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
For more information about keeping your home safe, download this safety bulletin!