Police Chief Recommendation: "Cooperate with armed kidnapper!"

[RioShooter]

You may have heard about the lawyer who was kidnapped at gunpoint in Birmingham, AL. She was accosted as she was leaving work and forced at gunpoint into her car. She was eventually found unharmed. What concerns me most about this story is during an interview, the Birmingham police chief applauded the victim's quick thinking to cooperate. From everything I've read, you should never get into a car with a kidnapper, even at gunpoint.
However, this time the outcome was positive.

What would you do under similar circumstances?

[Carl N. Brown]

I have heard that the general rule is if you go with
the kidnapper you are more likely to end up dead.

This advice goes against what I have heard for the past ten years.

[ewb45acp]

Trust your life to the nice man threatening to kill you. :banghead:

[Husker1911]

" YES! By all means...
Trust your life to the nice man threatening to kill you."

YES! By all means...
Trust your life to the nice police chief. Not likely...............

[Srigs]

Never... ever allow yourself to go to a secondary site! I would shoot the bone head. :D

[XLMiguel]

This subject was very well covered in Pax's thread on "Personal Boundaries"
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=175795&highlight=personal+boundaries

[pedaldude]

I thought you were supposed to lay down and play dead?

[Cosmoline]

Never get in the car, and never let them get in the car. A car is a death trap. You're at their mercy if you cooperate. They may let you go after robbing you, they may kill you, or they may do far worse than kill you. Fight back with every weapon you have, with lethal force if at all possible. Kill them before they kill you.

[mete]

If he's taking you somewhere it's a place that's safer for him and less safe for you !!...There was an excellent example how some people instinctively know this. A NINE year old girl was being kidnapped in MA. She realized that if she went with him she would not survive. She then faked an asthma attack so he took off. People got the plate number and that lead to his conviction --a serial killer . Can't remember the names .

[flatdog]

Watched a news video today in which a cashier was held at gunpoint by a robber. It was her first day on the job and though she tried to cooperate and open the register. Terror prevented her from complying. The robber attempted to shoot her in the head twice, and got two misfires.

So much for the benefits of cooperation.

[LAK]

Under the circumstances, this lady may have had no other reasonable choice. I will speculate and suggest that she was a) taken more or less completely by surprize, and b) unarmed. Otherwise she should have put up an effective fight.

Anytime someone is going to try and force you into a car etc you had better count on one thing; they have no intention of letting you live when they are finished with you. Male or female, whatever the purpose.

Certainly some people that are kidnapped for one reason or another are later released unharmed for a ransom, or manage to escape or are rescued; but it is foolhardy to plan on it.

Most attempted kidnappings will initially take on the appearance of an attempted robbery or other violent assault. Treat all in the same manner and an attempted kidnapping can be thwarted in the same manner as the others. Don't get taken by surprize - equip, plan, drill and act as required.

-----------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

[ALHunter]

I think it was in Pax's prior thread mentioned by Mike in VA where someone said that the only thing you usually find at a second crime scene is a dead body. That stuck with me and is consistent with what I have heard and read for years - never go willingly, fight at all costs.

As a side note, I know Sandi. She was one year ahead of me in law school. She is, just as all the news articles have said, just a really great person. I am glad that she was found alive at the second crime scene.

[Oldtimer]

Read the TRUE account of 2 well-disciplined, trained and ARMED police officers who were taken by surprise by armed kidnappers! "The Onion Field", written by Joseph Wambaugh, puts many things into view that SHOULD NOT be done!

#1: The armed suspects are CRIMINALS! Should you trust a criminal to be an "honorable" person if they tell you that you won't be harmed?

#2: May criminals are UNSTABLE! What they may SAY and what they may actually DO often conflict.

#3: While it MAY be better to comply to a certain point, it is BETTER to start thinking of how to escape....then do so if the opportunity even gives you only a 50/50 chance of survival. During your escape attempt, you MAY be injured, but it gives you a BETTER chance than merely being slaughtered!

#4: Surrender your firearm if someone else is in danger? NEVER! By merely giving up, the bad guy ends up with HIS firearm and YOURS, and the next step might be two dead bodies! If you are armed, you MAY be able to fight back....and SAVE the other person that is being held at gunpoint! (HMM! Think about the ending of the movie "Dirty Harry")

Think "distraction"! Think "flight" for freedom! Think yelling your head off, to attract attention! Think about a swift and sudden kick to the "manhood" of the suspect, or a nose punch, or an eye gouge, or a push that sends the suspect off balance. Think about "weapons" (other than firearms) that you might have on your person (i.e., a sharp pencil, car keys, etc.). Think through your escape, look for safe spots to run to, think about finding a hiding spot, think about running for your LIFE!

[Henry Bowman]

Certainly some people that are kidnapped for one reason or another are later released unharmed for a ransom, or manage to escape or are rescued; but it is foolhardy to plan on it.Yep. She got lucky and beat the odds that were heavily stacked against her.

[mbt2001]

errrr... not to be crass, but the folks in the September 11th flights "cooperated" and were used as missles to kill thousands... even if you don't get out alive, at least you were not used to bring on the demise of more innocent folks.

Maybe that is naive of me, but....

[Carl N. Brown]

Bad chief, Good girl

THR > Social Situations > Strategies and Tactics
> Police Chief Recommendation: "Cooperate with armed kidnapper!"

THR > Social Situations > Strategies and Tactics
> Girl Says She Used Hammer To Escape Kidnapper

[CSA 357]

she was realy realy lucky!*csa*:)

[Pilgrim]

What concerns me most about this story is during an interview, the Birmingham police chief applauded the victim's quick thinking to cooperate.
It's called aligning one's self with the winning team.

I'm sure if she had been found dead he would have come out favoring resistance.

Pilgrim

[psyopspec]

Why don't we ask Dru Sjodin what she thinks? Oh wait, she was raped and murdered after a kidnapping at gunpoint. Guess we can't.

[Jeff White]

You have to train for every situation. I think most people go along with kidnapppers because the only training they ever received about how to react in that type of situation was provided by the entertainment media. I was running force on force training for some rookie officers and I had a scenario where an officer was taken hostage and the badguy demanded the other officer surrender his weapon. The number of officers who did shocked me. During the AAR when I asked why, a couple of them were honest enough to admit that they had no training in that particular situatio and the hero on TV always did gave up his weapon.

Most people never think about a potential kidnapping and what to do before it happens. So when it does they default to the level they were trained at. And guess who trained them? Hollywood screenwriters....

A good training course is the best solution, but many of us will never get our loved ones to take the time to participate. So how do we make them safer?

We talk them them through it. A long talk about mindset and countermeasures will go a long way towards giving them a significantly higher level of training to default to if they are confronted with that situation.

Training doesn't have to be formal to be effective. Plant the seed in their mind. It's not that hard and may save a life.

Jeff

[TonkinTwentyMil]

1. What is the political orientation/party affiliation of the mayor/city council who selected this police chief (puppet)?

2. What is said political official(s) attitude re the Second Amendment... i.e., do they believe the 2A is simply all about (*cough*) Legitimate Sporting Purposes?

Gee, lemme guess...

[AmbulanceDriver]

My Sensei and I used to teach a women's self defense class at the local high school. While my job was mostly to get the [censored] kicked out of me, I do remember Sensei very clearly stressing in EVERY class that you NEVER go somewhere with an attacker.

He told a story of his foster daughter who was attacked in the parking lot of one of the local malls. (FWIW, I may have a few of the details wrong, as the last time I heard this story from him was about 5 years ago.) Unfortunately for the attackers, this young lady was a black belt. They were both armed with knives, and while she sustained some relatively minor defensive wounds, they both required long hospital stays before they were able to stand trial. It turns out these "gentlemen" were suspected in a string of kidnappings and rapes that had occured in this area. While every victim was eventually released, all were raped and threatened with their lives. His point to the young women in this class was again to never get into an attackers vehicle. One of the girls asked, "What if he has a gun?" His reply was that it would be better to take the chance of getting wounded defending yourself than to almost certainly be killed at his convenience.

[Kurt S.]

My last Texas CHL renewal class was taught by a Montgomery county Sheriffs deputy. His words regarding a kidnap situation were something to the effect "if they try to get you to get in a vehicle with them, make your stand right then and there even if you are not armed". I don't remember the exact amount of time he stated was your life expectency if you went along with a kidnapper, but it was something like 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

[Manedwolf]

I would suspect that in MOST cases, people who cooperate are the ones who are never heard from again, except when someone finds bones buried in a lonely woods years later.

What I'd teach people is to find some way to screw up the vehicle without endangering other drivers. Especially if you spot a cop or something, and the road is clear but for useful, inanimate obstacles to hit...if the car is an automatic with a center-island shift selector, suddenly pushing it to "R" while at speed would likely work. So would yanking the e-brake, especially if near a ditch.

[Quaamik]

I would suspect that in MOST cases, people who cooperate are the ones who are never heard from again, except when someone finds bones buried in a lonely woods years later.

What I'd teach people is to find some way to screw up the vehicle without endangering other drivers. Especially if you spot a cop or something, and the road is clear but for useful, inanimate obstacles to hit...if the car is an automatic with a center-island shift selector, suddenly pushing it to "R" while at speed would likely work. So would yanking the e-brake, especially if near a ditch.

If you are the driver, even hitting a solid immovable object at speed is preferable. Especially if the hit can be offset to the side the kidnapper is on.

As for endagering other drivers: It wouldn't be my first choice, but it would rank higher than complying.

[Nicky Santoro]

"What would you do under similar circumstances?"

Nevermind

[JohnKSa]

The chief is pretty savvy.

It's easy to give advice when you know that all the people who have first hand evidence contradicting the advice are dead...