Random attack at city park

[03Lightningrocks]

Let me be devil's advocate (or just a ).

In this case, the situation is not one of being unarmed; the attacker should not have known if the victim were armed or not, so the presence of a weapon would not have prevented the attack. The attacker came up from behind in a surprise move. Thus, I believe a CCW would have been useless as this event unfolded, except maybe after the fact.

Situational awareness was obviously lacking, but is that the only answer?

How would you discuss this with someone who is not prepared to peer into all the shadows on a sunny day in the park?

One of the news reports stated that the victim had seen the attacker enter the park and acting in an unusual manner. Her initial situational awareness was OK - she simply failed to maintain it.

The 20/20 hindsight lesson here is to either leave the area when this situation is detected, or never lose visual contact with or allow approach by such an individual.

Unfortunately, civilization has conditioned us to ignore our natural instincts. We sense danger, but then we write it off as being "judgmental". Nobody wants to be seen as discriminatory so when they see an obvious miscreant, the instinct to flee is pushed to the back of our minds. This would be one of the drawbacks to "proper" social conditioning.

[Excaliber]

Let me be devil's advocate (or just a ).

In this case, the situation is not one of being unarmed; the attacker should not have known if the victim were armed or not, so the presence of a weapon would not have prevented the attack. The attacker came up from behind in a surprise move. Thus, I believe a CCW would have been useless as this event unfolded, except maybe after the fact.

Situational awareness was obviously lacking, but is that the only answer?

How would you discuss this with someone who is not prepared to peer into all the shadows on a sunny day in the park?

One of the news reports stated that the victim had seen the attacker enter the park and acting in an unusual manner. Her initial situational awareness was OK - she simply failed to maintain it.

The 20/20 hindsight lesson here is to either leave the area when this situation is detected, or never lose visual contact with or allow approach by such an individual.

Unfortunately, civilization has conditioned us to ignore our natural instincts. We sense danger, but then we write it off as being "judgmental". Nobody wants to be seen as discriminatory so when they see an obvious miscreant, the instinct to flee is pushed to the back of our minds. This would be one of the drawbacks to "proper" social conditioning.

This is true, and is the precise point of Gavin de Becker's excellent book "The Gift of Fear."

[KD5NRH]

In case anyone wants to keep up with the victim's progress, her friends and family have got a website going:

http://www.branditodd.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Mando'a]

Let me be devil's advocate (or just a ).

In this case, the situation is not one of being unarmed; the attacker should not have known if the victim were armed or not, so the presence of a weapon would not have prevented the attack. The attacker came up from behind in a surprise move. Thus, I believe a CCW would have been useless as this event unfolded, except maybe after the fact.

Situational awareness was obviously lacking, but is that the only answer?

How would you discuss this with someone who is not prepared to peer into all the shadows on a sunny day in the park?

One of the news reports stated that the victim had seen the attacker enter the park and acting in an unusual manner. Her initial situational awareness was OK - she simply failed to maintain it.

The 20/20 hindsight lesson here is to either leave the area when this situation is detected, or never lose visual contact with or allow approach by such an individual.

Unfortunately, civilization has conditioned us to ignore our natural instincts. We sense danger, but then we write it off as being "judgmental". Nobody wants to be seen as discriminatory so when they see an obvious miscreant, the instinct to flee is pushed to the back of our minds. This would be one of the drawbacks to "proper" social conditioning.

This is true, and is the precise point of Gavin de Becker's excellent book "The Gift of Fear."

My wife read that book a while back, it's in the house somewhere. I need to read it to help boost my situational awareness.

I agree, we are conditioned to not "Judge" people. Our initial gut "feeling," is normally right.

I've overridden that instinct several times, and got bit for it.

[PUCKER]

I can't post the exact specifics but my wife does part-time work for a foundation that has several group homes and a day program for adults with mental disabilities (mental retardation, autism, etc.).

One of the clients goes around continually muttering abusive language/phrases, not generally directed at anyone in particular though. My wife has never worked directly with this particular client before but she has been around him in a group setting and witnessed his tirades, all verbal, not violent/physical. Some of the clients are physical and have to be restrained.

Well, my wife was filling in for someone during an outing by the day program to a local park. The playground was cleared (meaning no kids nearby) and it was OK for the clients to be there (according to the foundation's protocols). They started out with some free time in a field, but not *at* the playground. Well, wouldn't you know, my wife drew the short straw that day and got to be in charge of the client I'm posting about. She turns around to check on a situation and within a split second this client is making a bee-line towards the playground...and now a family/van has pulled up. Mother, father and 2 little kids. My wife and the other workers are RUNNING towards the playground. The parents let their kids go and play without being nearby enough to stop anything from happening....AND my wife wasn't able to keep a handle on the client...next thing you know, the client is ON TOP of one of the little girls....he's saying REALLY naughty words, none of it was sexual in nature, but he still attacked her and was on top of her. My wife and the other workers were able to get the client off of the little girl. They talked to the family, they were understanding of the situation and AMAZINGLY did NOT call the cops to report the attack.

Some observations:
-the client is LUCKY that the father/mother did NOT have a CHL
-the client is LUCKY to be ALIVE (see above) or not physically harmed (by parents, not a parent here but I cannot post how severe my reaction would be to STOP a threat like the scenario above).
-parents need to stick like GLUE to their kids
-a client like that should NOT be placed under the care of a part-timer
-a client like that should NOT be allowed in public, in my non-professional opinion, he's a danger to himself and others
-an attack like this needs to be reported to the police - this helps to document a behavioral pattern

Apparently the incident was reported by the foundation to the State (state funded), not sure of the extent of what will happen though. Suffice it to say, my wife has taken a break from doing this.

[KD5NRH]

-the client is LUCKY that the father/mother did NOT have a CHL
-the client is LUCKY to be ALIVE (see above) or not physically harmed (by parents, not a parent here but I cannot post how severe my reaction would be to STOP a threat like the scenario above).

Extremely lucky. Things like that are why a lot of us practice the "hostage shot." If I couldn't get a clean shot, I'd be going for a field goal with his head.

-an attack like this needs to be reported to the police - this helps to document a behavioral pattern

+1

[KD5NRH]

FWIW, the attacker has been convicted and sentenced to 20 years.

[C-dub]

FWIW, the attacker has been convicted and sentenced to 20 years.

Thanks for the update. I hadn't forgot about this, but I hadn't heard anything in the news lately either.

[KD5NRH]

FWIW, the attacker has been convicted and sentenced to 20 years.

Thanks for the update. I hadn't forgot about this, but I hadn't heard anything in the news lately either.

Looking at the story in today's paper, it basically came down to duelling shrinks, but the defense's psychologist couldn't come up with a good excuse for the attacker ditching the weapon if, as he claimed, he hadn't known he'd done something wrong at the time.