Keeping Safe in a Dangerous Place: An essential guide for everyone

Keeping Safe in a Dangerous Place

An essential guide for everyone

Copyright © Oscar Leon 2014

Oscar Leon has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

The author cannot accept any responsibility for any prosecutions or proceedings brought or instituted against any person or body as a result of the use or misuse of any technique(s) or tactic(s) described in this book or any loss, injury or damage caused thereby.

ISBN: 9781310336799

Contents

Introduction

Threat & Risk Recognition

Are you at Risk?

How to be an Easy Victim

Awareness

Observation Skills

Suspicious People

Conclusion – Threat & Risk Recognition

PRACTICAL SAFETY TACTICS

Security in the Street

Projecting Confidence

Clothing & Jewellery

The Arms Length Principle

To Comply or Not Comply

Fight or Flight

Fighting Back

Dialogue & Distance

Fake Compliance & Rape

Will Anyone Help You?

Safe Havens

Incident Awareness

Anecdotes

Security in your Vehicle

When Driving

When Parking

Returning to your Car

Route Planning

Anti-ambush Driving

Security in your Home

Doors and Windows

Illumination

Electronic Security

Dealing with Conmen and Intruders

Outside your Home

Kidnap Prevention

The Kidnap Selection Process

Surveillance

Types of Surveillance

Detecting Surveillance

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

How to Elude Someone Who is Following You

The Ambush

Security in Transit

Trains

Buses

Taxis

Express Kidnappings

Mental Blueprints

Combat (armed and unarmed)

Online Security

Learning Exercises (practical and tabletop)

Epilogue

Keeping Safe in a Dangerous Place

An essential guide for everyone

Introduction

In the late nineties I lived in Central America for a couple of years. I had already been a Krav Maga unarmed combat instructor for more than a decade and had experience in dignitary protection and counter-terrorism security as an operator and instructor. Together with a select group of skilled people we ran specialist courses and provided consultancy for high net-worth individuals, corporations, security personnel, business executives and their families, government ministers, as well as some people from other interesting walks of life. We trained people from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Mexico.

Violent crime was a way of life in that region and kidnappings, murders, executions, gang rapes and robberies happened literally on a daily basis. The president of one these countries brought in an expert to try and take control of the kidnapping epidemic and he requested that we write a special course for people at risk of kidnap, or for people who had been kidnapped who were likely to be re-targeted.

This particular course was mostly classroom based, with a few practical exercises thrown in. Depending on the level of interaction with the participants the course could last anywhere from 8 to 12 hours. It was fairly intense but enjoyable. People laughed on it. People cried. But everyone left having understood the basic lesson that the world is not a safe place, and you have to look out for yourself because no one is looking out for you.

This guide can help keep you from becoming a victim. From being attacked, from being hurt and from being traumatised. Obviously you cannot defend against everything but with a little knowledge you can avoid much of the day-to-day violence that you hear about in the news.

This book is relatively short and is written in every day English. Some of the sections are self contained and can be read in isolation however there are principles and tactics throughout that are not repeated in each section and you will gain a more comprehensive understanding of how to keep safe if you read the whole book.

From a content point of view I believe it is suitable for everyone from a mature high school/secondary school student upwards. It is for men, women and teenagers; for travellers, students, and executives – we are all at risk from the same types of crime and you will learn practical, common sense tips and advice for keeping safe in different environments and situations.

I hope you enjoy it, find it helpful, and that it leaves you more aware than you were before you read it. Crying is optional.

Oscar Leon

London, 2014

This book is dedicated to the special ones taken before their time.

Introduction to Threat and Risk Recognition

Are you at Risk?

Yes, you are. We all are. This is not me scaremongering – you have already bought this book (I hope!) and I am not trying to sell you anything else off the back of it. The fact that you are reading this makes me think that for some reason you are concerned for your safety. Either something bad has happened to you, or you know someone that something bad did happen to, or you are about to embark on a new chapter in your life and need some security tips, or you are just being proactive because you understand the dangers.

The first thing that we need to understand is that there is no such thing as one hundred percent security. But, there is so much that we can do to mitigate the risks we face that we can dramatically increase our chances of staying safe.

The world is not a safe place. It does not matter which country you are in. There are always unpleasant, violent sociopathic people around. Some countries of course are far more dangerous than others. Sometimes the violence may be linked to a particular city or neighbourhood, but in general, every place has the same crimes, just some more prevalent than others.

Obviously high crime rates are linked to areas with higher levels of poverty, but it also depends on the strength and ability of local law enforcement. I say this because I firmly believe that many people have a predilection towards crime, and it is only the fear of consequence that prevents it. Most people do not want to go to prison; do not want to be arrested; do not want the humiliation of friends and family finding out what they have done.

Crime against you is likely to happen when you least expect it. You will be going about your daily life unsuspecting, when suddenly you are attacked. There are some countries in the world, thankfully a minority, where you can go into any high school and ask 16 year old students if any of them know someone who has been raped, robbed, car jacked, kidnapped or killed, and worryingly most people put their hands up (and it’s not because they all know the same person!).

If you become a victim of one of these types of crimes, the worst case scenario is that you will be sexually assaulted, crippled or killed. In most cases you may just sustain a few minor injuries and lose some money and valuables. In all cases you will suffer extreme emotional distress and loss of confidence. By being prepared we can avoid much of this.

You need to give some thought towards the kind of mentality a person would need to possess in order to prey on innocent people. To understand how the violent criminal behaves you have to step outside your normal frame of reference. Attackers are not like you. They are not nice people. They go through life looking for opportunities to attack innocent members of the community. They have no qualms about causing suffering, pain, injury and death. They have no ethics and they have no morals.

This book does not address the psychological behaviour of violent criminals but if you are interested in reading about it I can recommend The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

For our purposes, what is important to understand is that most attackers do not like to fight. They look for quick and easy opportunities. They do not want to be caught, have their name in the news, and go to prison. They want their victims to be just that: victims. You are not going to be that victim.

How to be an Easy Victim

An easy victim? You might be thinking Why would I want to be a victim at all, never mind one that makes it easy for my attacker? Exactly!

There are lots of different types of crimes involving violence. We can list (but not limited to): bullying, kidnapping, mugging, murder, rape, and robbery.

Depending on the criminal and the situation, a robbery could lead to rape or murder. A rape could lead to robbery or murder. A mugging could lead to rape or murder. Maybe all these crimes were committed by someone who started his life as a bully and decided to graduate to something more serious.

Rape and murder victims often know their attackers. For the moment, let us talk about random victims of crimes. Or rather I should say, let us talk about you being attacked by someone you do not know. To say that you were attacked randomly is technically a misnomer because in many cases it was not random: you were chosen because you met the attackers’ requirements. You fitted the profile the attacker was looking for and you entered the chosen kill zone at the right time.

So what was it about YOU that caused you to be chosen over someone else? The answer is simple: you were perceived to be an easier target.

Read the two scenarios below. Imagine you are standing near a bank at night. The area is virtually deserted and it is raining.

A young guy approaches the bank. You can see headphones trailing up to his head, which is covered by a hood to shield him from the light rain. His head is angled downwards and he is lost in thought, listening to his music. He goes directly to the cash machine, withdraws his money and walks away with it in his hand before starting to stuff it in his wallet.

In the second scenario the same young guy approaches the bank. As he approaches the bank he pulls down his hood. You see him remove his headphones. He scans the area as he goes towards the cash machine. He puts his card in, checks again no one is close to him then taps in the code. As the money is despatched from the machine he takes it, scans again the area, files it in his wallet whilst still facing the cash machine, puts his wallet away and then walks off, once more scanning the area.

Which one of those people would you rush up to, punch, threaten and steal the wallet from?

I am hoping that you chose the first guy. Why? Because he was completely unaware of his surroundings and he made an easy target. He was listening to his music. His peripheral vision was restricted. He had no idea of personal safety. He would not have seen the approach. The second guy was simply a harder target.

So what is the fundamental difference between an easy target and a hard target? Awareness.

Awareness

For an unknown person to make a successful attack against you they generally need surprise. Criminals rely on shocking you into submission. This could be by being verbally aggressive and threatening. It could be by a sudden physical assault – which could be a prolonged vicious attack or just a couple of slaps around the face to cause intimidation. In most cases it would be a combination of verbal plus violence.

I will re-iterate the above because it is the most important aspect of self protection. Whether a mugging, a robbery, a rape or a kidnapping, the assailant(s) require surprise in order to be successful. I will elaborate on this further on in the book.

What do we mean when we talk about awareness? Well, awareness can be defined as consciousness of your environment and the knowledge of what things to look out for.

For our benefit, there are four colour coded levels of awareness. These help greatly to explain the levels of alertness you should be employing when you are out and about.

Condition White – total lack of awareness

Condition Yellow – 360 degree environmental awareness

Condition Orange – identification and evaluation of threats

Condition Red – fight or flight decision.

Ninety-five percent of people are in condition White 95% of the time! This means that they cannot detect any pre-incident indicators.

Some examples of condition White would be: leaving home in the morning without scanning the area before you actually close your front door behind you. Getting into your car whilst completely oblivious to the world around you; not checking if anyone is lurking nearby on foot or in cars or even on the back seat! You drive to work or take the kids on the school run and do not remember anything about your journey because you were driving on autopilot with no idea what vehicles were behind or in front of you. This is the reality for most people wherever they live.

Condition Yellow is the level we should all be at as often as possible. It is the exact opposite of Level White. We want to