I had Friday off and during the course of my day had two possibly self defense type encounters. I wanted to share them to extract a few lessons learned.
During my day off I had an appointment in a gun free zone. So, I (lawfully) left my sidearm in the car. Once I finished my business in the victim disarmament zone, I decided to go out for lunch as I was already downtown. So I got my car and drove over to my favorite local restaurant, which happens to be a new, nice, classy joint in the middle of a decaying sketchy downtown area. Initially I stayed disarmed; the state we're currently living in doesn't have "restaurant carry." I saw that the restaurant didn't open for lunch for another half hour or so, and I decided to kill some time downtown.
I started to stroll off, then I thought to myself: "Baaaaa" (sheep-like bleating, for those of you on closed captioning at home):
If you are a warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be “on” 24/7 for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself... “Baa.” - Dave Grossman
So I return to the car and pick up my S&W M&P compact (10 rounds, condition 3 as I was doing administrative gun handling in the car) and spare mag (15). I holstered up but did not chamber a round (administrative gun handling in public and in the car makes me nervous). I'm glad I did (although I would have preferred to be in condition one).
I then go for my stroll down main street. It is broad daylight at about 1100 on a sunny Friday. I do not consider it particularly high risk; while the downtown is decaying, the main drag is actually patrolled by police and they haven't abandoned it to the meth-labs like some of the outlying residential areas and really rough downtown neighborhoods. I figure I'll swing by the civic center and performing arts center and see if there are any interesting shows coming up and maybe window shop a bit until the restaurant opened for lunch, at which time I would swing back by the car, drop off the gun, and have a delicious sammich.
Encounter One: As I'm strolling by an antiques shop (closed), a young 30s/high 20s aged woman is loitering out in front. She's dressed casually, with baggy clothes; not very well kept. The woman steps out in the sidewalk and engages me verbally at about 8 yards distance, "Hey, when's this antiques shop opening back up?" Meanwhile a dude steps out of the recessed shop entry, strolling down the side of the antiques shop towards me, hands in pockets, eyeing me intently. I go from "yellow" to "orange." This looks sketchy.
I step back, blade, say, "
No, I don't know, later" while watching the dude. As I blade and start eyeing him, he stops his forward motion. I then glance over my shoulder, see the street is clear, and immediately cross the street while keeping them in my line of sight. They do not follow and slink back to the recessed entryway to the antiques shop.
In hindsight, the shaded recessed entry way to the antiques shop looks a lot like an ambush zone. I'm glad I didn't enter the ambush zone.
As an after action review, I think I handled this ok. You can't avoid getting within 7 yards of every stranger on the street in a downtown area. I had the SA to identify the "kill zone" (shaded entryway) and I also noticed the semi-hidden threat (quiet larger male trying to flank me). I avoided entering the kill zone, I didn't take the verbal bait and get distracted, I kept track of the man, and I preserved an escape option to get away.
Encounter Two: I see someone else loitering dressed in an "urban" manner (baggy pants, ball cap, etc). I am still unnerved from the first encounter and just pre-emptively cross the street. At this point a police car cruises slowly down the street. Both sets of loiterers (encounter 1 & 2) find somewhere else to be, turning away from the street and walking towards alleys.
Maybe this was an overreaction, maybe not. As an after action point, at this point I subconsciously realized the threat. It wasn't until later, when I was thinking about it while eating lunch, that I thought, "Hrm... In the middle of the day on Friday, most legit folks are in school or at work. People who are dressed like urban thugs, who are loitering on the street in the middle of the work/school day are sketchy." Call that stereotyping or whatever but there is a ring of truth to it. Guy in suit walking with a purpose down the street? Office worker out for lunch. Mom with kids? Not a threat. Young guy dressed like a thug loitering during the school day? Unemployed
jit.
Encounter Three: Having checked the schedule at the civic center, I walk back to my restaurant, which opens in like 10-15 minutes. For some reason, in retrospect, the police patrol and scurrying of cockroaches reassured me for no good reason. Rather than going back to my car to wait (smart), I sit down at a table in front of the restaurant in their street/outdoor seating area and pull out my kindle to read (stupid).
Luckily I keep some SA while reading and am glancing around every page or so. I'm glad I did. On the other side of the street and offset about 10 yards is an alleyway. Two fine upstanding youths (older teenagers maybe? I pegged them at 17-20 or so in age) dressed in an "urban" style turn the corner of the alley as I glance up from my book. They are walking side by side. They see me and one says something to the other. They then break from walking side by side and one drifts back and off to the side a few paces.
Instead of staying on their side of the street, they both make a beeline across the street at an angle right towards me. They are staring intently and walking
fast. The leader is wearing a tight wifebeater but I see a clip (knife?) in his front pocket. The trailer has hands tucked in baggy pockets and has a big baggy jersey-type shirt on. I go from yellow to orange. When they're about halfway across the street I stand up from my bistro table. At about seven paces I get my hands in the interview position, blade with the table between us, and say, "What's up, guys?" I am moving to condition red and think,
"self, if they take another step I need to tell them to HALT and if they keep coming I need to draw my M&P. Shit."
Luckily at this point they take another step, the leader sizes me up and mumbles, "wassup, man?" and alters course up the street and away from me, slowing pace to an amble and walking in the middle of the street. The trailer throws a long lingering glance over the shoulder at me, and I remain bladed and staring at them.
As an after action, I made a bunch of mistakes here. First off, I did not absorb the lessons of the first encounters. This was the first time I had been downtown during mid-day on a work day. I should have realized from the first two encounters that it was sketchy as heck and gone back to my car. Instead, I let myself be lulled back into a false sense of security by the bright sunny day, the sight of a patrol cruiser driving by, and the presence of a private rent-a-cop inside a medical facility about 500 yards away down the street, even though at the moment in time neither the LEOs nor the rent-a-cop had line of sight to me.
Next, I "won" the victim selection lottery. If you are a pair of
hungry urban boars cruising downtown, what does a single reasonably clean cut white guy sitting in front of the most expensive restaurant in a bad downtown area fiddling with an electronic device look like? This is what it looks like:
I looked like lunch.
Finally, I waited too long to confront the duo. A typical street is probably about 10 yards across. My sidewalk gave me another 2 yards or so of distance. Based on the tueller drill, I'd need to be bladed and in condition red, ready to draw and fire when they were at 7 yards distance, i.e., when they crossed the mid-point of the street. Heck, based on being in condition 3 (no round in the pipe) I needed to pad that distance even more. I did not
begin my verbal challenge until they were at that point.
I needed to politely challenge (like I did, soft words) as they vectored towards me across the street, hard challenge (hard words -- "stop right there!") as they hit the mid point of the street, and be ready to start a draw stroke shortly thereafter. Had they continued on, my "hard words" would have been at about 5 yards and my draw stroke would have been as the lead guy was hitting the sidewalk edge. I waited way too late to determine their intent.
As a post-script, I did not follow up with law enforcement. I should have immediately gone into the restaurant and called the police. Nothing criminal occurred but I definitely felt like I was being
hunted. I don't want to be the guy who calls wolf but I definitely felt threatened. I didn't have my phone on me but I could have used one in the restaurant. There was a police unit within 10 minutes (I had just seen one cruising by) and they could have checked out the guys.
On the plus side, my aggressive body language and SA seemed to have warded off a few negative encounters. I did not have to display or use my sidearm but I was very glad to have it there, and I think having it helped me take an aggressive stance. As a note, I did not intentionally go into a dangerous environment
because I was armed. Remember, I almost did all of this without saddling up but it was only the habit I have established that got me to go back to the car to pick up the M&P. I genuinely thought that the middle of main street on a bright sunny afternoon would be ok and reasonably safe. While I wouldn't go down there after dark, it seemed ok in broad daylight. This was also the first time I'd cruised downtown alone. It wasn't until I'd really assimilated the encounters that I changed my assessment.
I'm still picking these incidents over but wanted to get the initial thoughts out while they were still fresh in my mind. Typing this out, the first and third incidents seem way sketchier and I really regret not contacting law enforcement.
