Brentwood Homeowners Association News

Safer Brentwood

On Monday, January 22, 2018, over 150 BHA members heard a two-hour presentation from Peter Schultz, a security consultant and author. Mr. Schultz squeezed what usually is a four hour presentation into a little under two hours.  While the best defense is to run away whenever possible, he offered the following tips on how NOT to become a victim using his specialized program of EXTREME PREEMPTION—Train, Detect, Preempt, Fast.

• We all have one weapon—our mind—to use with many defense tools. 
  • Utilize awareness and avoidance in a situation (for example, don’t park between 2 vans with blacked-out windows). 
  • Size up would-be assailants and determine when to run and when to stand.
  • The easiest way to not be a victim is to run away. But if you can’t then use techniques and tools that work for you.
    • Defend yourself using a loud voice and telling the assailant to GET BACK.
    • Use defense tools such as a bat, pepper spray, tactical pen, billy club, knives, kubaton to strike an assailant in the neck, eyes, groin, ankle.
    • Stay calm by deep slow breathing
       
• Understand that “villains” want three things, usually:
  • Cash (wants property), control (wants domination over you), chaos (terrorism)
  • Detect when there is a threat by noticing things that are not right, the anomalies.
  • Consider having a fake packet of money, damaged/invalid credit cards if assailant wants cash (throw to ground and run in opposite direction).
     
• Violent encounters usually last three to five seconds.  The best remedy is the “one second law.”
  • Apply the one second law to every encounter.
  • Use your defense tools within that one second to protect yourself. 
  • Apply defense tools depending on where the assailant is:
    • Up to 5 feet away, use pepper spray, bat, cane
    • 10 feet use super bright tactical flashlight, pepper spray, car, obstacles such as a chair or table