Escalation of force?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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“Someone posted: I mention [style] because I have studied it under a number of different Si-Fu and used it in police work under real life pressure.”

As a former Sniper in the USMC I am always interested in what constitutes “real life pressure.”

In the military we have a term for this. It is called “escalation of force.” You only are to use as much force as is necessary to neutralize your enemy and accomplish your objective.

However the terms necessary and neutralize are under constant interpretation.

I wanted to ask the forum to what level they see themselves taking their art in a combat situation.

In the above quote for example the poster cited “police work.” Well as many of my friends and clients are police officers I can tell you that they are very concerned about “excessive force.”

You simply can’t hit a perpetrator in the throat or gouge his eye or bite him without having some heavy duty explaining to do.

What do you think?

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Hey, if someone attacks you, one SHOULD use anyone one of those tactics. I would think “excessive force” would be using your gun, or any weapon outside of mase or pepper spray. I mean hell at least you ain’t clubbing the son of a *****.

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I’m not a cop, but grew up in a bad neigborhood in Newark and am on NYC subways at crazy hours coming from Chinatown after training.

I use as much force that is needed to end the situation. The average unarmed man on the street is a joke. I am confident in my ability to thawrt his attack and turn him away without any injury – hopefully well enough to make him change his mind. If he comes again, he goes down – hard.

If the person is not drunk, but maybe spweing racist crap, being a basically mean person, maybe he’ll go down the first time, nothing major, just a good lump. If they are much bigger than myself (I’m 5’11 210lbs.) then I end it ASAP. I can tell a persons intent, big or small. A small guy with a hard heart, same treatment because one never knows if they have a knife.

Basically, I’m kind to the young loud drunks on the train, not so kind to the angry, ****ed off rascists, gangbangers or punks.

Weapons changes everything. Haven’t had one of those since an adult and hope it stays that way.

Lying low is the best bet in my eyes. Very few altercations in the past 7 years. Perhaps 3.

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ijedi, the standard of force is different for that of civilians than that of police or military personell. (BTW, I’m an 91W in the Army Reserves and I just got assigned to the 5051st, which pleases me greatly.)

The average person only needs to prove that he/she did what a “reasonable person” might have done. That is, if a “reasonable” person felt that their life was in danger, it is reasonable that this person can use deadly force.

The interesting thing is that when you are really scared, you are not really “reasonable”. And the court often takes that into account. If you are a trained individual, be it police, military, (or martial arts instructor), you will be expected to be much more “reasonable” than the average Joe.

The devil is in the details, and it will be up to your attorney to prove that you were justifiably scared, and that what you did was in response to your fear.

Now, some states are different than others. Here in the great state of Texas, it is understood that if someone is tresspassing on your property it is likely that they are they to steal your property or do you harm and you are immediately justified in using force against them.

BTW, the law expects you to do one of two things to an assailant, either subdue and control the assailant and wait for the authorities to arrive, or kill him. Anything outside of those two things are likely to get you into allot of legal trouble.

A couple of years ago(good lord I can’t believe I’m dragging this out again) I dissarmed a kid that pulled a really crappy switch blade on me. I dissarmed him with my belt, and I ended up breaking the knife and damaging his hand. Even though I had several witnesses, including a cop, the court hassle was ridiculous and the guy got off without spending a single night in jail. I spent more time with the police than he did. But it still beat the alternative of doing nothing and risking him stabbing me.

JWT

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I hope New York has a similiar view to problems, subdue or kill. That’s nice and simple. Though I do like the don’t call the cops and just give someone a wake up beating to think about option. A lot of the old timer Portugues guys in Newark did that when they caught a thief. Cops come, everyone saw him fall down the stairs, that’s why he is laying there with broken limbs officer.

Great knife story too. What was that kid thinking? Was he trying to rob you? IS it that tuff down in Texas? ****, sounds like the Bronx.

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Nah, it was all a big “misunderstanding”. Long story short. Sat next to him at a crowded bar, knocked over his drink when I got up to get my food. Stood up and appologized. He pushed me, I “intercepted” and pushed him. He fell down. He came up holding a knife. When he hit the ground and put his hand in his pocket I took off my belt and when he cam up I swung the buckle and hit his hand/wrist. His story was that some cowboy walked up to him, dumped his drink on him, knocked him off his chair and pushed him to the ground, and then stood over him to whip him. That might have been a good storty, but it didn’t look good for the kid that he was wearing a heavy black Raiders coat in Texas when it was like 85 degrees outside and carrying an illegal knife.

JWT

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Darn insensitive cowboys.