Awareness and self defense in home garage

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leadcounsel

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Outstanding example of situational awareness and self defense and self preservation against multiple armed and presumably very dangerous assailants.

The setup. Man comes home at night and pulls in garage. Three (yes 3) thugs follow him into the garage by preventing the overhead garage door from closing. One of them is armed with what appears to be a handgun.

This would have probably been a very bad ending for the homeowner if he wasn't armed. He'd at least have been robbed with lasting psychological issues. Could have been beaten and killed.

Instead, he immediately takes defensive action, and opens fire on the thugs. I watched it a few times and counted 10 shots from the home owner. Quite impressive situational awareness and being armed and ready to defend.

Share with family and friends. Lots of great lessons here:

1. Situational awareness.
2. Being armed and ready. The bad guy gets off at least one shot, so perhaps the homeowner should have fired sooner through his window.
3. High capacity magazines are valuable, especially against several opponents.
4. This reaction likely came from training. Training is very important.
5. He appears to have scored several hits when it mattered against the closest thug.
6. Video evidence is very important. Get those cameras installed. The thugs shot in the back might otherwise have a lawsuit or criminal actions against him.

Not sure how legal it was to continue firing as they were running away and him giving chase outside... but I can't see him being prosecuted for that as the entire event unfolded in seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S7SPrb6oj4
 
Looks like another off duty cop in Brazil. (I think the recent video of an attempted assault of an off duty cop by his vehicle was also Brazil.)

Source, found in comments on the video:

http://www.correiodeuberlandia.com....va-de-assalto-a-policial-civil-na-zona-oeste/

Edit: It says in the opening of the article it was an attempted robbery. I don't see mention of the robbers knowing he was a cop. Either there will be more to the story, or Brazilian robbers have really bad skill at picking targets. From the way they approach on the video, they do seem more intent on robbery than assassination though.

Edit: Rather than relying on my 28 year old Spanish skills to translate Portuguese (yeah, I know), I decided to take a shot at running the article through Google translates. The result was surprisingly readable, so here it is:

A 32- year-old man was killed after trying to rob the house of a civilian police officer in Vigilato Pereira neighborhood on the south side of Uberlândia. According to the case record , Eliseu Santos Paulo and two other men approached the victim as [strike]she[/strike] he entered the [strike]home[/strike] garage , accompanied by [strike]the[/strike] his wife . Seeing that one of the bandits was armed , the officer took aim and shot the man who was trying to [strike]steal it[/strike] rob him. There was exchange of fire , and the bandits fled towards Pampulha neighborhood , on the east side of the city.

A neighbor called the Military Police ( PM) , which located the bad guys in the Integrated Service Unit ( IAU ) of Pampulha . Eliseu Santos Paul died [strike]to reach[/strike] on reaching the health unit and the other two fled . One of them , 18 , was found and arrested at the scene . The weapons used were seized and forwarded to the duty station.

Watch the video of the moment in which a suspect is shot by civilian police :

Edit: I'm a bit anal and bored, so I cleaned up the translation a bit. My changes in red, with changed text [strike]struck through[/strike].
 
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I'll bet he was watching the door in his rear view mirror, waiting for it to close completely. He obviously had his gun in his hand when the car door opened.
 
Hmmm...

Looks like the passenger was getting out of the car when the perps came into the garage. I'd bet that was when the perps were noticed because the driver opened fire immediately when he opened the door. This was because he was prepared and alreadyhad his gun drawn.

As for chasing...He didn't pursue. He chased them out of the garage and went no further. Came back to the car after they left, did a quick check on his passenger, looked like he grabbed a reload or something, then went right back to the door doing the head-swivel thing.

Nicely done.
 
I had relatives who lived in what had become an unsafe part of town. They kept the engine running and doors locked until the garage door was all the way closed. They eventually moved.
 
^^^ This.

Likewise when leaving, do not open the garage door until you are in your car with doors locked. Also, when you drive out of the garage, watch for anyone sneaking in as you close the garage door.

(One other thing, the defendant shoots strong-hand-only. Once out of the car, I expected a 2-hand grip on the pistol, unless his weakhand is injured or carrying a magazine or...?)
 
Sometimes I wonder if 90% of the people in Brazil aren't off-duty cops - or on-duty cops. :D
 
I wonder if the family retort there is the same as it usually is here.

a) "He was a good boy" Reality, his rap sheet alone caused the death of several trees.

b) "He was turning his life around" Reality, he'd just lost his job dealing drugs due to sloth. it was the only job he'd ever had.

c) "He just became a father" Reality, this in addition to the several other children with different partners he already has, none of whom he supports.

d) "He was an honor student" Reality, he once got an attendance award, in the 3rd grade. Hadn't been back to school since.
 
Yeah, that's the script in our cities. The script must get passed around a lot, because everybody seems to have a copy of it.

The first two are heard almost every single time a budding career as a criminal is ended. And it's ALWAYS somebody else's fault. The cop "didn't have to kill him", the actual victim "shouldn't have shot him", "guns are the real problem". My personal favorite is "He was just kiddin', he didn't mean anything" by his attempted criminal action.

Same script, different days.
 
I go to Brazil various times each year, it's a place to not be taken lightly. When at the hotel, they strongly urge me to not venture out alone. Last trip down, got delayed coming from air port while the cops drug two bodies out of the weeds by the road. Rio is WILD, I go to Sao Paulo. For entertainment somenight, i'll stand on the balcony of the hotel room and watch the thugs rob people stopped at the street light. In Sao Paulo, if the light turns red, you NEVER pull close to the car in front of you, always leave enough room to jump curb or cross lanes to escape robbers, but it is a beautiful country, the women are beautiful, and it's "fun" to visit.
 
I had relatives who lived in what had become an unsafe part of town. They kept the engine running and doors locked until the garage door was all the way closed. They eventually moved.
This is what I do, plus I have a set of motion sensor lights that light up the drive and the Side of the House when we pull in our drive .
 
After 20 years in the Navy, having visited a great many countries during port calls, I can say with quite a bit of experience that the buddy system is thesingle, most important thing you can utilize in a foreign country.

Whether or not there is actually any significant threat wherever you may be does not change that. There is safety in numbers and buddies look out for each other. You're far less of a target, your buddies keep you from doing stupid things, if you're ever hurt you have someone to help/get help, and more.

NEVER travel out and about in a foreign country alone.
 
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