Self-Defense Zone: Crime Prevention & Self-Defense Forums

Boogie Man · Moderator Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 44

NEW ORLEANS-- Mayor Ray Nagin ordered 1,500 police officers to leave their search-and-rescue mission Wednesday night and return to the streets to stop looting that has turned increasingly hostile as the city plunges deeper into chaos.

"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas-- hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The number of officers called off the search-and-rescue mission amounts to virtually the entire police force in New Orleans.

Amid the turmoil Wednesday, thieves commandeered a forklift and used it to push up the storm shutters and break the glass of a pharmacy. The crowd stormed the store, carrying out so much ice, water and food that it dropped from their arms as they ran. The street was littered with packages of ramen noodles and other items.

Looters also chased down a state police truck full of food. The New Orleans police chief ran off looters while city officials themselves were commandeering equipment from a looted Office Depot. During a state of emergency, authorities have broad powers to take private supplies and buildings for their use.

Managers at a nursing home were prepared to cope with the power outages and had enough food for days, but then the looting began. The home's bus driver was forced to surrender the vehicle to carjackers.

Bands of people drove by the nursing home, shouting to residents, "Get out!" Eighty residents, most of them in wheelchairs, were being evacuated to other nursing homes in the state.

"We had enough food for 10 days," said Peggy Hoffman, the home's executive director. "Now we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot."

At one store, hordes of people from all ages, races and walks of life grabbed food and water. Some drove away with trunkloads of beer.

At one point, two officers drew their guns on the looters, but the thieves left without incident. One of the officers said he was not going to arrest anyone for snatching up food and water.

One young man was seen wading through chest-deep floodwater, carrying a case of soda, after looting a grocery store.

"It's really difficult because my opinion of the looting is it started with people running out of food, and you can't really argue with that too much," Nagin said. "Then it escalated to this kind of mass chaos where people are taking electronic stuff and all that."

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she has asked the White House to send more people to help with evacuations and rescues, thereby freeing up National Guardsmen to stop looters.

"We will restore law and order," Blanco said. "What angers me the most is that disasters like this often bring out the worst in people. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior."

John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association, said he had not heard of anyone breaking into the hospitals, but he added that thieves got into the parking garage at one hospital and were stealing car batteries and stereos.

New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert, said looters were breaking into stores all over town and stealing guns. He said there are gangs of armed men moving around the city. At one point, officers stranded on the roof of a hotel were fired at by criminals on the street.

Authorities said an officer was shot in the head and a looter was wounded in a shootout. The officer and looter were expected to survive.

- www.suntimes.com/output/hurricane/31loot.html

So what do you think guys, ho to prepare yourself for such accidents? Mass riots, disorder, police unable to enforce law; armed looters intrude into private houses or attack cars with citizens...
How will you prepare to defend yourself/your family?

Guest · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 7:31 am Post subject:

Step 1) Move to Canada, where we don't have such an adversarial attitude. If anything were to happen, everyone would go home, dial their radios to CBC (our equivalent to NPR) listen for tips from the government, and wait for the army to bring them food. We look out our windows mostly not for threats to our safety, but for people who might need our help.

scholar warrior · Newbie Joined: 09 Jul 2006 Posts: 3 Location: Florida

The old boy scout motto, "Be Prepared" comes into play here. Always be aware of your surroundings, make plans for your loved ones, so they know what to do and how to rendevous at a pre chosen location should you get seperated, and be prepared to take a life if someone threatens you or yours.

arath · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:19 am Post subject: terrible scenario

arrggh, this reminds me of some genocidal riots I happened to be in the vinincity of in the east. I was in little danger here - I'm a highly trained and experienced soldier, but I wasn't in this area in an official capacity or in uniform - also, I was heavily armed. I repeat, I was in little danger - at the same time I was also pretty helpless to prevent the slaughter going on around me. Usually, if there's a fight on the street or an attack I always interfere, with good results, but this was on a scale that even I could do nothing about. It's one of the few times in my life I've been absolutely helpless to aid people in danger, and it was most unpleasant.

Okay, off topic, as usual, arrgghh. Well, be alert, be armed, don't get too close to the mobs - blend with your surroundings - evade, evade. Keep up your fitness - if you're targetted, run like hell - a mob's attention span isn't that long - they'll usually focus on something easier.

If you're trying to save your property, I'd say it depends on the size of the mob and their lethal tendencies. In the case I saw I'd say it was pretty much impossible - perhaps a dozen men with automatic weapons could do it (hold them off an area) - one man? impossible.
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arath · Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 7:23 am Post subject:

Depends on the motivations of the mob - in the case above, if it's food, it's hard to argue with that, and the ocassional thief trying to take advantage of the general chaos will back down (usually) before two confident armed people, or so, but if it's an organized mob bent on genocide - evade. Stay out of their way, and don't hesitate to gun down your attackers if they back you into a corner.
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bmcgonag · Newbie Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 3 Location: New Mexico

I think it's pretty hard to say what yow ould do until you are in the situation. Making a plan is fine, and a good practice, but you should have at least two contingency plans, and be in a mind frame that if the plans don't work out, do what you know, do what is safe, and avoid areas/situations that aren't safe if at all possible.

If you home is not destroyed by whatever caused the riots, stay home, and be prepared to defend it.

Brian
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sjohnsoncqb · Registered User Joined: 06 Jan 2008 Posts: 26

There is no clear and easy answer, but as I see it you have two clear choices:

1. Stay where you are and hunker down. This would be an option only if you have someone that is unable to escape the area, or the methods and means of escape are unavailable to you. For this scenario, you would need to have done disaster preparation in advance and have enough food and water to last you for a set amount of time. You'd also want to put together a Safe Room and be armed to defend yourself in case people tried breaking into it. Hopefully anyone who broke in would just loot whatever you left outside the Safe Room while you remained inside, but there are never any guarantees. The major disadvantage is if they set your place on fire, you're screwed.

2. Get out of dodge. If you know there are riots coming, I would do whatever you could to get out of the area. Once again, this requires pre-disaster planning in that you have all your valuables and documentation in an easy to find location, ready to be taken at a moment's notice. You would also have to have food and water that would be mobile enough to take with you, and a tend or some other portable shelter you could bring.

It's not a good situation, but it is better to plan just in case so you have some sort of plan.
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JackAubrey · Registered User Joined: 18 Sep 2005 Posts: 12

My wife is from Louisiana and from what I have seen of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina you couldn't pay me enough to live in that cess pool.The reactions of the mobs after Katrina didn't surprise me in the slightest.It was the same mentality we all saw in the Rodney King riots in L.A. .My mother in law lives in Dallas ,Texas and told of large groups of Katrina refugees being settled nearby.I'm sure it was a coincidence,but the rapes,carjackings and other crimes skyrocketed.Of course,it was politically incorrect for the media to make an issue of this.If I did live there I would have done whatever I could to move as quickly as possible.I never sent a dime to the New Orleans Katrina relief.I was more concerned with Biloxi Mississippi whe was just a severely damaged yet the law abiding citizens were the exact opposite of the N.O. mobs.Awareness of ones surroundings is key.

Kage36

A good self-protection plan always begins before you find yourself in an incident - long before.

There are lots of really good points made in this thread and they all point to preparedness. But preparedness for what?

Contingency plans. Shooting if we have to. Avoiding certain areas (on vacation, for living, having a safe room, etc.)...

All of this points to awareness on many levels.

As I see it, there are three types, or areas, of awareness when dealing with the issue of self-protection.

First is General Awareness. This includes recognizing not only that danger exists in the world, but also the types that I am likely to encounter. We can begin simply with our own living area and then extend outward toward perhaps vacation areas, etc.

I tend to deal on the level of self-protection, rather than simply self-defense. So, to me, there is more to it than just dealing with the guys who are looting and attacking.

At this level of awareness, I would not have lived in an area where the city is BELOW the level of the river in the first place! And, even if I was visiting or had to be there temporarily (business, etc.), I would have heeded warnings and moved to safety.

The second type of awareness is "Situational Awareness." This is the ability to pay attention to what's going on around you so that you may respond appropriately. Here, it's important to know "what" to look for in the way of danger signs, escape routes, safe areas, etc.

Taken far enough, this also includes the study of and understanding of body language cues, attacker-types and mentality, and criminal M.O. in your area.

This type of awareness is needed should you find yourself in the danger zone either because you chose to stay (better be REALLY good reasons), or the situation happened so quickly that you couldn't get out first.

And, finally, the last type of awareness is "Incident Awareness." This is where you're in the thick of things and have to stay focused on what's important. Again, however, this begins in training BEFORE you get here.

Any good police officer, bodyguard, or soldier will tell you that... "you will respond only as well as you trained."

What that means is that, if you drop your guard or don't bother to use some sort of stress-response training in order to hone your skills under pressure, you can never be sure how you'll operate when you're "in it."

This was proven out in studies conducted in Vietnam during the war. What they found was, contrary to what the movies like to show, in a typical unit, only 20% of the combatants were returning fire in a fire fight!

Another example of this is the fact that many police officers killed in a firefight are found with empty shell casings or clips in their pockets or magazine pouches. Why? Because during training, they were too lazy to pick things up after they were done shooting and got in the habit during reloading.

Combat vets know that often what makes sense normally can be quite different from what happens under pressure. So, train the way you want to respond.

Again, this all boils down to awareness.

Awareness of the types of dangers we may face - so we can properly prepare and get whatever training and knowledge we may need.

Awareness of our surroundings so we can respond before, or at the very least "as" something is happening. And...

Awareness during a confrontation - so we can stay focused on what's important and make the necessary decisions and actions that will get us out of there.

Even awareness of our own strengths and limitations, personality type, and typical responses when we're under pressure, frightened, etc.

One of my teachers once told me, "it's not that bad things happen - it's what you do when they happen that matters." And what you'll do is determined primarily by what you focus on.
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womenofcaliber · Newbie Joined: 13 Apr 2009 Posts: 1 Location: Orem, UT

We have adequate food storage and firearm preparedness so we can also "hanker down" and defend our home. Recently, I invited women in my neighborhood together so we could discuss the various aspects of preparedness and build a stronger community. When we are unified together, we are stronger together as a whole. Gangs look for easier targets.

My husband is an avid hiker and is prepared to "run for the hills" as it were, should the occasion call for.
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Edgedweapons · Newbie Joined: 09 Jan 2010 Posts: 3

Gather Food, water, weapons, Friends, and family
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