Mall Kidnapping

[battousai16]

all these heroic stories aside:

 

i remember walking down a street known for it's...ahem, characters late at night one evening. the street wasn't deserted, but it wasn't exactly bustling with people either, and there was a woman walking down the other side of the street. all the sudden someone reached out from the dark and grabbed her, and she started screaming. no one standing there did anything as she was screaming and swatting at him and he was pulling her around a building. so i started across the street, wondering what the hell i was gonna' do, and... he looked, let go, and ran. sometimes all it takes is the threat of action, because a lot of these guys are scared.

 

good thing i did something, too, cuz she ended up being my english teacher the next year

[White Warlock]

hehe, you get an A?

Wow WW! Good story, even though you could have done the safer thing.

Ahh, but that's it, isn't it? What exactly was the safer thing? Cooperate with two brazen gunmen, who were willing to hold a hostage, in the daytime, in order to obtain a little cash? Would it have been safer for me, for the other guy, for the store manager if i had simply played along and become yet one more hostage?

 

Granted, at the time, beheadings and being slammed into skyscrapers wasn't the norm for hostages, but my microsecond analysis of the situation told me to 'freak out' or die, and so i chose to 'freak out.'

 

It turned out for the better, could have turned out for the worse, but i'll never know the coulda, woulda, shoulda of this... only that what i did made the difference between a successful robbery and possible murders, and a failed robbery and no deaths.

 

But yes, absolutely, coulda, woulda, shoulda died right then and there.

[battousai16]

actually yes, but i assume that that's because of the writing prowess i like to think i have.

[Jinxx0r]

One of the reasons I practice my MA is to be able to defend myself or my family if I had to. In today's world I would be very hesitant to get involved for fear of being shot or maimed by some psycho. I've never been in this type of situation, so it's hard to say what I would do... but just thinking about it now... I would say it's stupid to put yourself into the middle of a volatile situation. It's different if you're confronted directly with it and you have no choice, but I probably wouldn't get involved.

 

I'll probably get flamed for that position, but this is real life and not a movie.

[ncole_91]

Wow, some really good hero stories lol, they are always interesting to read...

[CapitalKarate]

i have to agree partially with jinxxor here. if i saw someone get kidnapped, i wouldn't try to interfere, what i'd do is get relatively close to the people involved, get a good look at them, at the person getting kidnapped and at the car or w/e vehicle it may be including license plates. but on the other hand, if i saw a woman or child getting beat up or threatened with a weapon, i'd interfere, if they were already being beaten up i'd do something to the attacker to make him unable to continue (or try to at least). if they were only threatening with a weapon, i'd go over and try to talk to the attacker and see if i could get him to just forget about w/e he was trying to do and leave. if the victim is a full grown man, i'd quickly find a phone and call the police.

[White Warlock]

We could all speculate on what we could, woulda done in a similar situation, but that's not really my point. My point is... we practice so we at least 'think' to do something. Training to have a firmer grasp of fight or flight, of real vs television drama, and of action or inaction gives us the 'ability' to do 'something,' even if that something is merely to obtain a license plate.

 

Look back at that video and watch the people. Nobody reported anything to the police, even after an all-points media request was made. Grab a few of us and put ourselves in that picture, and things would likely have been far different (at least i hope). I suspect many of you would have, at the very least, attempted to obtain a license plate. At the most, intercede.

 

But what did those people do?

 

If you look at one of the persons in the bottom of the video, it looks like he's trying to change the channel. Or how about that one on his cell phone, chatting away with a friend. He wasn't calling 911, seeing as they never received any calls. With so many potential witnesses, blending in with the crowd whilst attempting to garner information of the scene would have been a breeze. But... nobody even lifted a finger.

[CapitalKarate]

its really amazing how weakminded people can be, WW is right, they didn't even make a simple phone call to the police to tell them "from what it looks like, someone just got kidnapped at the ____ mall and put into the trunk of a car". it looked as if the people tried to just ignore it, with the exception of a couple people who watched everything and didn't move a muscle. does anyone know how people can prepare themselves mentally to be able to deal with this kind of situation? if this kind of mental training isn't a part of your regular MA training, it ought to be, imo