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Tactical
Scenario: 06-2005
It
is a Friday afternoon and you and your wife have been shopping in the new,
spacious indoor mall on the outskirts of the city in which you live. It is almost 7:00 PM and you both have been
there since you met after work. The
shopping experience has been pleasant and now you both are heading for the mall
food court to eat before going home.
You decide to eat in the new cafeteria that is adjacent to the food
court as you make your way through the crowd of shoppers.
Crossing the food court, you become aware of a man
shouting and you observe a somewhat disheveled individual in his mid-twenties
who is waving his arms and yelling at no-one in particular. You carefully navigate your way around the
emotionally disturbed individual and enter the cafeteria. After going through the line and selecting
your food, you carry your trays to a table in the crowed cafeteria that is in
the back near the kitchen. Glad to be
able to sit down and relax, you and your wife begin to enjoy your meal.
A short while later, you hear shouting from the front of
the cafeteria. You notice the same
emotionally disturbed man that you saw in the food court now making his way
through the cafeteria. Several
cafeteria employees are following him trying to direct him out of the building
with no success. He is becoming more
vocal and distraught and suddenly picks up a knife from a table as he makes his
way toward the kitchen. You suddenly
become aware that the man is heading toward you & your wife and that he is
now armed.
You are carrying a Smith & Wesson model 642 AirLite
titanium “J” frame revolver loaded with Federal 125 grain Nyclad “plus P”
hollowpoints in a DeSantis pocket holster and you have a Bianchi Speed Strip
with 6 additional rounds. In addition
to a Surefire Nitrolon flashlight in your jacket pocket, you are carrying a
Spyderco Endura pocket-knife and an 11 gram container of Fox OC spray. Explain what you would do and why.
“The
Cafeteria Response”
My response would be as follows:
Bearing in mind that the subject appears to be an EDI and
is unresponsive to verbal commands and is escalating the force continuum to a
lethal level by grabbing a knife, I would rise from my seat drawing my weapon
and begin shouting “drop the knife!” At the same time, as
powerfully as I could, I would use my left hand to push the table towards the
EDI’s line of attack. I am keeping the table between the attacker, my
wife and me. My purpose is to reboot his OODA loop and allow the pursuit
to catch up. I would take a single step off the line into a kneeling
position. This allows me to shoot at an upward angle and avoid hitting
any friendly folks behind the attacker. If the EDI continued his line of
attack towards us despite my continued verbal warnings and crossed a
pre-established line of decision, I would target the area from the tip of his
chin to the soft area below his Adam’s apple. I don’t think I would have
time for more than one shot before he reached my position.
In my mind disengagement or retreat is not the best
option. There isn’t enough time to physically get my wife and me out of
harms way. In addition, the cafeteria environment (scattered tables and
chairs) creates a large opportunity to get tangled and fall trying to beat a
hasty retreat. He may be targeting someone in the kitchen but he
may be “locked on” to me or my wife.
First, I wouldn’t have even
gone there. I would avoid if at all
possible any conflict, but since we are here, I would stand up and look for a
quick exit with wife. I’d create some distance and put several objects
between me and mister “I Am Mad at the World”. OC might not be a good
option in the enclosed confines of the restaurant because of fans and other air
currents, so I would draw my 642 and Surefire and keep my wife behind
me while moving off the line of threat, hopefully to an exit. If not, I’d use whatever force was needed
to resolve conflict. The flashlight might be enough to toss the
subject off with its bright light.
Option #1 - leave the
area right now! I hope
that I have chosen the most difficult location in the restaurant to
approach and that I have also picked this location on the basis of an easy
exit, which preferably doesn't require going back through the establishment and
therefore into the current danger. If I've been that smart
(possibly, if I'm in Condition Yellow as I ought to be, but admittedly not
quite as likely if the neighborhood is deemed "friendly and
unthreatening" - a tactical error, I'll freely admit). If
so, I'll tell my wife to get up and we will leave by the side door and contact
security if possible, then hang around until the situation has stabilized
or the cops come to take away Mr. Nutjob. (No sense wasting a decent meal
if it can be helped!)
An alternate plan might be to
escape into the rest room with my wife, if it was nearby and not into
the fellow's path and if I already knew that the room had
a solid lock on the door.
Option #2 - attempt to leave
by quietly walking as far around the whacko as possible. I'd look for which way Mr. Knife wielder is
heading and try to escape via a route which takes me as far from him as
possible. Tables and other solid objects would be used as
blockers. My wife would walk behind me on the side away from the
guy. I'd prepare to fight if necessary but try to look unthreatening and
disinterested. I'd try to think of something to say that might calm
(or distract) the fellow if he challenges me. I'd also have my hand in my
pocket, out of sight but ready to draw the J-frame if needed. The
other hand would carry the light as a throw-away object to hopefully distract
the guy if he tries to charge me.
Option #3 - fight back if
challenged. Since a knife
wielder can cover a lot of ground in a hurry once he decides to go for it, I'd
forget about using escalating levels of force and just shoot him if I decided
that he was going to attack, and had taken what I believed to be clear
signs of that action. I have sufficient legal cause to do so, I
think, since he clearly is armed with a dangerous weapon and is in an
extremely agitated state of mind. I'd tell my wife to remain on the
far side of us so she's out of the line of fire and protected by my body (I am,
after all, a chivalrous fellow!) I'd attempt to keep a table or set
of chairs between me and him and if I had to fire I would place as many
rounds into his COM as were necessary to stop his forward
motion. I suppose it would be of great help to my court case
if I were to holler something like ”Don't come near me! - I have
a gun and I will shoot you if you do!" loud enough to be heard by
potential witness.