knowledge. This is the very "pinpoint" right down to it. The general tactics may well work, but now where exactly and precisely are you and the opponent? This is the real fine tuning of tactics as needed. The finite situation. Like - you are on the bottom-side of a ground fight and his left leg is out posted outward. An arm Wrap trap or your knife hand/arm warp trap of his empty hand. His left hand is on your throat and you are up against a wall.
The sniper is in a window and you must cross an alley. You must draw a pistol from your holster with a wounded arm. Things such as exact position of the enemy, his arms, legs, hips, head, his weapon grip - may actually dictate life or death! Sometimes, solutions relate to finite positioning. You could die because his elbow was low instead of high, or his hip was canted right instead of left. The more time you have to study? The more you can learn about the finite. When possible, the properly trained army reaches this high level of training.
In summary, the Mission, the Tactics, the Situation, and the Position, all imperative studies in a continuum to organize proper training and take proper action.
Foundation 6: Staying Alert - The Alert "Needle"
It is quite easy in our classrooms and on our couches to declare to all “stay alert!” and then to Monday-morning quarterback a flawed or failed crime, a raid, or a mission with a synopsis, “well, he failed to stray alert.” But, there are many training issues involved in the simple command of staying alert.
In an effort to promote alertness, Colonel Jeff Cooper created the first, popular color code warning system decades ago. John Dean Cooper of the United States of America, known to his friends as "Jeff", was a Marine Lt. Colonel who served in both World War II and Korea. In 1976, Cooper founded the American Pistol Institute or API. Later this became the Gunsite Training Center in Arizona, training law enforcement and military personnel, as well as law-abiding civilians. He was a war vet, a history instructor, philosopher, adventurer, and author. He was also widely known as "the Gunsite Guru." The Cooper color concept was drummed into my head in police training from the police academies in the early 1970s and later through in- service schools.
Condition White: White is the lowest level of alertness.
Condition Yellow: Relaxed state of general alertness, no specific focal point.
Condition Orange: This is a heightened state of alertness,
Condition Red: You are ready to fight and may indeed be fighting.
It is not uncommon for lessor gun-gurus to extrapolate and write and rewrite, and over-explain and overemphasize the simple message that Colonel Cooper first designed. Even the United States Department of Homeland Security uses a color code. The scale consists of five color-coded threat levels, which are intended to reflect the probability of a terrorist attack and its potential gravity. The Homeland Security color system is:
Severe (red): severe risk
High (orange): high risk
Elevated (yellow): significant risk
Guarded (blue): general risk
Low (green): low risk
The color concept is common sense to define. But at this point in our American history, facing terrorism, the color code idea was considered by the general public as lame advice, a joke and frequently made fun of in the media. For whatever reasons, you cannot over-emphasize the color code concept anymore. Cooper's idea was a brief overview and outline to get your mind thinking about important categories. It is an primitive, elementary school approach that too many instructors and governments over-use and preach as a biblical tenet or worse - a doctorate thesis. And at this point, it becomes the target of comedians, and a symbol of government incompetence.
It is also very easy to order someone to always stay alert. What color? What level? and for what? Here is the rub. Stay alert at about Level Blue What is that? While on-the-look-out for terrorism or crime, most people don't know what to stay alert for. Specifically. This is the largest complaint of US citizens with the color code terrorist alert chart:
"Will someone tell us who and what we are looking out for?” is the common public cry.
Security expert and best seller, Gaven DeBecker will tell you to trust your gut instinct, as the inert gift of fear will guide you. It is just not that simple. If you strip out all the intriguing adventures and stories out of Debecker's book you will be left with a boring, basic crime prevention pamphlet at your local police station. The information is the same but Debecker must be credited for making it readable and interesting Its dramatic message may help readers remember the basic pamphlet concept.
Stay alert for what, exactly? The Department of Homeland Security really has little to add beyond what DeBecker's book said. Their answer is:
“well, you know, look for something suspicious.”
Suspicious? In physical practice the proper training to identify suspicion is nuanced definitive, yet still diverse to cover all crimes. In courts of the world, there are precise legal "tests" and rulings on suspicion. We can get gut instinct suspicions, and that is all well and fine, but this advice does not cover criminal, guerrilla and terrorist methods of operation. The best way is to research and answer questions like these
* Who are the criminals and terrorists?
* How do they select potential targets?
* How do they survey potential targets?
* How do they stake them out to gather intelligence?
* How do they approach them?
* How do they execute the crime?
* Where do they park their escape vehicles?
* If no method of escape, are they suicide bombers?
The military, police and aware citizenry need to know these things. Else they will not identify the steps and tools of the trade to be alert for. Once trained, the information should imbed into the intellectual or gut reaction systems in your mind.
Can you stay forever alert as these gun-gurus and martial arts experts bark at you to be, and then will blame you for failing to do so should you slip up? The answer is no. You cannot walk through your life in this Condition Red or even Orange most or all of the time. Your nervous system will burn and fry and you will be diagnosed with a hyper vigilant syndrome by psychiatrists.
Hyper vigilance is an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats. For example, a driver who has previously been involved in a car accident may devote so much attention to road conditions and other cars on the road, that he or she does not hear an accompanying passenger while driving. Or, common today, someone is ever on the lookout for attack by criminals or enemy soldiers. Hyper vigilance is a state of anxiety that often (and quickly) leads to exhaustion. Simply put, hyper vigilance is a way to describe a person in a elevated worried state of fight-or-flight.
One other point on this awareness subject. There are also levels of alert inside the general time period you are alert! How alert are you when you are alert? Does this vary? This level may change like needle in a polygraph, or one of those “feeling detectors” that pollsters use when tracking the reaction of focus groups to politicians making speeches we have all seen on TV news. Each second the needle moves up or down, drastically or not, but moves as the voter reacts to the speech. These needle movements are a universal reaction for all of us, the soldier, the citizen, the enforcement officer. And maybe its a problem?
In a common altercation there may be multiple, overt or subliminal reasons to think the tension, or the tipping point of the violence is over or diminishing. Our inert “alert needle”- the actual level of alertness or “guard” is lowered slightly. We may not even notice this! In these split seconds citizens, enforcement officers and military units have been suddenly attacked, injured and/or killed at this very "letting guard down" needle point drop.
I have been in probably a couple of thousand or so of these disturbances and altercations as a police officer, and just a few in regular life. Arguments and fights from domestics to car wrecks, road rage, business partners fighting - just a vast variety of people fighting for a vast variety of reasons. Bouncers and security officers see people tanked up on liquor or drugs and also witness this craziness. And we all know by the survival textbook, we should stay 100%, Red-hot vigilant while involved in these things, but it may be hard as the human animal that we are, we are constantly reading and reacting to the situation, second-by-second. There is a rhythm to these things. A beat. A music. And the surprise attack strikes lowers when the "music" lowers, just like a soundtrack at the horror movies. Learn the song.
Inside the battle, Napoleon once remarked said that the most dangerous time on the battlefield was when his troops thought they had just won. The awareness needle drops. The guard drops. In the Samurai spiritual and practical guide, The Hagakure advises, "after the battle, tighten your helmet strap." Or in more modern terms we revert to baseball's Casey Stengal and worry when exactly does “the fat lady sing?” In all situations, it ain't over, till its over, over and over.
“Will someone tell us who and what we are looking out for?”
Yes, I will. You should have a catalog of suspicious things embedded into your brain, beyond simple gut instincts. And, right here on this webpage and in my training seminars. You can best train to avoid all these problems by following my 12 Step Defense Primer and identify those areas in your life when and where you need to on the extra alert. In fact, this entire 12 step process is really an effort to explain, direct you to, and plan “what to stay alert for!”
The 12 Step Self-Defense Primer Program
So, with the foundations over , let us begin with my introduction:
“Hello, my name is W. Hock Hochheim,” I say at the podium.
“Hello Hock!” You all chant back.
“I am working on my 12 step recovery program. I will never stop working on it.”
And here are the 12 Primers: Primer 1) Who, What, Where, When, How and Why
Primer 2) The Recon
Primer 3) The Stance
Primer 4) The Three Managements : Fear, Pain and Anger Managements
Primer 5) The Talk
Primer 6) The Four Targets
Primer 7) The Six Stops
Primer 8) The Four Takedowns
Primer 9) The Ground
Primer 10) The Weapons
Primer 11) The Group
Primer 12) The Aftermath
Primer Step 1: W. W. W. W. H. and W?
Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why? The “Ws and the H.”
These are the classic cop questions when collecting a crime report and investigating crimes. The “Ws and H questions” must be asked again and again here in all 12 steps of the program to further fine tune the answers.
In Step 1, I set out to explain why these questions are so important. Crime and combat is varied and situational which is why there are very few universal answers and actions for people to memorize for every kind of jam. For a quick exercise in Ws and H, imagine problem-solving a potential, common mugging and answer these all the “Ws” and “H” questions. Base this on research and intelligence, you will have studied the victim, the location, the criminal and how he will attack you. This process also works with the most simple street crime on up to armies fighting world wars. Pick a single crime or a single battlefield and then answer these questions.
The First W - Who?
Who are you and who attacks you? In life, we fight criminals and enemy soldiers. Technically, if your favorite brother-in-law raises a fist to you, he officially becomes a criminal and falls into this category. Criminals and enemy soldiers. Sometimes we escape, we run them off, sometimes we take them prisoner, and sometimes we kill them. On the battlefield it is often easy to recognize who the enemy is. He is wearing a different uniform than ours. But armies have also fought disorganized guerrilla fighters since the days of Alexander the Great - men and women dressed in our common, or their indigenous clothing. For the military, the enemy soldier is a mix of all these prototypes, drawn from all personality types, psychologies and backgrounds of society. Here, in my course I will introduce and dissect the common and uncommon, organized or disorganized criminal and these automatically include military enemies.
In many ways this big picture of "who" education is the very underpinnings of all following segments. The "who" is about recognition. The who you know and the who you don't know. Keep in mind there is simply no way in this essay to cover the various personality types like pan-violent, frustration-aggressive, by-polar, under-controlled persons and over-controlled persons and on and on. Such is the intense study found in psychology and sociology doctoral programs spanning decades. This essay is about the initial recognition of danger and initial response, survival skills, just a working knowledge of who you might encounter is an achievable lesson. Fortunately, citizens and police deal mostly with the common, disorganized or at most, somewhat disorganized, criminal and not the soldier. The uncommon, organized criminal uses imagination and planning to execute their crimes and escapes and his plans include the most heinous serial crimes. Start your study by problem-solving the common, high percentage criminals and then then spend time planning on the uncommon ones. Worst case scenarios.
With criminals it is often harder to recognize them at first for many reasons. Often you start out trusting them in the very short term, as when a smiling stranger approaches you; or in the long term, as with friendship. co-workers and blood and non-blood relatives.
“Keep your friends close, your enemies closer”
Who said that first? Shakespeare? Machiavelli? Rasputin? Don Corleone? Rooknaw the Caveman? You may not want to, but you do keep your criminals close whether you like it or not. People are more often assaulted, raped and killed by people they know.
This is confusing when you analyze crime statistics. For example, the New York City Police Department proudly proclaimed in 2007 that they had the lowest crime rate of stranger-on-stranger murders. But, this proclamation is a dubious one when you pull back the wizard’s curtain on crime statistics. Most violent crime is not stranger-on-stranger anyway. Your enemy is close and hardly a stranger to you!
Too close! If you are a women in most so-called, civilized societies, the Centers for violence against women say that 1 in 20 women will have stalker problems. 79% of women know their stalkers; 50% were in an intimate relationship with their stalker and 80% of these relationships were abusive. Your spouse is most likely the one to hurt or kill you. A child is mostly likely molested by someone the child knows. A man will most likely fight with his drunk brother-in-law, friend or acquaintance at a bar or barmitzfa. Burglars often know their victim. Dope dealers know their dope dealers. Gangs kill the names, faces, bandannas and tattoos of other gangs.
Family crime? Murder, aggravated assault assault, rape and other sexual offenses. In the United States, about 300 children a year are charged with killing one or both parents, Paul Mones said in his research book,
When a Child Kills. Cases where a child kills the entire family, known as "familicide," are less frequent than ones perpetrated by the father. Louis B. Schlesinger, a professor of a forensic psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said familicide is more commonly committed by a depressed or jealous father. Slayings of relatives by teenagers "are usually spontaneous sorts of things," Schlesinger said. "While with the brooding, depressive male adult family murderer, it's not spontaneous, it's much more thought through, with obsessive rumination prior to it. With a teenager, it's almost always impulsive, spontaneous, and there happens to be a loaded gun around."
Mones said such family slayings of all types are typically motivated by one of two factors: "extreme family dysfunction in terms of physical and emotional abuse, or severe mental health issues that pervade the family, whether it's the perpetrator or the parents or themselves.
Still, the majority of family assaults are considered to be of minor in nature. In their book, “Crisis Intervention,” the authors, McKean and Hendricks write that, “To understand intimate partner violence, it is important to make a distinction between common couple [minor] violence and chronic [serious] battering.” The National Violence Against Women Survey (Tjaden & Thoennes) documents that “most physical assaults committed against women and men in relationships are relatively minor and consist of pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping and hitting.” - the difference between serious (battering) and minor (family conflict)
As far as identifying the common criminal it can be very tough, indeed. Imagine a company with little over 500 employees that has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
That company would be the 535 members of the United States Congress. Watch the next State of the Union presidential address next January where most of them are present and try to pick out who’se who.
Who are the most violent criminals? I am a graduate of a criminal profiling police school offered by the State of Texas, taught by both state and federal experts. In this class they identified the most violent criminal to beware of - a white male, between the ages of 17 to 25 or 28. There are a few other markers but the markers about things such as their problem childhood are not things you can quickly know or identify in a short term encounter. You may however learn of these markers though longer-term encounters. The history includes:
- Abuse, torture and sex with small animals
- A physical abnormality you may or may not can easily see
- Trouble with their parents
This generic profile is still true today, but by no means should this be the only profile of a potential violent criminal you should watch for. Criminals and terrorists come in all shapes, sexes, sizes, colors and religions and their identification is much more situational and about what they are doing and wearing and where they are. A totality of circumstances is the legal term and exactly who they are, is just a part of the identification process. In this age of islamic, fanatic and extremism, only a fool would not raise an eyebrow at the 9-11 look-alike's when doing things suspiciously in certain situations. I would expect no less of similar eyebrow raises against white or black people in certain situations. You must be properly educated beforehand and articulate why your brows raised. Stand by for more on that.
Who commits workplace violence? It seems every month some employee or ex-employee shoots up a job-site somewhere in the world. A profile of this character has also been developed. Unlike the young male profile previously mentioned, these jobsite shooters are usually male and over 35, and often have many years of employment at the very place they shoot up. Usually their work history is spotted with odd troubles. Forensic psychologists suggest that, “employers and co-workers should watch for changes in these problem-people’s behavior, attendance, productivity, personal hygiene, and social isolation. Killing sprees usually are the culmination of many years of unresolved personal problems and mismanaged stresses. Problems with alcohol and drugs, financial worries, and marriage and family pressures often aggravated their problems while coping with this fast-paced society.” Some of these business shootings involve perceived or real sexual relationships, or break-ups and divorces.
The next probability factor is an ex-boyfriend or husband comes and shoot's the relationship partner's business place up. Some of these business shootings also involve perceived or real sexual relationships, or break-ups and divorces. Keep an ear open to employees and co-workers in break-ups and really heated divorces. The danger zone includes the business parking lot.
Drugs, Alcohol and the Toll? A nationwide USA Today Poll conducted in July, 2006 stated that 1 in 5 people, or some 40 million adults have been addicted to drugs or alcohol at some point in their lives. Many other users who are not addicted are responsible for all kinds of negative incidents. This effects everyone and the recklessness, loss of control and desperation increases crime and accidents in all categories. This means that 1 in 5 people can cause of lot trouble, but so can the occasional users. When considering who to avoid? This would be a major category.
1) Who is the attacker/enemy?
a) The common, impulsive, disorganized-to-semi-organized criminal or enemy soldier
b) The uncommon. organized and methodical criminal and enemy soldier
c) The person is:
* the familiar person
* the unfamiliar person
* the stranger or enemy soldier
* trained or not trained for violence
2) Who am I? Really! Take a realistic inventory:
* am I trained to recognize violent
encounters before and while they happen?
* am I trained in vocal, de-escalation skills?
* am I in shape to fight for several
non-stop minutes or more?
* am I in shape to run far enough away?
* am I trained to fight properly?
* do I have or need weapons?
Can I fight against weapons?
This covers the who in the broadest sense. The following, other Ws and H will help flesh out more of the who details.
The Second “W” - What?
There are so many, many “whats” to consider that will be covered more
succinctly
in the following sections. But for now lets consider simple geography and people. What is going on? In general and in specific? Crimes on store parking lots increase around Christmas shopping season. Drug dealers, hookers and robbers flood to military bases around paycheck time. Pick pockets do extra duty at the Mardi Gras. Are you traveling somewhere that has an event-base problem? Do you live or work somewhere that hosts events that cause an increase in crime? If so? What are the events and what are the crimes.
In smaller specific are you near or in a rowdy crowd, bar or sports game? Do you feel the party or group you are involved with is about to turn into a fight scene or a crime. Get a good handle on what is going on in your life and around you, it could be the backdrop, the foreshadowing, telltale of danger.
What we do to the people and personnel when we fight them:
1) We chase them off, or-
2) We escape, or -
3) wound them, or-
4) We capture them, or-
5) We kill them.
What the military does with the enemy’s possessions:
1) we ignore it
2) we steal it
3) we disrupt it
4) we disable it
5) we destroy it
6) booby-trap it
The “What's It Gonna' Take?” Game
Here's another important "what," in the who, what, where, when, how and why. WHAT is it going to take? It's a mental prep game I have been suggesting for years and one I used for decades as a cop to make best use of spare time. You can play it anywhere there are people around you. It doesn't matter where you are, a sports event, a ghetto, Rockefeller Center, a supermarket or a POW camp. See someone and pick one out. Ask yourself, “What is it going to take to put this person down and out" of a potential fight.
You should inspect and evaluate that person's size, strength and endurance. Then mull over some options you might have to take the person down and out. I hope this will include cheats, fakes and distractions when possible.
This kind of mental, crisis rehearsal can be used for any kind of potential situation. In police work since the 1970s we used this idea for patrol time. Instead of mindlessly driving around, our smarter trainers suggested we crisis-rehearse various incidents art various locations on our beat.
What do you do for immediate help? Establish a plan in advance for getting help.
a) Citizens call for:
* Shouting to attract witnesses and others at the scene
* Technology- call 9-11 as soon as possible
(if you travel to a foreign country, find out what that nation’s emergency phone numbers are.)
b) The Police call for:
* Shouting - immediate help and witness at the scene
* Technology to summon area back-up personnel
c) The Military calls for:
* more personnel
* more supplies
* air strikes
* evacuation
As you can see, inspecting the who and the what are really honing in important issues, people and places to consider and prepare for.
The Third "W" - Where? The Hunting Grounds
Where will you be attacked?
Where will you effectively strike back?
I began writing an article called The Hunting Grounds back in 1996, and with some research the article quickly grew into the thickness of a book. But, the work tried to cover only one question - where are the hunting grounds where criminals attack you? It quickly became apparent to me that to fully and properly cover the “where,” all the other “W and H” questions came into holistic play. In this newer, broader format here, we can excise, refine and define all the other questions since we cover them separately. Here alone in this section, we can concentrate on “where” we will be attacked.
And where will this likely happen? Have you noticed that everyone teaching self defense these days are so infatuated with the terms "Urban" and "Street fighting?" How many of you actually live deep, downtown in an “urban” environment? How many travel to deep, urban areas? Population demographics show not all that many. You will fight crime as police do, and as foot soldiers do in wars, fighting in the indoors and the outdoors of urban, suburban and rural environments.
Your Real Travel Checklist
When I was stationed in South Korea with the U.S. Army in the 1970s, I complained to my sergeant that I my world there was so small because I had so few places to visit.
“Hochheim, how many places do you go?” he asked me.
I thought about it and added them up. “Oh, about 7 places a week,” I said.
“If you added up how many places you actually visited ‘back on the block,’” he told me,
“I’ll bet you don’t visit more than 7 places week.”
He was right. I started doing the numbers and back home in Texas, my regular life was just as small as it was in the isolated, Korean village of Kempo Oop, and the attached Army base. When back home “on the block,” I counted up that I traveled to my jobs, a supermarket, a convenience store, a bank, a post office, etc. In fact, normal, weekly life was a very short list of routine trips.
Most people share this same short, common list. In short, the average list is:
1) Your home
2) Your work
3) Your common routine places of business
4) Your common, routine places of entertainment
5) Common deviations from these
6) Uncommon places like business trips and vacations
You begin to realize that forming a safety plan and safety net is not such an intangible or
cumbersome project. You can wrestle it down into manageable sections.
Answer these questions from your travel list:
1) Where do I live? How safe or unsafe am I at my home? How safe is my home when I am away?
"Nine out of 10 burglaries could be prevented if homeowners knew how to burglar-proof their homes," says Jeanne Salvatore, vice president of consumer affairs for the Insurance Information Institute.  "The goal is to make your house look lived-in, Salvatore says, while you're living it up elsewhere. With the average burglar carting off $1,381 worth of goodies (not to mention your peace of mind), consider taking these measures before you leave home." Make an educated assessment about your safety at home, be it an apartment or house: What kind of neighborhoods are you in, or are you living very near to?
State Farm Insurance does extensive research in home burglaries and year-to-year the front door and first-floor windows are the most common places burglars enter homes, but many people admit they leave doors and windows unlocked. Their annual studies show about 50% each year leave their windows open. 38% or so left their front door unlocked. About 35% each year leave their back door unlocked, and about 25% hit a door key outside.
Remember These Neighborhood Tips
Neighborhood Tip 1: Evaluate the crime rates by asking opinions of your local police and
reading the local newspapers and watching the local television news. Observe the decay of your or nearby neighborhoods.
Neighborhood Tip 2: You should take prompt action to address area maintenance problems affecting your security such as reporting burnt-out lights, uncollected trash, graffiti, broken
windows.
Neighborhood Tip 3: Does this neighborhood, or your position in your neighborhood offer
quick and easy escape routes for criminals?
Neighborhood Tip 4: Be a good neighbor. Get to know your neighbors and their habits to the
extent that you can recognize deviations from normal behavior. They can do the same for
you. Also consider starting an active neighborhood crime watch.
Neighborhood Tip 5: Call the police when you observe a stranger behaving in a suspicious
manner (loitering and observing, approaching multiple residences without apparent business,
or removing property from a neighbor's residence).
Neighborhood Tip 6: Watch for suspicious neighbors? Many a local crime have been
committed by the adults or teen-agers of local residents.
2) Where is my House? How safe are you in your house?
If you were thinking like one of the “who” criminals we listed earlier in our study, how would you break into your own house?
House tip 1: Remove elements of “flash” about your residence that would cause criminals
to single you out as a wealthy target.
House Tip 2: Install and use burglar alarms and use visible large “alarm alert” stickers.
House Tip 3: Secure your windows and doors? Do you keep your front, back and side doors and garage doors closed and locked? Can your interior doors be locked and secure from kicking attack? You can buy emergency time by be able to lock a solid door inside your house. Many safety conscious people will install a serious bedroom door with a solid lock in their homes for this reason.
Nearly a third of all burglars enter through an open window or unlocked door.
House Tip 4: Install exterior lights where needed in dark and blind spots.
House Tip 5: Some experts suggest installing storm windows and doors. There is an
interesting body of “glass psychology” studies through time, about how another pane of
window or door-window glass may be a deterrent to burglary.
House Tip 6: Obtain a dog with grounding in protecting its people and property. House Tip 7: Some the weakest links in protecting your house or apartment is through the
attic. Criminals enter into the garage attic and crawl though the attic and simply push open
the ceiling attic door and drop the stairs. In newer homes this attic access door is a normal
vertical door. These attic doors should be a secure, solid and alarmed doors.
House Tip 8: Arrange a way, either through a peephole or a surveillance camera, that you
can examine people at your front door before you open it.
House Tip 9: A safe room. Safe rooms are the single most important means for reliably
separating residents from intruders while providing a safe place to await the arrival of
police or on-site security. These rooms can be made safe from criminal invasion and
natural disasters. Do you have a safe room in your house? The entrances may be hidden or
overt. Ensure you have food, water, weapons and communication capabilities. There are
professional firms that will build these room for you, but you can manufacture a solid one
yourself.
House Tip 10: Have weapons you know how to handle, handy.
House Tip 11: Have charged phones AND land-line phones handy. Daniel Dunlap, Okaloosa County, Floirda 911 coordinator reminds us that in a disater emergency the cellphone airwaves may become jammed. But there are more reasons to have land line phones. Dunlap says -
“In some ways, it makes sense to ditch a landline bill and use a cellular telephone service. And it may be awfully tempting to switch to a Voice over Internet Protocol phone service, such as Vonage, when the company advertises lower rates and no need for a long-distance service. However, such choices come at the cost of a potentially longer response time for an emergency call. 911 is sometimes an afterthought. When a call comes through a landline, a 911 dispatch center can see the caller's physical address at the least, Dunlap said. If you're choking and can't speak, (or being attacked) rescuers will still know where to go. A cell phone call, on the other hand, uses global positioning technology to create a map that helps rescuers locate a caller. Triangulation between three towers pinpoints the location, but even then the result may be off by about 300 meters. It might just give me a general location. Sometimes, we get the location of the nearest cell tower instead of the cell phone."
House Tip 12: Make efforts to create the illusion of occupancy? That is creating the
appearance that an occupant is present. One example is always keeping a visible car in your driveway. It is like a burglar alarm to most common criminals. They drive on past your house to find an empty house.
House Tip 13: This tip came from a neighborhood watch coordinator. Next time you come home for the night and you start to put your keys away, think of this. If your car keys fob has a panic alarm system button, then you may also have another alarm for your home. Test it. Hit the panic putton from rooms inside your house or apartment. It will go off from most everywhere inside your house and will keep honking until your battery runs down, it has an auto shut-off, or until you reset it with the button on the key fob chain. It works if you park in your driveway or garage. If your car alarm goes off when someone is trying to break into your house, odds are the burglar rapist may not stick around. After a few seconds all the neighbors will be looking out their windows to see who is out there and sure enough the criminal won't want that. And remember to carry your keys while walking to your car in a parking lot. The alarm can work the same way there. A reader adds, "this would also be useful for any emergency, such as a heart attack, where you can't reach a phone. My Mom has suggested to my Dad that he carry his car keys with him in case he falls outside and she doesn't hear him. He can activate the car alarm and then she'll know there's a problem."
Where do you work? How safe are you at your work place? Civilians and their normal jobs. It seems these days like each week we see or read in the news about another man showing up at his wife, or his ex-wife’s or his girlfriend’s workplace and shooting or beating her. Often he injures someone else in the process. Often this male then kills himself. A common outcome. 
In the United States the Department of Justice and the Center for Disease Control try to track injuries and acts of violence in the so-called sweeping term - “American Workplace” that arena where in a nation of some 300 million people, of whom teen-agers and adults toil at some job. Safety issues vary from the coal mine to the business office. Important, but not the subject here. Other civilized countries have their own official groups keeping track of this issue. Excluding the vast amounts of workplace accidents and injuries, any place were people interact is a natural touchstone for interpersonal violence.
In a given year, 2005, there were a total of 559 homicides recorded. 421 were by shootings and 138 by the ever-mysterious “other.” (Other is by hands, vehicles, hammers, knifes, whatever). According to the Department of Justice, 1 in 6 violent crimes occur in the workplace. Murder is the leading cause of death for women on the job, more than from any other source of occupational injury. In 1992, workplace homicides were the leading cause of job-related deaths. Sometimes the simple difference between these categories is good first aid and great EMTS and ERs. The homicide and its intent, seem to evaporate away for the stat table charts? What of simple assaults and aggravated assaults? There are estimates. The CDC reports that:
“an average of 1.7 million people were victims of violent crime while working or on duty in the
United States, according to a report published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS),
each year from 1993 through 1999. An estimated 1.3 million (75%) of these incidents
were simple assaults while an additional 19% were aggravated assaults. Of the occupations
examined, police officers, corrections officers, and taxi drivers were victimized at the
highest rates. For the same time period, over 800 workplace homicides per year were
recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.”
High Risk Occupations year-in and year-out and their work places
A study of any selected job description will explain where the headquarters or travel for the profession requires. Here is list of the annual of the jobs that top the statistical danger list.
The Job Danger List
Law Enforcement Officers -their assignments
Prison or Jail Corrections Officers - their prisons and jails and transports
Taxi Drivers- their routes and waiting spots
Private Security Guards- their assignments
Bartenders - their bars and restaurants
Mental Health Professionals - their hospitals, offices and field work
Gas Station Attendants - their gas stations
Convenience or Liquor Store Clerks- their stores
Mental Health Custodial Workers - their hospitals
Junior High/Middle School Teachers - their schools
Bus Drivers - their routes and stations
Special Education Teachers - their schools
High School Teachers - their schools
Elementary School Teachers - their schools
College or University Instructors - their schools
Commercial night drop deposits at banks
"Where are the the common workplace
danger zones?"
There are five categories of workplace violence, each having its own unique set of motivating factors: Work Danger Zone 1) robbery and other commercial crimes like interrupted thefts, shopliftings and burglaries
Work Danger Zone 2) domestic and misdirected affection/relationship cases
Work Danger Zone 3) employer and/or co-worker directed violence
Work Danger Zone 4) situations and combat involving military, law enforcement or security officers/contractors
Work Danger Zone 5) terrorism or hate crimes.
Danger 1) robbery and other commercial crimes like interrupted thefts, shopliftings and burglaries. Some historians trace the origins of trade and commerce to the very start of communication in prehistoric times. Trading became a principal facility of prehistoric people, who bartered what they had for goods and services from each other. Historian Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce from circa 150,000 years ago. And so it goes still. Every day of our lives most of us reading these words walk in and out of businesses. We enter and leave our jobs, places to eat and places to shop. Shopping since time infinitum. And of course - crime. Crime and violence is very often where the money is and where the disagreements are. Every time we buy coffee or gas at a corner store, walk into a mall or a bank, we also run the risk of entering into an active crime scene.
Let's start at the top of the danger list. Do you work in (or travel to) stores, restaurants and banks? Yes? If so, there is an element of bad luck and armed robbery. Here are a collection of tips to plan, detect and counter strong-arm and armed robberies.
Strong Arm and Armed Robbery Prevention Tips for the Business Workplace
A strong-arm robbery is when the criminal has no visible weapon. An armed robbery is when the criminal is suing a weapon. When employees or customers Interrupt thefts and shopliftings, they can become violent incidents. Expect and prepare for armed and strong-armed robbery, even though it occurs less often than other business crimes, but the potential for loss, injury, and death is much greater from a single incident. Counter-Robbery Tip 1: Employees should be trained to protect themselves and the business
by reporting any suspicious person or activity immediately, and by making notes for future reference.
Counter-Robbery Tip 2: Security-related training should be on a need to know basis only.
Counter-Robbery Tip 3: Caution employees against divulging security information to anyone who
has not been cleared by you.
Counter-Robbery Tip 4: Keep employees away from the register when not in use.
Counter-Robbery Tip 5: They should stay busy keeping your business neat and clean.
Counter-Robbery Tip 6: Every person who enters the store should be acknowledged and greeted in
a friendly manner. The presence of alert, efficient, and capable employees will discourage a thief.
Counter-Robbery Tip 7: Maximize visibility into and out of transaction areas by keeping windows clear,
keep your business interior and exterior well-lit, and install security cameras at all exits
Counter-Robbery Tip 8: Keep a small amount of cash on hand and use a drop safe (which cannot be
opened by employees on duty) for large bills and excess cash. Place notice of this fact, along with a
robbery awareness poster, where any would-be robber will see them.
Counter-Robbery Tip 9: Make deposits at the bank often each day, and at different times. Carry
deposits inconspicuously inside your clothing. Ask about a police escort
Counter-Robbery Tip 10: Use a staggered method of opening and closing
Counter-Robbery Tip 11: While one employee enters the premises and determines it is safe, a second
monitors from a safe distance outside. When signaled, the second employee is let in by the first. A
similar procedure should be used at closing.
Counter-Robbery Tip 12: Control entry to your business at all times. Everyone, including delivery
men and employees, should enter through a monitored entrance. Keep all other doors locked.
Counter-Robbery Tip 13: Do not allow customers or non-employees inside after hours. Be especially
wary of anyone seeking entry before opening or after closing. Beware of emergency calls or attempts
to get you to your business outside of regular hours.
Counter-Robbery Tip 14: Do not work alone. Leave a radio or television playing in a back room to
give the impression that someone else is present.
Counter-Robbery Tip 15: Put height markers on door trim to aid in descriptions.
Counter-Robbery Tip 16: Make your address easily visible to emergency units.
Counter-Robbery Tip 17: Ask local law enforcement what actions you should take as they respond
to your location for a robbery in progress.
Counter-Robbery Tip 18: If You Are Robbed -- REMEMBER Do not resist, ordinarily. Obey the robber's
instructions. Do not let him however, remove you from Crime Scene A (this one) to Crime Scene B (his next planned one). Crime Scene B is often a staged and prepared place for him to kidnap, abuse or kill you.
Counter-Robbery Tip 20: Observe the suspect for later description. Call local law enforcement as soon as possible. Counter-Robbery Tip 21: What are the robbery rates in your area?
Counter-Robbery Tip 22: Is your business near highways and other major escape routes?
Counter-Robbery Tip 22: When making your routine bank deposit drop-off, circle your bank first and
look for suspicious cars and people in the area.
Counter-Robbery Tip 23: Watch customers for suspicious activity and clothes. Robbers often “case” the premises. They often eye the layout of the business and other customers, rather than the products on the shelves. They often wear clothing and hats that can partially conceal or fully conceal their faces. They often look for video cameras. They often often wear clothing that is contrary to the weather to conceal weapons.
Counter-Robbery Tips 24: The Bank Robbery. Working in or Walking into a Bank Robbery? About 80 percent of bank robberies are committed by a lone robber who holds up a lone teller. The bank robber may simply pass this teller a note. He may or may or may not display a weapon. The common bank robber wants to appear as a common customer conducting a normal, legal transaction. Whereas the “Take-over robbery” can be extremely dangerous. These robbers enter the bank with guns drawn creating a volatile situation. The robbers may assault employees and customers. Banks are robbed mostly “morning people” striking between 9 am and 12 noon. Each year it seems the most robbed day changed. Bank robberies can occur anytime the banks are open. About 4% to 5% each year ends in voilence.
Thus far in the year 2008, bank robberies are up in cities across the USA this year and, although the reason is unclear, the down economy is a suspect. "The economy is driving some of this," says Chris Swecker, chief security officer for Bank of America and former assistant director of the FBI's criminal division. "We're even getting some anecdotal stuff from bank robbers." FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said bank robbery numbers fluctuate annually, but overall change usually is slight."I've seen trends go up and down," he said. "But I've never seen anything really double." USA Bank robberies peaked in 2001 with more than 10,000 heists recorded around the nation, according to FBI figures. Robberies declined after that, rising slightly in 2004, before increasing nearly 10% in 2006. National figures for 2007 are not complete. There are two victims in a back robbery, the bank employess and the customers within danger range.
What are the bank employees told and taught? In the United States, The Bank Protection Act requires that all employees and officers be trained annually on proper procedures for robberies, larcenies and burglaries. Most financial institutions will train their tellers but fail to recognize the importance of training all employees and officers regarding their responsibilities under the protection act. Other countries have a similar law to follow. Tony Brissette is a veteran of over 30 years as a Director of Security in Massachusetts. Now President of Brissette Consulting Services, Inc., in Shrewsbury, MA, he specializes in bank security training programs. He can be reached at (508) 842-2500. Tony Reports:
“In my capacity as Corporate Security Training Officer for a major bank located in Boston, Massachusetts I received reports on all bank robberies that occurred in the New England region. Most of these robberies were handled by tellers and employees in the proper manner but from time to time an employee would either not comply with the robber's demands or would do something that escalated the level of danger and exposed both employees and customers to increased danger. The following list of ten catastrophic mistakes committed by bank employees is based on those reports:
1- Do not treat the hold up note as a joke or a prank.
There have been several instances in which a teller has been handed a hold up note and believes the customer is joking. If the teller does not believe the note is serious, the robber may feel forced to display a weapon, escalating the likelihood of harm.
2- Do not create any surprises for the robber.
In some cases tellers have walked away from their teller station if they don't observe a weapon. Others have been advised to pretend to faint. These actions may be successful in thwarting the bank robber, who may simply run out of the bank. But if the robber is really desperate, the teller's actions may cause the robber to display a weapon and possibly grab a customer in the lobby. Do exactly what the robber tells you to do.
3- Do not carry excess cash in your cash drawer.
Bank robbers will come back if they're given large amounts of cash. Tellers should adhere to their bank's cash limits for both top drawer and teller station. If a teller accepts a large cash deposit, excess cash should be transferred to the head teller immediately.
4- Do not offer to rob the bank for the robber.
Only give to the robber the money demanded. Don't ask if the robber wants the cash in your second drawer.
5- Do not attempt to bring attention to the robbery.
Statistically bank employees who follow the bank robber's instructions are seldom injured in the course of a robbery. Handle the bank robber as you would a regular customer. Don't attempt to gain the attention of anyone else to alert them to what is going on. The most important role you have in this robbery is to ensure the safety of all employees and customers in the bank. Bringing attention to the robber could compromise the safety of all.
6- Do not argue with the robber or attempt to talk him/her out of the robbery.
Arguing, confronting or attempting to talk the robber out of the crime will increase the likelihood that others will become aware a robbery is in progress and escalate the level of danger.
7- Do not tell customers that you have just been robbed.
After one robbery, just as the robber reached the front door, the teller yelled out "grab him, he just robbed me." This was an extremely dangerous action that places the safety of employees and customers in danger. What if a customer did attempt to grab the robber and a struggle took place in which a weapon was used and either a customer or employee was injured or killed? On occasion customers, believing they are acting as good Samaritans, have confronted or chased robbers and increased the likelihood of danger to themselves and others.
8- Do not ever leave the bank after a robbery.
In numerous cases we found that after the bank robber left the branch, a bank employee will either exit the bank to see if they can observe the robber's getaway or - worse - actually pursue the bank robber in a chase. This type of action not only places the employee in danger but also poses a threat to others. If during such a chase or attempt to observe a robber that someone is injured, the bank will have potential liability in a possible civil action. This is an especially important message for non-retail employees who may not have been trained properly. Let the police chase the robber.
9- In a take-over robbery, do not make sudden movements.
Do not attempt to activate hold up alarms, run out of the bank, or attempt to call the police. Take-over robberies are extremely dangerous because the robbers are most likely displaying weapons. If you are on the telephone when a take-over robbery occurs hang the telephone up and do not answer any in-coming calls unless the robbers tell you to. Attempting to activate an alarm can also be very dangerous if the robbers observe you during your attempt. Do not try to escape the robbery, as robbers will be closely watching for this activity.
10- Do not ever attempt to engage the robber(s) in a struggle.
Although most of us would never imagine engaging a robber in a physical confrontation, there have been cases in which bank security guards, branch managers and other employees have physically confronted bank robbers. Remember this type of response to a robber increases the level of danger to all employees and customers in the bank.
.
What are bank customers taught and told by authorities?
Every law enforcement official will tell you the same things. You should not try to stop the robbery by force. Keep in mind that an increasing number of bank robbers are using powerful drugs (cocaine and methamphetamine) during the time of the robbery. You don’t want to take chances with an intoxicated person in a desperate situation. If you notice that a bank robbery is in progress, simply get some details on the robber that you can pass on to the police. Some helpful information:
Note clothing – look for layers under the visible layer (the outer layer will come off)
Note physical characteristics – height, weight, eyes, hair, mannerisms, scars/tattoos
Note automobile description (not the most important since it’s probably stolen)
Note last known direction of travel
Note weapons – the police need to know if the robber is armed
Note...anything else! Try to remember everything
Note to not disturb nay evidence at the scene.
The experts say its best not to attract any attention to yourself. Simply follow instructions so that the robber can get out of there as soon as possible. Law enforcement will pursue the robber. Agitating a bank robber has statistically resulted in harm to yourself and others.
Work Danger Zone 2) domestic and misdirected affection/relationship cases AND
Work Danger Zone 3) employer and/or co-worker directed violence
These two zones are combined here, because they involve the same suspects. We know from previous segments the high incidents of violence involving frustrated relationships and family violence. These events are often carried over to to the workplace. In order to shift focus to workplace violence some accepted guidelines and definitions were made. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration developed a model in the 1990s describing three types of workplace violence based on the perpetrator's relationship to the victim and/or place of employment. A fourth type was added based on a workshop convened by the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of Iowa in 2000. These four distinct categories remain in existence today:
Criminal Intent (Type I )
when the perpetrator has no legitimate relationship to the business
and is usually committing a crime in conjunction with
the violence (example: robbery, terrorism);
Customer/Client (Type II)
when the perpetrator has a legitimate relationship with the business
and becomes violent while being served by the
business (example: patients, students, inmates);
Worker-on-Worker (Type III)
when the perpetrator is an employee or past employee who
attacks or threatens another employee or past employee.
Personal Relationship (Type IV)
when the perpetrator does not have a relationship with the
workplace, but has a personal relationship with the intended victim.
In the previous “Who” chapter we collected the profile of the potential violent, workplace employee. So-called, “normal” and functioning people may also possess some, maybe even all of these traits, thereby making detection and prediction difficult. This still doesn't mean you internal watchdog shouldn't keep an eye and a nose on these types of people. In quick review, here is a list:
1) male, 35 years or older, who owns a weapon
2) has a history of violence toward women, children, or animals.
3) usually withdrawn
4) somewhat of a loner
5) self-esteem is linked with his job,
6) tendencies to blame others for his disappointments.
7) may have a military background
8) may history of substance abuse.
9) experiences recent losses in a person's life often precede an outburst of violence, these
might include a divorce, repossession, death in the family, or bankruptcy.
Work Danger Zone 4) situations and combat involving military, law enforcement or security officers/contractors
MIlitary: We know the inherent risk in combat for military service. The United States of America Defense Department updates their casualty page frequently. It is at: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf . Non-battle deaths not known for these wars. Where? In-Theater means the deaths occurred in or near the area of combat operations. Example: If a helicopter carrying 45 soldiers in Vietnam crashes into a mountain due to bad weather, they are non-combat, in-theater deaths. If a helicopter crashes in Vietnam due to enemy action, they are combat deaths. If a helicopter in the United States crashes into a mountain during the Vietnam War, they are non-combat, non-theater deaths. I am not privy to the accurate statistics of other nations. Where? In-theater.
Enforcement: Where is American Law Enforcement shot and/or killed? What are they doing and when are they doing it? FBI statistics, criminal justice universities and major training academies investigations show about six hundred criminals are killed each year by police officers. Some of these killings are in self-defense, some are accidental, and others are done to prevent harm to citizens. About 135 officers are killed in the line of duty each year. One can read this list and safely extrapolate similar results in other civilized foreign countries. Line-of-duty, deadly force actions are most likely to occur in the following policing situations, and in this very order:
Police shot or killed situation 1) traffic offense;
Police shot or killed situation 2) domestic or other disturbance calls;
Police shot or killed situation 3) robbery in progress;
Police shot of killed situation 4) burglary in progress;
Police shot or killed situation 5) personal dispute and/or accident; and
Police shot or killed situation 6) stake-out and drug bust.
Police shot or killed situation 7) the hours of darkness, 6pm to 6am (carry a light!).
Security Guards and now...contractors. At one time a few years ago, we had a clear picture of what the ubiquitous security guard was. Now, with the global use of guards called "contractors" our definition has changed. There are no comprehensive statistics on the on-duty deaths of security guards in the USA. PBS investigative reporters put a death toll of 300 to 500 security contractors have been killed in the last several years, dating back to 2002. Where? Guards and contractors have mostly been killed on their posts and in convoys.
Work Danger Zone 5) terrorism or hate crimes.
More of the "Where" Coming soon...
Primer 2) The Recon: Your recon. His recon.
Reconnaissance means a preliminary survey to gain information; especially an exploratory military survey of enemy territory. Recon for short. Sometimes spelled with two “n’s.” This means your recon and his recon. This falls back to the "W" of where.
Yours first. To prepare yourself, where do you travel? This concept works for the professional or the civilian. A “pro” like a soldier, guard, or cop has more travel plans and problems to worry about than a civilian But, either a pro or a civilian, how can these routes and stops of your life be dangerous. List where you go everyday, every week. month? Year. How do you get there. Then list the high percentage problem events with the high percentage problem people. Educate yourself and prepare for them. (big glitch here is that many people -and martial instructors- THINK they know these answers).
Primer 3) The Stance Communications experts say that some 90% of communication is non-verbal. This means your face, your clothes, your physical appearance., how you hold your hands and arms, etc. This covers three areas to me:
Area a) mental - what mental stance do you take in your mind about confrontations? (BIG subject here) surrender, defeat, survival? Trickery? Area b) physical - how will you actually "stand" when confronted;
* try to keep some distance
* keep the body slightly bladed for quick, athletic response
* move about slowly and advantageously
* the very word "stance," hypnotizes you into thinking you have to stand still.)
Area c) martial arts gobblygook review, advise and consent. Many martial arts systems over-obsess about stances, turning them into anal retentive, black and white still photographs of perfect group, statue form. When actual fights are full-color, hi-def motion. The so-called fighting stance is really about balance and power in motion. There is no “football-scoring stance.”
Primer 4) The Three managements
Learn Frear, Pain and Anger Management
Fear Management: Fear is a two-way street yours and his. And here I like to mention:
* Issues on mind set
* A quick, user-friendly, non-techno-jargon speech on the bio-mechanics of fear
* preconceived notions and the common misunderstandings and misuse of
adrenaline issues in fighting. Trainers can often further scare the student
with negatives about adrenaline. Many are still using a 1980s model and subsequent
scare tactic marketing plans to lure students into various training programs. * repetition training issues. Repetition builds mental and physical roadways, even highways to improved performance
* Hicks Law misunderstandings. Science has proven that we are faster and mor flexible that the 1950’s Hick’s Law rules.
* crisis rehearsal issues. De-sensitize your fears with the proper training
* fortune favors the prepared, and reduces FEAR!
* what measures may be taken to instill fear in your opponent?
Primer 5) The Talk
What to say, how to say it
Primer 6) The Four Targets "You graduate the college of self defense by majoring in four subjects, eyes, throat, groin, top of the feet..."
Primer 7) The Six Stops
The six sommon stopping points in a one-on-one encounter. Read about them here -Click here
Primer 8) The Four Takedowns
Primer 9) The Ground Ground fighting knowledge and skills
Primer 10) The Weapons Sticks, knives, guns and expedient weapons
Primer 11) The Group Fighting multiple opponents
Primer 12) The Aftermath How to handle the legal issues, and the physical and mental "come down."
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