Video of gang attack on NYC Subway

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well, that's a tough one. I edc'd a Surefire D3 when I was in NYC. I guess I would have opted to block and strike with it and try to establish some distance, kill some time, and find an exit.
 
NYC Subway police

I remember when they said they were going to put one in every car, though when I rode it always looked like one per train, when you could find them. Usually they were in a little room near the front of the car.

If a city ever needed concealed carry, it's NYC. I couldn't understand why he didn't move to a more defensible position. Certainly he was on his own. Didn't turn out well and he was young and looked fit and was dressed for athletic events...like getting stomped on by a girl gang.

Wonder if he ever thought about hitting the emergency stop? That would have brought help. Looks to me like he never took it seriously enough.
 
I think the girls are lucky they found a person that didn't want to hurt them. Even if he had a pocket knife it would have turned out very bad for the girl that attacked him. Bad form, weak first shot, and a cover on him that would allow him to get to a pocket weapon easily. (I know this from experience)
 
With that type of activity, take out the biggest one, the others fall in line.

Personally, I would have considered that a differential of force and fallen back to the back up option as self-defense.

Later,
Chrome...

jlpskydive beat me to it. I carry a small, quickly deployable, knife for the "judged by 12 or carried by 6" situations.
 
Devils advocate here:

Even if he had a pocket knife it would have turned out very bad for the girl that attacked him. Bad form, weak first shot, and a cover on him that would allow him to get to a pocket weapon easily. (I know this from experience)
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What if they swarmed him? Is a small blade a good weapon against 5 attackers who are on top of you?

With that type of activity, take out the biggest one, the others fall in line.
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Isn't that a dangerous assumption to make in this day and age? What if they wanted to avenger their sister gangbanger?

Jeff
 
Honestly I couldn't really tell what was going on and why things got physical at the end. However they really didn't strike me as a "gang". More like a group of girls who all know each other.

Its hard to tell but he may of actually grabbed one of the girls and thats when the others started hitting him.

Didn't really look like a beat down though, more like he didn't want to hit them back.
 
Haven't been to the zoo in many years. Seem the guy should've "Manned-Up". Shame NYC forces sheep to grow wool.... but the guy definately should've said Baaaaaaah!
 
Keep in mind...

The girls learned that this works, is fun, and they should have done more, faster, and harder.

I THINK you can still move from car to car while the subway is going. Seems like I remember the panhandlers doing it avoiding the Subway police, who always seemed happy to be avoided.

Wonder how moving next to some non-participant would have worked? They would have to move or be included. Or if he had taken them seriously and struck first? I think the tipoff that they were serious to me is:

1. They were acting for a camera.

2. They kept advancing and retreating finding his safety zone.

3. They persisted.

4. They escalated.

If you are going to be attacked, you might as well kick it off and start it when you feel like getting it started. He could have attacked the leader, or the weakest, or the most strategically placed, moved to involve non-participants, hit the emergency stop, retreated from car to car.
 
If you are going to be attacked, you might as well kick it off and start it when you feel like getting it started.
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And then had Al Sharpton on you the next day for being a sexist racist pig attacking these poor girls who were just beginning to turn their lives around.

You'd never convince a NY jury and even if you did they'd pull a Goetz on you and try you twice.
 
I concur, he should have said Baaaahhhhh.\

He probably thinks its the government's responsbility to protect him. Sans a CW, I would have started throwing punches.
 
The victim needed to change his demeanor from wuss to MAN with a spine. He would most likely have avoided the altercation just by projecting a don't mess with me attitude.

He however could not be proactive. Because of the age and gender of the "children". To do so would most likely gotten himself in a world of trouble. Especially in NYC.
 
I do believe that a sharp knife in capable hands could have done ALOT of damage in a tight spot like that, Jeff. The real question is what would a jury have thought about a middle aged man slicing and dicing a bunch of high school aged girls. The video may have gotten him a break had it gotten really bad and gone to court, but would the video have surfaced if it had gone to court?

I think an aggressive posture and a less casual attitude would have better served this guy. He presented himself as prey, so he got treated like prey. This would be a difficult situation to defend yourself in without being made into a bad guy.
 
Jeff they did swarm him. He was down, but if you look at it, there is lots of room to get to his sides (i.e. weapon) The first shot was weak at best. Usually the frost shot is a knock down (out) and it's over from there (I know from experience) They don't want a victum fighting back. Yes a pocket knife would stop these girls. They would STOP at the first sight of their blood. That was not a gang, but a group that was acting like a gang. Like I said, they are lucky they did not pick on a Wolf..... They ride the subway also.
 
Oh (and not very HR) but Whitey would have been hung in the town square for cutting someones little darling on the subway. No matter what the video said. He was in a lose/lose situtation. Take the beat down or FRY in the court of public opinion. Go to jail for being assualted. Yes that really is what this country has come to. I know not very HR, but such is life..... :barf:
 
From a strategy perspective he should have gotten up after they surrounded him. If they followed he should have shown a stronger posture.

I would have cold cocked the first one who entered my space and then reached for my trusty knife that's alway in my pocket NYC or wherever I travel.

They weren't as much a gang as just street punks who happened to be girls. My guess is they won't graduate high school and will be on welfare within 6 months of turning 18.
 
The girls had it planned from early on. They were keeping him going until they reached a stop. They weren't about to attack until they had a means of escape. Their plan was to hit and run from the start.

He possibly could've stood up and walked away right up until the train stopped and the attackers had a means of escape. It seemed like that's what he was trying to do at first but he allowed himself to be boxed in. Nobody in that car was going to give him any aid and he was outnumbered. The proactive approach would've been to push through and head for another car.

If they let him go with cat-calls he would be out of it.

If they didn't let him go it would establish intent before the car stopped and they could escape. It's possible he would've found assistance. If not at least he would know the attackers were serious.
 
This video is no surprise - stuff like this literally happens every day in NYC. I work in NYC and groups of unruly "youth" like this are an everyday occurance on the subway, especially when school lets out around 3 or 3:30pm.

These kids look fairly typical...which means they don't appear to be gang-bangers but they do get on the train in packs and look for trouble. Kids like this have no upbringing and are basically animals that are buoyed by a pack mentality....they are looking for someone to victimize to have fun (sad but true). The level of violence is really determined by the appearance of a victim and the victim allowing the situation to escalate.

The guy in the video acted like a classic victim - he didn't move, continued talking to them which escalated the situation and acted like a wimp with his body language and voice, which is why they kept at it.

The key to avoiding this is pretty simple and most New Yorkers know this...you should always be in Condition Yellow...act with confidence in all that you do and when you see or hear them enter the car (you will usually hear them long before you see them)...just pay no attention to them and move away to the other end of the car. If they confront you, just be firm but pleasant, diffuse the situation with a joke, etc. and move away. Don't give them an excuse to try anything. Always display unshakable confidence and you shouldn't have any problem.

Assuming for a minute that a situation like this did, through no fault of your own, escalate to the point of violence, and there was no way to leave the subway car, which would be the first option (there are exits into other cars on both ends of each subway car), I would have to agree with the previous posters...initiate the attack, pick the ringleader, and very quickly and with extreme predjudice...stop them in their tracks and ensure they cannot get back up...by whatever means necessary as a warning to the others. Just because NYC leaves you with few CCW options, it doesn't mean that you don't have any at all...

Just my 2 cents, that and $2 will get you on the subway...
 
He should have distanced himself from them in the very beginning once they started acting dumb. Instead he sat there and made stupid, dismissive hand motions at them. I felt sorry for the young girl in the pink. I wish she didn't see this stupid behavior.

Tactically, this was such a lame, low grade attack I'd probably have just weathered it looking out for any weapons, then started breaking body parts and getting serious if they ramped it up. The preceding is moot because I am good at avoiding close proximity to idiots.

If I was in that car....they'd have still latched on to him or someone like him who will give them just enough feedback to play with. There is almost always someone like that around and you can almost always avoid being that someone by spotting these idiots early and getting distance, or polite disengagement at first contact.
 
Watch the first few seconds and you see the guy slide over closer to the one with the biggest mouth and who winds up starting everything in an attemp to talk to her .

No way to know what happened prior to that but it seems he was speaking to them and may have said something stupid to get the whole thing going .

I don't speak to a bunch of punk kids when in public as I am well aware of the fact that they may try to act tough and show off for each other at my expense .
 
Well, watching the video I got a lot different impression than most of you did. I couldn't tell what was happening at the start of the video; but the guy slid over/into two of the girls early on. There was so much racket I had a hard time making out what was going on; but it looks like the kids were arguing and he interjected himself into the situation, causing the one girl to berate him for yelling at her (also berates him for drinking) and the others to psyche themselves up to escalate.

It also looks like the thing that triggered the final assault is that one of the girls threatened him, another stepped in front of her and told her "no" and then the guy stood up and put his hands on both of them causing the others to jump in.

As far as what to do, there are doors on either side of the train. I've only ridden the New York subway once; but if you can move from car-to-car, I think I would have moved to begin with rather than put myself into a teenage argument with a bunch of teens. If what one of the girls said about drinking was right, then he didn't do himself any favors there either.
 
Maybe he should have just pulled out a large pocket-knife and started casually trimming his fingernails while singing aloud an old Guns&Roses song....

I used to love her
But I had to kill her
I used to love her, Mm, yeah
But I had to kill her
I had to put her six feet under
And I can still hear her complain

I used to love her, Oo, yeah
But I had to kill her
I used to love her, Oo, yeah
But I had to kill her
I knew I'd miss her
So I had to keep her
She's buried right in my backyard
Oh yeah, Oo yeah, whoa, oh yeah

I used to love her
But I had to kill her
I used to love her, Mm, yeah
But I had to kill her
She bitched so much, She drove me nuts
And now I'm happier this way, yeah
Whoa, oh yeah
 
Regardless of the escalating factors, once the attention turned to him he had plenty of opportunities to get out of the situation. There was plenty of time to move to the far side of the car, another car, or (at 1:03 in the video the train comes to a stop at a station) he could have exited the train all together and waited for the next one.

I don't care if they kissed him, spit on him, or pulled a gun on you... Using any sort of force or weapon on any of those girls and you're about to have a... cue the Sanford n' Son music... a short, fat, Rev. in your face screaming about how outraged he is. Up sh*t's creek sans paddle. There isn't a lawyer in the world that's going to get you out of that one.
 
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That guy probably could have stood up and started knocking those girls out cold, one by one. Elbows and fists, grab another and sweep to the floor. I think he got a little sissy beating on the top of the head and he wasn't quite pushed enough to fight back.
 
Where are those hate crime laws when you need them?

Looks like his only crime was being melanin-challenged. If the situation (skin colors) were reversed the courts would be all over this as a hate crime.

That said, it looks like a bunch of wanna-be-tough girls out to cause trouble. Didn't look like a huge threat to me, but who knows if one or more carried a knife or something else.

I don't think I'd be pulling out my blade in response to this instance. Definitely would try distancing myself to avoid the confrontation, and if they followed and escalated, then would use physical but not lethal force.
 
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