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Van and others have talked about the crowd's effect on individuals not doing anything when someone is in trouble, simply because they think someone else will do something. More instructive, to me, is the response of the two people who DID respond. Starting at 2:06, two guys standing together turn their heads, see what's going on, and without appearing to communicate a plan, spread apart to flank the 'bad guy.'

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Life begins & ends cold, naked & covered in crap.

Probably a good thing some of you on this forum weren't walking by. The poor actor might have only gotten the "T" part of "TV" out of his mouth before going down.

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Life begins & ends cold, naked & covered in crap.

The reluctance of getting involved _in some of us is out of conditioned reflex as well as out general apathy to the world around us and fear of making a mistake, being second guessed at our perceptions and actions, as well as natural fears of injury, law suits and retaliation down the road.

There is also shock and diffidence in the very first moments of notice as our brain evaluates a situation unfolding.

If the situation deserves intervention, it is best for an individual to quickly look around, pick strong people in the crowd, and address one or two individuals directly exhorting them to join in the intervention.

Addressing the group as a whole is not as effective in motivating someone to help.

As to the flanking Bill mentions, I think it is a primal instinct of any predatory animal [men] to outflank prey or an enemy. We see such outflanking maneuvers in military tactics, from the old Roman fighting legions to modern Infantry tactics.

Some of you may recall the outflanking of a hunter with a gun _by velociraptors in the movie Jurassic Park.

Now from a self defense viewpoint…imagine you are the person being outflanked, such as the person in the video clip_ some night while walking alone on the sidewalk going home.

How would you handle your defensive tactics?

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Van

Crap my pants.

Ok, seriously. Drop my wallet and run. Wait, am I armed with a firearm? How close are they before I notice them? Bah.

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Life begins & ends cold, naked & covered in crap.

Let's change a couple things:

The girl is your daughter as you get flanked. You have no weapons and can't run.What is your strategy?

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Van

OK, I'll play. How else to learn?

I'm not altogether clear on the scenario, since if my daughter had just put on that scene it would be reasonable to suppose that their intent was to protect the child, in which case I probably shouldn't try to kill them. Assuming, OTOH, that we're talking about a case where lethal force is justified in self-defense, I'd probably step in front of my daughter, close rapidly on the closest one, clear with the left arm (like we've all done thousands of times) and go for the neck with a c-clamp with the right, trying to use our combined momentum to pull his feet out from under him and smash his head on the pavement (or bench or whatever is present in the environment that I might use). Kind of like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbbBrnKEh6g but with a lot more malice and taking advantage of the fact that we're moving towards each other rather than him being stationary (which in the clip means the officer has to cover more ground and also doesn't have the leverage for a head slam, which he doesn't want to do, anyway). I don't know if this will work. If not, now would be a good time to tell me. Anyway, by then the other guy will be on me or at least in range, and so I'd just have to take it from there. If there's a better way of handling it, then I'm all ears.

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Mike

Hi Mike,
The assumed intent here, as you point out, was meant to be a flanking move to attack both the man and his daughter, possibly with child abduction in mind or all kinds of nasty things for them both by a couple of criminals.

The manner of dealing with it as you suggest is certainly a reasonable one.

A similar situation, though slightly different, occurred to a friend of mine and his daughter.

He is not a martial artist and not attuned to safety concepts as we are here on these forums.

It happened on a beach in Florida during late evening.
His daughter was visiting him from Boston; my friend lived in a nice apartment complex a stone's throw from the beach.

So in the cool of the evening, he decided to take his daughter for a walk on the beach next to the ocean.
I had told him on previous occasions to never do that without some sort of weapon.

Out of nowhere it seemed, he was approached and flanked by two unsavory characters.

He told his daughter to run to the road, screaming, and as fast as she could and enter the first place open for business asking for help while at the same time dialing 911 on her cell phone.

At the same time he did the right tactical thing: placed himself between the closing punks and his running daughter and went at the closest one the best way he could.

He took a few hard punches to the face, but the combined commotion that he and his daughter created, unnerved the attackers who ran away. It could have been much worse.

The next day he applied for a pistol permit, began to carry OC pepper spray as well, but more importantly…stopped walking the beach late at night alone or in company of any woman.

In the scenario on the forum, a similar response might be useful. Having the daughter bolt away screaming and entering the closest business screaming for police, while the father attempts to block the path to his daughter, and strike one or the other violently, once sensing bad intent.

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Van

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/29 ... etail.html

an attack on a woman near Symphony Hall. (safe part of the city, right..?)

two men stood by and watched the attackers casually walk away.

Another reason to avoid cities these days.

But we'll see more of this in times to come.

It also points to the other reality that if we ever get into street fight ...it will be with multiple opponents...not just one as per our training in the dojo.

And the opponents will probably be armed one way or another.

The people not intervening? Let's think about it...why didn't they?

Would all/any of us really intervene and take on five opponents?

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Van

Yeah, It would be disastrous to intervene alone.

You remember the actor Don Stroud? Champion surfer, martial artist in good shape - intervened in a mugging in NY. Stabbed 10 times and lost an eye.

Yes, Kevin, I remember Don Stroud...very good actor.

Here is another clip on 'intervention'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10b2ZTYmmWA

Would any of us really intervene?

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Van