buckhorn_cortez
New member
I am having a hard time figuring out when one would deploy force (either a strike or pepper spray) prior to the other person actually striking or attempting to strike you.
Let me give you a real life situation that happened to me - and then YOU tell me what you would have done to NOT use physical force.
First, you have to know that at the time this happened, I was 64 years old, and was 9 months post open-heart surgery with a new heart valve, pacemaker, double bypass, and a right leg that had a nerve damaged during vein harvesting for the double by-pass. The result was that I have no feeling in my right leg from the knee down, which often causes me to misplace my foot - so running is out of the question. I was also dealing with severe (at times) ventricular tachycardia.
Now that you know that I'm older, and have a number of physical disabilities - I'll tell you what happened.
I was coming out of the office building that I work in and going to my truck that was in a parking lot across a four-lane street. As I was walking to the curb I noticed a guy in his mid-20's on the opposite sidewalk shoot me a glance out of the side of his eyes with a slight head turn.
I walked to the middle of the four lane road and stood in the median watching the guy as he slowly continued to walk down the sidewalk.
I crossed the road and proceeded into the parking lot and the guy took an immediate left turn into the parking lot two cars away from me and paralleled my movement through the parking lot.
I walked across one traffic lane, and he walked toward me. At that point we had one car between us and he continued to parallel me alongside the vehicle that separated us.
I had to cross two more traffic lanes to get to my truck and knew he could get to me before I could reach my truck.
So, I turned back toward the office building to get away from him. He proceeded to turn back parallel to me. I turned back toward my truck again. He turned back. I turned back to the office building - he turned back.
I stopped with one car between us and told him not to follow me and leave me alone. He just laughed.
I turned back toward the office and went out into a traffic lane in the parking lot. He followed me and came around the back of an automobile and started moving towards me.
I told him to stop and not to come any closer. He just smirked and continued forward.
As he approached me I moved to the uphill side of the parking lot (it slants downhill east to west). This gave me about a 4-inch height advantage.
As he continued toward me I continually told him to stop and not approach me. He just continued forward laughing.
I was watching him very carefully and timing his footsteps. As he got within 20-inches of me and lifted his lead foot up in the air putting all of his weight on his downhill, rear foot - I punched him in the sternum with a flat palm as hard as I could.
This sent him backward about 8-feet and onto his backside. As he was recovering from getting put down, I walked as fast as I could to my truck, started the truck remotely, unlocked it, got in and locked the doors.
He had followed me to my truck and was about 20-feet away when I put the truck in gear and started driving out of the parking lot. He flipped me off with his middle finger and sauntered out of the parking lot.
He showed intent that he wanted to harass me, and would not leave me alone even when told to stop and not to follow me. He would not let me get back to the office building. He aggressively continued forward toward me and would not stop.
When you're closer that 3-feet (in this case about 20-inches) and you're still moving forward - I had no alternative but to stop him. I did.
That's why you use physical force to stop someone BEFORE they have the chance to do anything to you.
Let me guess - you'd have called 911. They'd have gotten there 25 minutes after the phone call. What do you do in the meantime?
Let me guess again - you'd have somehow "known" by his looking at you that he was going to harass you - sure, you would...'cause your psychic and can "read people." Lucky you for being so prescient.
You have to deal with the situation at hand, not thirty-five alternate realities that didn't happen.
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