Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Knife Defense Fail


A story in today's news. I'll just post the first part of it. You'll notice one line highlighted:

"COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man armed with three knives began a stabbing spree in the admissions office of a technical school in a downtown office building Wednesday, injuring four people, including an employee of the state attorney general, before being shot by a police officer, authorities said.


Columbus police spokesman Sgt. Rich Weiner said the suspect confronted one victim in the admissions office of Miami-Jacobs Career College before 1 p.m. and stabbed him. He said other people intervened and took away a knife the suspect was using.
"We do know that one of the good Samaritans that came to aid the first victim — he was stabbed also," Weiner said.
Weiner said those who intervened didn't realize the suspect had other knives.
Four men, including the suspect, are in critical condition, and a fifth man has minor injuries. Police have identified the victims and the suspect but haven't released their names, Weiner said."
So, five wounded, four of them critical. One–the knifer–was shot by the police, the rest were cut. And the lesson?
Never assume your attacker is unarmed, and even if you take his knife away from him, don't assume you are done. Could be a fatal error.

4 comments:

Ian Sadler said...

Hi Steve,

Police v Knife Offender

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10792432

Ian

steve-vh said...

So an interesting additional question is, did the police shoot to kill and fail or just shoot to "subdue"? Because if they did shoot to subdue successfully, good on them and says something about some other un-named departments that only seem able to use deadly force as deadly.

It is true most people only think of people carrying one. My training partner carries two as well as a red trainer and some interesting knotted rope (and prolly things I don't know about).

I first realized I needed to think about how Silat players carry two when I first met Todd in person btw. that was an eyeopener, LOL!

steve-vh said...

And another interesting side note. When we were training some knife techniques my partner unknowingly pulled his very sharp live spyderco wave instead of his trainer. MY eyes imediately picked up on the color and assumed it was intentional on his part. So my technique was impecable and very intentional.
When told later he was quite shocked but we also remarked on how the level we trained at previously had made it not as dangerous.
Still laugh to this day.

Ian Sadler said...

Hi Steve-vh,

Police would have been shooting to 'incapacitate' and remove the threat.

Not to 'subdue" or 'kill'.


Ian