DRILL ASSESMENT

I was reviewing the home invasion RBS drill we did last week. I was more specifically watching the video of me finding an intruder hiding in my closet that came out jumping at me. I used my knife (I always carry one with me) to slice his throat open. Killed on the spot. End of threat. Lise is safe. Scenario successful

Now looking back, my analytical brain is taking over. I can see that he was not armed. Maybe he was hiding because he got scared I would find him. Maybe he is just a young kid doing stupid things out on a dare or out of desperation. Did I need to kill him? Could I have run away? Could I have controlled him without killing him? Those are valid points. They are easy questions to ask when you are sitting down over a cup of coffee and analyzing step by step.

At the time when I was in the middle of the action, I only had fraction of seconds to analyze, decide and react. The facts were: someone broke into my house; my daughter was home alone at the time I had left.

Possibilities:

1. My daughter stepped out for something and forgot the door open

2. A friend of my daughter just walked in to see her and forgot the door open

3. Someone my daughter knows came in to pick a fight with her

4. Simple robbery: some guy came in , robbed the place and left and my daughter never even knew

5. Simple robbery that went bad. My daughter got hurt or killed

6. Break in with intent to rape, kill or kidnap my daughter

I could not live with choices 5 or 6.

When I found that someone unknown to me was hiding in my closet it pretty much precluded the notion that this was a friendly. No one who knows me would purposely do this. The choices got narrowed down between #4, 5 or 6.

This whole thing started to play in my head the minute I came home and found my door open. I could not see anyone and this was very suspicious. The best response to this would be to get out of there and call the authorities. But the scenario was that my daughter was in there alone and I feared for her life. So I called the cops and then I went in. I was in code Orange. This was highly suspicious as I knew my daughter would never forget the door open this way. I cleared the rooms properly (Kasey taught me well ;-p). This gave me a chance to not be totally taken by surprise or assaulted with a rear attack. When I cleared the closet he was hiding in, he came out jumping at me. This was not a fearful teenager caught with his hand in the cookie jar. This was a large man who would rather kill than be killed. He messed with the wrong woman. I was mentally and physically ready to defend myself and protect my family. If I had not killed him I had no doubt he would do horrible things to me.

This is where good training comes in. I was mentally ready because we had many times discussed situations like this. My life or his?? Mine…. without a shadow of a doubt. Having trained under stress, where a man attacks me with anger and violence helped the mental freeze. Kasey mentioned this before, training against ‘chi”. We’ll discuss this again later. But this is VERY important for females to know what this feels like.

Being able to do quick threat assessment is also invaluable. It saves precious minutes. And if he would have been attacking my daughter at the time, those precious minutes might have saved her life.

At the time, I had no hesitation at killing him. Looking back on it, even if this was a RBS, killing a man is not something I take lightly. I highly value life. Did I make the right decision? I am at peace that I did, and I would make the same choice again faced with similar situation. Someone who breaks into my house and hides does not have peaceful intentions. He knows what he is doing and he chose to die when he chose to enter MY house, unannounced and uninvited.

Now YOU need to think about situations like this ahead of time. Make your peace and your choices ahead of time. You don’t want to choose on the spot, you will most likely freeze. If you cannot live with the idea of killing someone, then choose another alternative ahead of time. And the one where you die is NOT a good alternative. I personally could not have lived with myself if I had sat on the sidelines waiting for the police to arrive while my daughter was possibly getting raped or killed. But that’s me. This choice is yours to make. Don’t let anyone talk you into doing something you can’t live with.

I have dealt with my seconds thoughts. Had I not, it would create an hesitation if this would happen for real. And hesitation can mean life or death.

The most important thing to take away from this: BE READY. In the middle of an attack is NOT the time to decide on what you can do physically AND morally. This has to be decided ahead of time. Don’t live in fear but know what the options are and what the consequences are.

Stay safe