What About the Other Guy?

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Kleanbore

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I have stopped a store robber whose accomplice was in a car outside, and I've had a couple or three individuals unlawfully enter the house very unwisely (there were cars in the driveway) by themselves.

But all but one of the home invasions reported in the news in our municipality in the last half-dozen-plus years have involved two perps.

The police tell us that that's because they want two sets of eyes, and because two people can empty a house of valuables much more quickly than can one.

Michael Bane tells us that criminal attacks involving more than one attacker are becoming more and more the norm.

GEM reports two incidents involving four persons each--with no shots fired.

Yet, many people seem convinced that an incident involving more than one criminal would be a rarity. It is a given that any criminal attack is a rarity, but that's not the question at hand.

Perhaps it's a carry-over from the range. At the square range, we shoot at one stationary target at a time. Does that perhaps create a subconscious expectation that our attacker will be alone?

I don't know about others, but I am certain that, if I were up to the no-good of criminal violence, I would much rather have with me a second set of eyes, a second gunner, a driver, and someone to help lift the stuff out into the truck.

By the way, if I were to stumble into a bad situation in a store, I would not want to make the mistake of believing that the robber whom I saw did not have an accomplice ready to bump me off.

Okay, then, there is an oft-stated opinion that even if there are more than one, they are all cowards, and can surely be relied upon to flee rather than to....

That one could really stand some critical thinking.

First, the "other" bad guy is not standing seven yards down range where he can see his buddy next to him get shot.

He is likely already fully engaged in the attack. The sound of gunfire may or may not clue him in on the possibility that his accomplice may have been shot. Even if it does, he may perceive that he has no alternative but to continue the attack.

Suppose he would really, really like to beat feet. Can he get to his car, or out the door to the street, by heading away from the defender? Dos he need the defender's car to escape? Will he try to outrun bullets? Will his cognitive powers assure him that the rational, law-abiding defender will not shoot a fleeing felon?

We cannot know, but with the preceding for food for thought, I am not about to risk my life on the assumption that an attacker's accomplice can be relied upon to flee.
 
But all but one of the home invasions reported in the news in our municipality in the last half-dozen-plus years have involved two perps.

We see a lot of couples involved in burglaries and home invasions around here. Crime is becoming a couples activity.

Perhaps it's a carry-over from the range. At the square range, we shoot at one stationary target at a time. Does that perhaps create a subconscious expectation that our attacker will be alone?

There are plenty of drills requiring you to engage more then one target. I train on them often.

By the way, if I were to stumble into a bad situation in a store, I would not want to make the mistake of believing that the robber whom I saw did not have an accomplice ready to bump me off.

The best thing to do in a store or bank lobby is to comply unless it becomes obvious that the criminals intend to harm people. Starting a gunfight in a public setting where you don't know if there are multiple suspects is just stupid.
 
We see a lot of couples involved in burglaries and home invasions around here. Crime is becoming a couples activity
Man!
The best thing to do in a store or bank lobby is to comply unless it becomes obvious that the criminals intend to harm people. Starting a gunfight in a public setting where you don't know if there are multiple suspects is just stupid.
Agree.
 
The best thing to do in a store or bank lobby is to comply unless it becomes obvious that the criminals intend to harm people. Starting a gunfight in a public setting where you don't know if there are multiple suspects is just stupid.

Evan Marshall told his wife that if they were in a business being held up, let the crooks take the company's money, BUT if they started robbing and searching customers such that they would find his badge, or if they forced customers into a back room or on the floor which would lead to eliminating witnesses, "Stand back, the shooting is fixing to start."
 
I see it all the time. Two or three people committing crimes together. Often, one of them is a female.
 
The Chicago suburb I recently moved from was pretty safe, but to the extent that violent crimes did occur there were generally multiple attackers. Right off the bat I can think of an armed robbery in front of my house that I unintentionally walked into, two shootings and another armed robbery, all with 4 attackers. My oldest son and daughter in law live in rural Wisconsin with an almost non existent violent crime rate and mentioned getting carry permits last week. They talked about getting revolvers and wanted my opinion. I'm steering them towards 9mm's with at least 10 round magazines, which ones are yet to be determined.
 
I grew up with a bunch of guys that turned out to be career criminals. I guarantee that they aren't committing crimes solo. They always rode at least two deep. Sometimes as many as four deep. Keep your eyes open, there is always more than one.
 
One of the signs I learned to look for as a young cop out looking to catch someone breaking bad - was two or more young guys in a car not going anywhere in particular.... Make it three or four and I could be certain they weren't on their way to church (or synagogue...). Yes there are solo actors - burglars that I've actually caught in the act were often single operators - and serious bad sex offenders (the kind that mix sex and violence... ) were usually solo acts - at least the ones I took reports about (and once or twice actually caught...).

For myself though in preparing for a possible defensive situation have always assumed that I'd be facing more than one opponent. In our officer survival training - all those years ago we taught our young (and not so young) officers that they should always look for a second weapon on anyone they were taking into custody (and I was personally involved on two occasions when an offender in custody was found to still have a firearm on him... after being placed in custody by other officers... very scary stuff. Part of our officer survival training involved 2nd or 3rd party ambushes of officers whose attention was focused on one subject when another seeming bystander was in fact an accomplice... and armed...

These days I've seen one or more bad outcomes for officers who apparently were never trained the way we were, so I'm guessing that old lessons have either been forgotten or were never learned - resulting in tragedies...

Any armed citizen is well advised not to focus on "just one problem" but keep their eyes and ears open for the chance that more than one offender is on the scene... Simply acting as defensively as possible, keeping your backside covered is always a good idea. Most will never realize just how important that is until they have a close call or are badly injured and survive a situation that a bit more caution might have prevented..
 
Very interesting points being brought up. Here in central Ohio a very significant factor of crimes committed in the rural 'Anytowns' USA (one of which I reside) is the ongoing meth and opioid crisis. I'd say that over 90% of the local jail population holds folk with issues related to this. And rarely have I read in the news or seen on the sheriff's report crimes involving such limited to one person. At the least a pair a nefarious types. When it comes to someone 'hopped up' as it were, I'd have to say throw all common pre-conceptions of bad guy behavior out the window. These people are not in their right mind and quite capable of anything, anything at all. I live in a very nice neighborhood in a very large house as caregiver for my 89 and 90 year old parents and you can believe me that I am 'locked and loaded' at all times. I take nothing for granted and consider myself to be at a constant DEFCON 3 to use military parlance.
 
When I lived in the country on 20 acres and now in a subdivision, Glock 19/23/32 was (is) on my belt there and elsewhere.
Glock 19/23/32 gets a yes to the simple question of would I prefer this pistol to defend myself - independent of location, wherever.

IME people that change their carry based on location are likely to justify the minimal gun, despite that they really prefer something better.
An example: person typically carries a 5 shot snub in their "good area" but selects their Glock 19 if going to an area of greater anticipated threat.
If a 5 shot snub is deemed sufficient in a "good area" then why not elsewhere? Budding psychic ability thinks "bad people" immobile.
The snub is defended with statistics, expectation of homicidal psychotic people that run away, but the real reason for carrying the snub is unsaid.
They would prefer their Glock 19 (example) but are unwilling to always wear a belt/holster, dress for it; the snub is easy to carry.
Rarely (it has happened) someone will say I'm lazy and won't carry everywhere if I can't just stick it in my pocket. Refreshing, and better than justifications.
 
Had a very nice gentleman come up to me in New Orleans wanted to sell some illegal substance to me. I declined but noticed the 5 others that were watching and following us. That’s not scary in it’s self unless you saw guy #5 eyes. “Dead eyes” is the only fitting description. Soulless maybe?
 
Sure, there's always been the lone simple burglar but multiples is not anything 'new' especially in the more brazen, open crimes.

The term 'look outs' has been around for many many decades and has always been just a misnomer for 'back up'; aka perp # 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

Imo, the only evolution is that there are more frequent openly brazen crimes and females seeking #equality in the violent crime genre. But the tactics discussed have always been, just mislabeled.

ETA: All it takes is watching an episode of Adam West Batman to see evidence of it being mainstream many decades ago.
 
When alone, it's always a good practice to notice any place with cover and at least your back unapproachable. Back and a side, even better. Back and front-better than nothing, but not much, and you'd better be able to shoot both right and left handed. Back and both sides, best-unless frag/CS/smoke are tossed at you.
Criminal teams not only use lookouts, but decoys. (Kind of like the mainstream media. Smoke and mirrors.) If somebody is trying too hard for your attention, question why.
Do not ignore that 'spidey sense' tingling. Your subconscious is telling you to wake up and look around.
Just like the criminals have learned to work together, we can do so. (I'm speaking somewhat hypocritically here, because SWMBO won't carry, and has only the mildest amount of situational awareness.) I have never worried when going somewhere with my Dad, he watches my 6, and I his. He trained me to do that long before I carried. We actually juggle to see who gets the seat against the wall when we go out to eat, but I always let him have it. I know my 6 is covered, and I can read his face should trouble come up.
 
Here's another bad guy entering the fray. Kind of stupid actions here.

https://news.wttw.com/2021/07/12/at...ed-fatal-shooting-lower-west-side-prosecutors

From Claude Werner
A prime example of the sequential nature of 'OODA Loops.'

  • Group of men chases man walking dog
  • He runs home and gets inside without the dog
  • Group takes dog
  • Man comes out with a gun and shoots at them
  • The group decides the dog isn't worth getting shot for so they drop it and run away
  • One of them falls down
  • Original victim's girlfriend comes out and gets violent with the downed malefactor
  • Original victim joins his gf in doing the Irish jig on the malefactor
  • Unsatisfied with this level of violence, he pulls out his gun and shoots the malefactor in the head
  • Original victim, now Executioner, and his gf decide to exfiltrate from the crime scene
  • A friend of the now deceased malefactor shoots and wounds both Executioner and gf
  • First responders arrive to take wounded Executioner and gf to hospital
  • Executioner charged with First Degree Murder, while still in hospital
  • Unwounded Dognappers escape, most likely never to be found
 
While the gas station robberies still tend to be a one man job, much other violent crime, especially the stranger on stranger type (carjackings, street robberies, craigslist sale meet ups) seems to be going toward at least 2 suspects.

This makes it harder to fight your way out of, but if there is video it makes it easier to solve, since its about twice as likely that an acquaintance will come forward for reward money if you show two faces on the news, and it's always easier to play people against each other in interrogation than deal with lone wolf stuff.

The scariest scenario is that you successfully deal with the 2 bad guys you see and then lose to the 3rd guy you didn't see. I agree with Jeff, compliance is often best unless there are indicators that physical harm is coming.
 
Interesting Ayoob article in the May/June 2020 issue of American Handgunner.

An older couple survived a home invasion. They used two revolvers (emptied one of them) during the attack which left both of them badly injured. They fought and prevailed against one attacker but it turned out that there were actually three of them--the other two hung back initially and then ran when they heard sounds of a struggle.

The attacker fired only one shot which grazed the male homeowner--then his gun jammed because he had loaded it with the wrong ammunition.

The couple definitely fought with determination, but they survived mostly due to luck.

1. Two of the three invaders fled instead of joining the fight.
2. The attacker's gun was neutralized after only one shot.
3. The attacker did not have another weapon.
4. The wife was not so badly injured in the initial attack as to prevent her from retrieving a gun while her husband physically fought with the much younger attacker, then another gun after the first one was emptied.
5. A shot from the second retrieved revolver was a CNS hit.

It took both of them to end the attack, even with a good deal of luck and two firearms, and both were badly hurt in the process.

As an interesting aside, in spite of the fact that the circumstances were clear the case was not resolved for years, during which time the police held their firearms.
 
One of those cases in which the defenders were, very fortunately, able to "retrieve" their firearms.

Our house layout and my condition make that an unlikely proposition.
 
An older couple survived a home invasion. They used two revolvers (emptied one of them) during the attack which left both of them badly injured.

1. Two of the three invaders fled instead of joining the fight.
2. The attacker's gun was neutralized after only one shot.
3. The attacker did not have another weapon.
4. The wife was not so badly injured in the initial attack as to prevent her from retrieving a gun while her husband physically fought with the much younger attacker, then another gun after the first one was emptied.

Either some facts are missing here, or they 1.) were both badly injured by a singe shot by the one armed invader that hit them both, or 2.) The attacker injured them with something not normally used as a weapon, and/or one shot. or, 3.) At least one instance of Friendly Fire. :confused:
 
The intruder chased the woman and pushed her down, injuring her knee severely and tearing a muscle in her upper leg. Her knee had not recovered at the time the article was written--7 years after the attack. Her husband intervened at that point and the attack focused on him from that point on.

The intruder beat the man with the pistol, opening wounds on his head. The single gunshot he fired grazed the man's head causing a minor wound. During the attack, while they were wrestling, he bit one of the man's fingers with sufficient force to crush the bones in it.

Both were hospitalized after the attack.

Found an online link.

https://americanhandgunner.com/our-experts/home-invasion-the-coker-family-incident/
 
Interesting article indeed about tactics learned when the Cokers were targeted in the home invasion.
 
The applicability to this thread's topic was specifically the fact that there were actually three people who planned to attack. The Cokers were very fortunate that only one of them was determined to carry the attack through once resistance was encountered. I seriously doubt they could have fought off three attackers as much trouble as they had with just one.

Also interesting in that it is a non-LEO instance of a real-world attack that required a reload (well, second gun, but it's the same thing, effectively)--even though there was only one attacker and his gun only worked for a single shot.
 
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