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During my time as a night-shift crew chief at a grocery store, I had the opportunity to meet and interact with people of all types. Some were "regulars" repeating a portion of their 24-hour routine, some were casual shoppers gathering what they needed for a particular event. Some, though, liked to think of the cloak of darkness as a blanket over their identities. Even though the setting Sun opens the sky to the vastness of the Universe, many tend to ignore it and focus, instead, on themselves.
Don't get me wrong. Inner contemplation is a good thing. It's just that some people think that darkness blots out all the other people in the world, leaving only the person behind their eyes.
I'm sure that anyone who has worked as part of a team understands that the crew forms a unique relationship. "Family" is a good description since it's a love/hate kind of thing at times.
My crew was "Family". We bitched, laughed, shared experiences, played pranks on each other, ad infinitum...
One thing I didn't notice (being on the "inside") was pointed out to me by one of the regulars. He happened to be in law enforcement and shopped after his shift.
He mentioned how well my crew got along and worried that some self-absorbed individual might ruin many lives in an instant. After some discussion, he convinced me to have my crew trained in basic self-defense techniques.
In particular, he mentioned having the upper hand in potentially violent confrontations by carrying an ASP (http://www.batondefense.com/).
He gave me a reference, I got the crew together, we discussed it and agreed to go for the training. We paid out of our own pockets.
After studying the manual required for certification and eight hours of written and physical exams, we had seven people certified to carry and use ASPs from 21" (me) to 26".
If you've never seen one in action, there's a psychological factor that helps to keep the batons from ever coming into contact with flesh, blood and bone;
It sounds like a shotgun being cocked when it's being extended.
Now, to the point of this post's title.
Seven of us were going about our business when a young man decided that it was in his best interest to steal ~$700US worth of cigarettes. My cashier decided otherwise and used a code over the public address system to alert us.
After several minutes of warnings, keeping distance and herding, the thief had his bags of smokes in hand and his back to a fire exit. We stayed well clear but in a semi-circle around him, none approaching lest he have a gun. One of the things we were taught during our training was that an ASP is no match for a firearm.
A knife, however...
And out it came. He flashed his switchblade in the air and proclaimed, "If any of you motherf****** comes near me, I'll bleed you like a pig".
That's all we needed to hear and see.
The sound of seven ASPs opening simultaneously is quite impressive.
In less than five seconds, we had some bags of cigarettes on the floor that needed to be restocked, a small puddle of urine to be mopped up, a fire exit to be closed and a decision to be made; what to do with the switchblade he'd dropped.
We decided to give it as a present to the cop who referred us for training.
We kept the memory for ourselves.
Don't get me wrong. Inner contemplation is a good thing. It's just that some people think that darkness blots out all the other people in the world, leaving only the person behind their eyes.
I'm sure that anyone who has worked as part of a team understands that the crew forms a unique relationship. "Family" is a good description since it's a love/hate kind of thing at times.
My crew was "Family". We bitched, laughed, shared experiences, played pranks on each other, ad infinitum...
One thing I didn't notice (being on the "inside") was pointed out to me by one of the regulars. He happened to be in law enforcement and shopped after his shift.
He mentioned how well my crew got along and worried that some self-absorbed individual might ruin many lives in an instant. After some discussion, he convinced me to have my crew trained in basic self-defense techniques.
In particular, he mentioned having the upper hand in potentially violent confrontations by carrying an ASP (http://www.batondefense.com/).
He gave me a reference, I got the crew together, we discussed it and agreed to go for the training. We paid out of our own pockets.
After studying the manual required for certification and eight hours of written and physical exams, we had seven people certified to carry and use ASPs from 21" (me) to 26".
If you've never seen one in action, there's a psychological factor that helps to keep the batons from ever coming into contact with flesh, blood and bone;
It sounds like a shotgun being cocked when it's being extended.
Now, to the point of this post's title.
Seven of us were going about our business when a young man decided that it was in his best interest to steal ~$700US worth of cigarettes. My cashier decided otherwise and used a code over the public address system to alert us.
After several minutes of warnings, keeping distance and herding, the thief had his bags of smokes in hand and his back to a fire exit. We stayed well clear but in a semi-circle around him, none approaching lest he have a gun. One of the things we were taught during our training was that an ASP is no match for a firearm.
A knife, however...
And out it came. He flashed his switchblade in the air and proclaimed, "If any of you motherf****** comes near me, I'll bleed you like a pig".
That's all we needed to hear and see.
The sound of seven ASPs opening simultaneously is quite impressive.
In less than five seconds, we had some bags of cigarettes on the floor that needed to be restocked, a small puddle of urine to be mopped up, a fire exit to be closed and a decision to be made; what to do with the switchblade he'd dropped.
We decided to give it as a present to the cop who referred us for training.
We kept the memory for ourselves.
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