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Here in the Portland area we have a mass transit system called the MAX, It is pretty much a standard railway system that has a few minutes between stops. It does seem to draw a lot of street thugs to it.
Well last night 6 kids surround a guy on the Max and proceed to beat the crap out of him. They claimed that it was because he had a bicycle and they don’t like it when people bring their bikes on the Max. It seems more like a race related incident because all six were African American and the guy with the bike was Caucasian. (Trying to be PC here) Thats not really the point though. All of the passengers on the train just stood by and watched while this guy got beat down (sounds like it was pretty serious, hospital and all that, 1000.00 reward leading to the arrest of the attackers).
So the situation is you against 6 unarmed (we will say) attackers while you are trapped between stops on a train.
So my question is what would you do in that situation?
A. If you had a knife, what would you do? 6:1 is pretty bad odds, and you would stand a pretty good chance of getting it taken and used on you. And if you did successfully manage to incapacitate 6 people on a train with your knife, you would probably have some explaining to do to the Police / legal fee’s etc.
B. What if you were unarmed? (Or had exactly what you always carry, whatever that may be.)
C. What if you were a passenger?
Just curious to hear your opinions on this situation.
Seems the bike would make a pretty good weapon in a pinch to me. Honestly if I am against those odds I am taking as many down with me as I can. If I am a passenger watching this…then its time to get involved as only a good citizen would.
Yet more reasons to enact concealed carry laws country wide and lessen the restrictions on using deadly force.
\”Yet more reasons to enact concealed carry laws country wide and lessen the restrictions on using deadly force.\”
So, you’d start shooting on a crowded train?
My guess is, there’s more to the story, and the guy probably had some indication that there was potential for problems. This is where understanding pre-contact cues and training the behavioral delivery system is important. It’s difficult to postulate what ifs, since we don’t know everything. It’s also difficult to simply say that we’d get involved. What if you were with your family?
Six on one is not good. Now, there may be more to the story but six on one beatings should not happen regardless.
I would not pull a knife, if I had one that might well get taken away and used. maybe through the bike at them? But you are stuck. Cell phone? call police in front of them so they know the police might be waiting?
In general, thugs have a head thug and the rest followers. Take out the alpha thug hard and fast and maybe the rest will back off, but, hard to say on a train. Gun on a crowded train? Hope the armed good guy is well trained……..
JC
Just to clarify, by stating that there is probably more to the story, I didn’t mean to imply that the guy was somehow responsible or that he deserved. I’m trying to illustrate the importance of awareness and pre-contact training.
I understand what your saying about pre-contact cues. Im not saying start shooting on a crowded train. As I have said before, usually brandishing a weapon (handgun) will difuse the situation as no one wants to be the first to charge an armed person. The problem is…Karl never posted any of the \”pre-contact\” cues nor does he probably even know them, as this probably comes from a local news article.
It doesnt matter how the fight starts….in a situation like this you must end the conflict quickly or risk serious injury to yourself. As FFDO posted there is usually an \”Alpha-thug\” who if removed will discourage the rest. A good pre-contact notice would be to identify and target him first. Other than that keep your back to the wall and use your bike as a weapon. Suprise and agression would be the only way to escape this incident without severe injuries.
I would never advocate just brandishing a weapon, especially in a crowd. This may encourage others to draw weapons who otherwise wouldn’t have, and it will surely cause panic. I also disagree with the notion that \”It doesnt matter how the fight starts\”. If that were the case, de-escalation would never work/be applicable, and pre-contact cues would be irrelevant.
6 Guys come to attack me your damn right I pull my handgun, crowd or no crowd I am entitled to defend ME. What I meant by \”it doesnt matter how the fight starts\” is this. A fight can be provoked or unprovoked. It doesnt matter. Point is from the moment the attack occurs you must go into the mode of \”I AM GOING TO WALK AWAY FROM THIS\”
Some times there are no \”pre-contact\” cues.
Example: Good friend of mine was cruising down the road windows down radio going. My friend stops at the stoplight. Guy who just got done fighting with his girlfriend gets out of his car walks from my buddies blindsport and clocks my friend through the window. Shattered his cheekbone and eyesocket. Knocked him out. My buddy when he woke up thought he got hit by a car. Why did the guy hit him? \”I just needed to hit someone\” was the answer the police got from the guy. (This happened just a couple weeks ago btw)
If people sat by and watched this guy get his butt kicked then they would sit around and watch when he pulled a gun too. Anyone carrying a weapon legally (Key term: Legally) would recognize that guys right to defend himself with a firearm.
Sometimes there are pre-contact cues, and sometimes there aren’t. Even if they are giving pre-contact cues, what makes you think that you or anyone is going to recognize the cue right away? Gamblers and MA’s always say that everyone has a \”tell\” but the best gamblers and MA’s will tell you that you cant always learn someones \”tell\” right away. Me I tend to clinch my fist and my jaw muscles start bunching up. But that is all the warning you will get from me before I hit you. My girlfriend has learned my \”tell\”, and usually tries to pull me away from the butthole before I get to the point of throwing a punch. Unless you spar with me or know me well…then you probably wont pick up on those little things.
Final point then I am off my soap box. You can preach pre-contact cues all you want…..but even if the guy did notice the cue…what was he supposed to do….jump from a moving train? He was locked in a train with 6 guys attacking him. Best you can do with that is identify the leader as the main target to drop.
Read my quote at the bottom, then read this on not getting involved.
Thinking something is not my problem or it wont hurt me if I dont get involved leads to tyranny and opression. I would do the same thing if my family were there. Why? Because my son would be watching, and I want him to be the kind of man that my father raised me to be. I will not sit by and watch someone else be beaten.
Anti-terrorism \”experts\” used to preach that if you plane gets hijacked then you should just cooperate with them and try not to be noticed. That kind of attitude works untill some jack-ass decides that since we wont fight em they can take a plane over with box-cutters and fly em into a building. THREE GUYS kill thousands!
I would use my dH3ead$ly Ninja skillzz like batman, Di mak the leader, then catch the second guy in a open guard so no onelese could kick me….
Sorry, I have been over at Bullshido.com to long 😯 😆
Seriously, you don’t have to fight every battle for every person in trouble. I am not gonna get involved in something just because I love Rons sig quote. As was said it all depends. Like the Burger bar knock out, the guy called the girlfriend a name, was kinda rude, and got knocked out. I might have pulled the thug off in the end but I would not jump in the middle, you never know.
Now on the train, if I had a bike, I would use it as a raod block in the asile, fight a retreating battle as they come across it, use my cell phone antena as a weapon. I would try to isolate using the seats, poles, and even people just sitting around watching (yes I would) while also tieing up attackers and holding them as shields. I would attempt to use my bike as a road block, the pump as a club or prode, and each attacker I would stuff down on top of the last, against the bike, and pile them up.
just like batman would.
or, I would leave the bike and go to the next car, and the next.
or, my complicated roadblock plan would fail, and I would go down, and get kicked repeatedly untill unconcious. or I would try to crawl under the seats.
I guess if he had a bike he was near the door, where there is alot of space on the car, so they surronded him. Again, bike to one side hard and outfalling step the other way toward aisile. Gotta isolate 2 or three at first then move back down aisle to isolate the group into a line. You can also try to work it as a circle with ghost kicks and footwork, but that is real hard.
One on one I wont get involved unless it gets too dangerous for either of the participants. But 6 on 1…well thats just not fair. I would be looking for others to jump in on a 6 on 1….even if it was only as a distraction or acting as cheerleaders when I put them down.
Fair? WTF does fair have to do with anything? I likely wouldn’t get involved if my family was present because it’s my job to protect THEM, not the other guy. What makes you think they wouldn’t turn on your family once you decided to intervene? What are you going to do then, John Wayne? Maybe this was a gang initiation–you have no idea what the background is, and to simply say that you’d intervene because it’s not fair is ludicrous (by the way, I never said don’t intervene.)
Also, you said that you’d brandish the weapon to diffuse the situation. If you pull a gun on someone, it should be because it’s a deadly force situation, and you should be firing.
Regarding your friend, no offense, but his situational awareness was crap, and that’s what allowed him to be attacked in this manner. His window was down and his music was up loud. Without those things, that doesn’t happen. That’s my point. Was this guy on the train first? Did he get on after they did? Is this an area know for violent crime? Poor race relations?
It’s easy to give some purely physical response. The hard part comes in truly analyzing the before, during, and after, behaviorally, psychologically, environmentally, etc.
BTW, George Orwell was a socialist who probably wouldn’t have supported your right to bear arms. Quoting him means nothing to me…try some Ben Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, Patrick Henry, James Madison, et al. 😉
I don’t know if that would have been possible in this situation, but he could have also tried to verbally difuse the situation, even apologize if neccessary, basically try to stall until they got to the next train stop, where he could have gotten off. If they attacked him anyway, and there was no way to escape, maybe go for the leader if you can find him, try to take him down, intimidate the others. I wonder if acting crazy would help. Anything to make the attackers hesitate about continuing the fight. How about telling them he got AIDS or something? Making them afraid to hit him? Just anything to avoid the fight, since six against one on a crowded train are pretty bad odds. If the fight can’t be avoided, then he could try to use the bike as a weapon or a shield, stay out of the middle if possible, try to take down the leader, but it would be very hard.
As a passenger, it’s a tough call. If you are the only one confronting them, then they might all turn on you, you might save the initial victim, but now they’ll all be beating the crap out of you. The initial victim would probably not be much help, he’ll just be glad they’re hitting you now instead of him and he might just try to get as far away as possible from the confrontation.
Of course, if several passengers got together and intervened, the guys could probably be stopped. You could also try to verbally intervene as a passenger, try to reason with them, but if that doesn’t work you’ll be in big trouble.
For those of you that would like to read the local news on this, or watch the video that was taken on the train.
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