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Surviving the Knockout Game

Timely, as the wife and I just watched an episode of "Blue Bloods" last night (from season 4) that was about this very topic. Certainly being aware of your environment, versus having your face buried in a phone, are key ways to avoid these type of attacks. And avoiding areas of known problems is also important, when possible.
 
Living overseas as Americans, I taught my family these same things. I described it as OPSEC (operations security), and told them to always be aware of their surroundings. This was decades before I heard of the color codes of awareness discussed in EDC circles.
 
jfmorris said:
Timely, as the wife and I just watched an episode of "Blue Bloods" last night (from season 4) that was about this very topic. Certainly being aware of your environment, versus having your face buried in a phone, are key ways to avoid these type of attacks. And avoiding areas of known problems is also important, when possible.
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Agree. Never have your face buried in the phone if you are in an area with people. Takes only one to do harm to you. I see folks run into stuff all the time walking with head in phone. Easy targets.

i had a group of young men come towards me in a downtown metro area while walking between accounts. They were all staring at me. Made eye contact and put my hand on my hip above my CC. They promptly moved the other way. Told the police about them and an officer engaged them in conversation to make them aware of their known presence . The group got in a parked car and left .
Always be aware of whats going on
 
Also called "Street smarts" in many places. Lot to it, sometimes like reading "books" - you feel, see signs if know what looking for. Depends on areas traveling too. Cities usually different than country settings. One can be as rough as the other. Can be somewhat different in different areas or regions of same type places with avoiding, dealing with manipulation. Foresight, experience helps, isn't cure all.
 
Mike H. said:
Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled Surviving the Knockout Game and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/surviving-the-knockout-game/.

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Something recently happened to me. As a legal concealed carry citizen it observe proper etiquette and never carry while drinking or in public areas with alcohol involved. I feel I was targeted for that but unfortunately even being armed would not have prevented the situation.
 
This was going on in NYC when I lived there. After leaving my Krav Maga class one night at about 9:00pm, 3 teenage punks walking toward me set off my "radar" when one of them pointed at me and whispered something to one of the others. I knew they were up to something even though I was watching them closely. Sure enough, the one who was whispered to took a swing at me. I blocked his punch, broke his arm at the elbow, and rammed him into a brick wall face first. I looked at the other 2 who were backing away and said, "Who's next?", when 2 other guys from my class came running up, having seen the attack. I told them, "You guys can practice on these 2". The other punks turned and ran, leaving their screaming cohort on the ground behind. This happened in a "good neighborhood" but I always had my head on swivel with "radar" on automatically when I lived there and still do today even though we now live in the country in another state. Always be aware and stay safe!

Edit for spelling and punctuation.
 
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Mike H. said:
Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled Surviving the Knockout Game and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/surviving-the-knockout-game/.

Click to expand...
When younger I taught and coached in a minority school in Houston. One afternoon while I waited for my baseball team to arrive for practice a group of four young "toughs" lead by "Buzzard", (appropriately named), showed up. Buzzard announced, "we are going to whip your big, white ***." I removed a bat from the equipment bag and said, "you first Buzzard". An attitude and a baseball bat changed their minds. "Aw man, we only kidding." After that I always went to the field with the team.
 
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IVYDIV said:
When younger I taught and coached in a minority school in Houston. One afternoon while I waited for my baseball team to arrive for practice a group of four young "toughs" lead by "Buzzard", (appropriately named.) walked up. Buzzard announced, "we are going to whip your big, white ***." I took a bat from the equipment bag and said "you first Buzzard". A baseball bat changed their minds. "Aw man, we only kidding." After that I always went to the field with the team.
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IVYDIV said:
When younger I taught and coached in a minority school in Houston. One afternoon while I waited for my baseball team to arrive for practice a group of four young "toughs" lead by "Buzzard", (appropriately named), showed up. Buzzard announced, "we are going to whip your big, white ***." I removed a bat from the equipment bag and said, "you first Buzzard". An attitude and a baseball bat changed their minds. "Aw man, we only kidding." After that I always went to the field with the team.
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Lock n' Load said:
This was going on in NYC when I lived there. After leaving my Krav Maga class one night at about 9:00pm, 3 teenage punks walking toward me set off my "radar" when one of them pointed at me and whispered something to one of the others. I knew they were up to something even though I was watching them closely. Sure enough, the one who was whispered to took a swing at me. I blocked his punch, broke his arm at the elbow, and rammed him into a brick wall face first. I looked at the other 2 who were backing away and said, "Who's next?", when 2 other guys from my class came running up, having seen the attack. I told them, "You guys can practice on these 2". The other punks turned and ran, leaving their screaming cohort on the ground behind. This happened in a "good neighborhood" but I always had my head on swivel with "radar" on automatically when I lived there and still do today even though we now live in the country in another state. Always be aware and stay safe!

Edit for spelling and punctuation.
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First of all, well done.

One of my NYC stories happen not too long after 9/11. I was on the A train from what is lovingly call "Up State Manhattan down to the West Village. It becomes an express line after a certain stop, so I decided to "rest my eyes." At Columbus Circle, I opened my eyes, partially, as many people get on at that stop. Sure enough, some knuckle head got on the car I was in and, as the train rolled out of the station, he announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a stick up."

By the time I'd opened my eyes, my hand was on one of my...toys. I did a quick calculation about where this fool was, how far away he was, how many other fools were with him, and what I could or couldn't do when the fecal matter clashed with the oscillating blades.

The next second, Knucklehead said, "Just kidding, y'all. We're here to perform for you."

Everyone in the car exhaled at the same time and I saw, out of the corner of my eyes, many hands coming out of their coats/pocket/bags as mine was doing the same thing. I locked eyes with a man next to me. He said, "those fools were lucky."

"Yep," I said.

A lady across from me - who had drawn her hand from her purse - mentioned how stupid that kid was to say something like that, especially after 9/11. I agreed.

What made me smile, inwardly, was how many people were on high alert in that subway car. We definitely need more like them in the world.
 
The issue is the kids do not fear citizens. They know once the cops get involved there is a better than average chance they will get a slap on the wrist and be a hero in their group. In some areas they can actually sue the citizens if they are hurt by the citizen fighting back. Sure they most likely won't prevail but the financial punishment to the citizen is still there.

We need to have a FEDERAL law that protects citizens by providing that a Citizen is protected civilly and criminally from any action they take to respond to a violent felony until law enforcement take the scene. Then the thugs will know that if during the assault the citizen manage to get the upper hand they are free to take any action they wish until the cops (usually 10 to 15 minutes) arrive. If we see a juvenile doing the crime figuring they get a break...sorry junior its gonna suck for you .

This way if the citizen responds and permanently disables or just has a bit of painful fun with the thug(s) some activist prosecutor has their hands effectively tied in response to the citizen
 
I've said this before and I will say it again you cannot teach somebody situational awareness. You cannot decide to increase or decrease your level of situational awareness. You can decide whether a given action (such as varying your route home) is prudent or unnecessary but I don't believe that you can make a conscious decision to be more or less situationally aware in any given situation at least not for any extended period of time.

I've made this analogy before and I'm absolutely convinced it's correct, situational awareness is like a radar detector. The majority of the time your radar detector is sitting on your dashboard doing its thing and you're paying it no attention, until it picks up signal and it beeps.

The majority of the time your "situational awareness" is sitting on your brain's dashboard doing its thing and you're not paying any attention to it until it picks up a signal that your experiences taught you is bad juju.

I also said this before, I don't think I've ever had anybody continue the assault if you want to call it that once they realized that I was aware of them and getting ready to defend myself.

But I've never had anybody target me when I wasn't at work. I don't know if the uniform made them back down or not but I know that when I was at work and people were planning something and they noticed that I was observing them they would back down.
 
aside from making sure people are safe this always reminds me to make sure people are having conversations with their children about this stuff. Fortunately my boy came up when it was pranks like clear wrap on a toilet or tape through a doorway. Never the less, we had a conversation with him about it and the potential dangers involved. At that time, to an average adult i think it was pretty clear a lot of the “situation” were set up but young viewers may not have been able to make this distinction. We explained this and the “what if” you do this to someone and they react with violence which was easy to hammer home because the “scary clown” was a thing and i have an irrational fear of clowns. lesson learned 😂

Fortunately, our approach worked I’d like to think because the boy never got his head knocked off and i never had a wee on clear plastic on a toilet 😂.
 
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