Lack of situational awareness: it happens to everyone

D

doofus47

New member
A good example of "fog of war."
An armed robber confronts multiple mothers outside a school in Brazil. One of the mothers is armed. She slips to strong side of robber while he is occupied with trying to grab a purse and chambers a round. Then she steps in and puts pistol almost in touch with his chest before pulling trigger. It looks to me like she even hesitated at the last second and changed her angle before pulling the trigger as she suddenly noticed the child behind the bad guy. Or maybe that move was her pistol recoil from her first shot.

About as center mass as center mass gets.
 
On the other hand, I've watched that thing over and over, and I have two observations.

First, thugs roam in packs, and her situational awareness failed. at no time did I notice her looking around for secondary threats. She may not have even seen the original threat approaching.

Second, while I understand the need to restrain him, standing on his back with one foot was just plain stupid. she had just endangered herself and everyone around her by first, putting herself within striking distance, and second, eliminating every hope of keeping her balance if he fought back.

She made her first shots and should should have at least glanced around to see if other concerns were afoot, I don't know if she did so before she engaged with him. she should have stood away from him and held him at cover from a few feet, not stood on top of him. Other than those two things she did a very good job. she saved lives. This took place in brazil, so I'm not even going to go anywhere else other than how well she engaged her target.
 
One of the mothers is armed.
Click to expand...

You mean the highly trained, off duty military police officer Katia da Silva Sastre waiting on her children to come out?

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/0...-robber-at-mothers-day-event-near-school.html

Yep, she did not maintain any situational awareness after the shooting started and became threat focused as briandg indicated.

As for the lack of situational awareness happening to everyone, I have managed to make more than one firearms instructor mad who claimed to always be in condition yellow, head on a swivel. My favorite was debunking D*** B***** while at a Subway sandwich shop as he was telling two other students about how he had a 6th sense about what was going on around him as I stood behind him making stabbing motions.

You can be assured that when some of these purportedly high speed low drag folks tell you how good they are at maintaining situational awareness all the time that they are flat out lying or are self deceived at how good they are. We all have our comfort zones and we all have problems with fixation. Lack of situational awareness does happen to everyone.
 
Last edited:
I realize that there are a lot of "lone wolf" criminals, you will find them in my town. Very low level of gang or group activity. But in many other places and situations, I can't really believe that the majority of crimes are committed alone.

Gangs started up because people were afraid of being alone. There were always bullies who traveled in herds, then there were more herds. I expect to see accomplices during a crime in any extremely urban place. People never travel alone in some places.

Maybe that is something that the trainers should address much more effectively, that it's very likely that there is another one nearby, but not necessarily right in sight. This possibility is why the threat should be neutralized as quickly as possible, and that movement and cover are very important.

This is an excellent demonstration that carrying with an empty chamber isn't a good idea. The guy had already put his weapon in someone's face. Drawing and racking a slide take a second or two, it's loud and requires a lot of conspicuous movement.

It's very fortunate that he didn't appear to get a round off and hurt anyone. No matter what else she did, I commend her immediate and decisive strike.
 
Since it came Fast and Furious and was a Total Surprise, I'd say she did pretty well. I'm more concerned about the motorist who took off PDQ, nearly hit her. Plus she was probably worried about her kids, the other kids..no idea what their training is like.
 
This has been making the interweb rounds for a week or so. Other clips (not magazines) show several seconds prior to this one and it looks like something gets the attention of several ladies outside the camera frame toward the left and begin to leave the area and/or protect their kiddos.

The woman in the car was originally standing with the group and perhaps noticed before the others that something was amiss. Apparently there was some sort of hubbub to get their attention and begin their evasive actions.

It's quite possible the heroine made some quick assessments of the situation (aka OODA loop) before whipping out her piece.

--------------
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
 
Last edited:
I think that this defender did a great job but if we are going to discuss the play by play in an effort to learn, I would take some issues with how it went down. Again, she is a competent defender who got the job done, nobody is perfect but I think it would be a waste not to try to learn or at least discuss the merits and potential demerits.

This is what I see..

The good:

1. personal grit and keeping her head
2. shots on target
3. use of cover
4. disarming the badguy
5. being armed to begin with



the not so good:

1. it appears that the defender was alerted to the problem by another bystander.
2. She seems to make her gun ready after she drew it. Is there a hammer on that pistol? It looks like she was manually cocking the hammer.
3. She fires at a person in close proximity by using a traditional full length arm position ( nearly touching him with it)
4. She remained in the street long after the offender was down and remained in very close proximity to him. If she is a LEO and she was arresting him, I can accept that she is going to capture him and maintain control over his actions. If it were me ( as a citizen) I would not remain in the street to potentially engage other accomplices or perhaps fight further with the offender who produces another weapon. After disarming him initially, I would have simply left him there, removing myself from the volatility of the incident to call the authorities and ems.
5. Her firing position relative to the badguy and bystanders directly behind him.
6. Not surveying the scene (hyper narrow focus on the badguy) throughout the event. She does not seem concerned that there may be additional danger but does (finally) take a look around near the end of the clip. I don't think she even realized that the car almost ran her over or that the tall man was walking up on her from behind. He casually walks back up to within 8 feet or so and she never looks at him until near the end of the clip. Had he been a badguy, she would likely have been in real trouble.
7. Emotion of the moment is certainly understandable but her control seemed to be slipping toward the end as she became very animated, weapon too close to offender and she seem overly driven to position him "just right". The guy wasn't going anywhere.
 
Last edited:
weapon too close to offender and she seem overly driven to position him "just right". The guy wasn't going anywhere.
Click to expand...

I have to say that this was my greatest area of concern. While I must confess that standing on his back and watching him die has its appeal, that was just stupid. Seriously, deeply stupid. She had small feet it seemed, and she didn't have complete control of her stance. He squirmed or something once and she wobbled.

The guy was already disabled and barely able to move and he nearly put her off of her feet. If she had not already put bullets right into his chest and (possibly) completely and absolutely disabled him, he was in a pretty good position to take her down, grab the gun, cause more trouble. No, it didn't happen and in this case was probably an immeasurably low probability.

A couple of rounds of .380 into a guy's chest isn't enough that I would feel safe enough to jam a guy's chest into the dirt and stand on him.

She should have kicked the gun away and taken a position facing away from every possible target, such as towards the wall? She shouldn't have come any closer than six feet. Period. Any closer and there is a small chance that a strong person could knock the legs out from under the defender. Too much farther, and you have started getting out of the range that a trained person could be almost certain not to miss. If that wasn't such a serious mistake, I would accept it as just a goof. Same thing with her just completely ignoring her surroundings, jeeze, that was a HORRIBLE mistake.

He casually walks back up to within 8 feet or so and she never looks at him until near the end of the clip. Had he been a badguy, she would likely have been in real trouble.
Click to expand...

In her defense, even though I don't like to defend based on pure speculation, he may have spoken, she may have been fully aware of him.

OTOH, Good god, that was one stupid sumbitch. he snuck up behind a person who had just put three bullets into a guy's chest. Finding him behind her, she might just as well have turned around and put him down as well, just because of a panic. I'm pretty certain that I might have done so.
 
this event is just so disturbing, and it's custom made for people to pick apart. She wasn't pathetic and the event ended well, but she frankly had god on her side.
 
I have always felt that these events should always be picked apart.. its how training is developed. I would not doubt that she has watched this 100 times herself.

I agree that there seemed to be some substantial tunnel vision going on. You are right though, the moons and stars did align and ultimately she got it all done. She certainly deserves praise.
 
Last edited:
It's quite possible the heroine made some quick assessments of the situation (aka OODA loop) before whipping out her piece
Click to expand...

We never really stop doing that... its not jedi magic. You do the same thing when you are eating cereal from a bowl.
 
You can be assured that when some of these purportedly high speed low drag folks tell you how good they are at maintaining situational awareness all the time that they are flat out lying
Click to expand...

I certainly support the idea of a person "paying attention" to what is happening around them but the idea of having a grasp on your "situation" while working alone in active public spaces is rather fleeting and unrealistic in my estimation. You may have a fairly decent awareness bubble encompassing (maybe) 30-60 feet but lets be realistic, if you want to have a grasp of your "situation" you are probably going to need help.
 
I manage to do a pretty good job of tracking people up to twenty or thirty in a simple space. Most of the time. Maybe. I had dinner alone earlier. About twenty people around,in and out, my back to a wall, at just about any moment I knew who was where. Some people fix on the television, their phones, I keep track of my surroundings. For example, without looking, I can say that none of my three cats are here, even though they are almost never away from us. One will be on the back porch, second may be in the guest room perched, and I just heard moo-cow come down the stairs.

It's not hard, but a person must WANT to be the guy who lives like he has a stick up his butt.
 
It's nice to pick this apart for training purposes, but I suspect almost everyone on this board would not be 100% right in handling any kind of shooting situation. Probably the only people who could are those who have done it before.
 
Not enough and it might kill you from the outside in. Too much and it kills you from the inside out. Seen too many of my brother officers die of stress related diseases. Fine lines between aware, alert and hyper-alert.
 
It's nice to pick this apart for training purposes, but I suspect almost everyone on this board would not be 100% right in handling any kind of shooting situation. Probably the only people who could are those who have done it before.
Click to expand...

I'm one who will freely admit that I sure as heck would not have reacted perfectly, maybe not even well. I am pretty certain that I would also have tunneled in and lost my contact with the outside world. I would have probably seen him coming and would have drawn probably the instant he showed his weapon. Seriously, a guy just stormed the castle, came out of nowhere and invaded the space held by women and children. I might have been able to move to avoid background risk, I probably would have given him more than just three rounds. I really hope that I would have been able to pull myself out of the hypnosis of just staring at him after putting him down, and turned away to look for other threats.

I had a similar situation, I didn't handle it perfectly. No shots were fired, but like her, I zoned in and risked losing my own life. The partner was possibly thinking about flanking me and I lost track of him.

I hope that people learn from the deconstruction, that is pretty much my only interest. What did they do right, what they did that was wrong, and can I teach myself or anyone else from those moments?

What happened here is the absolutely essential key to surviving an attack. See it coming. She saw it coming, but probably not soon enough. If there had been a second, she clearly would not have seen that attack coming. When a (civilian?) approached, she wasn't observing him, she was fixed on a guy who was already down. her shooting skills were irrelevant here, beyond that she could put the front sight on the guy and squeeze the trigger, but she effectively used her tactical strengths. She was GOOD.
 
'Fog Of War'?
Hardly, war fighters work in teams since no one person can see/defend everything.

'Thugs Roam In Packs'?
'Thugs' are cowardly scavengers that bolt at the first sign of equal or superior persons.
At no time will you ever see a gang banger stand his ground, every (actual) video they scatter like cockroaches when the light comes on when the first one gets dropped.

So *You* think, in that armchair watching videos... She, in the heat of the moment *Should* have done something else, this or that...
I think she got it dead bang right all the way around.
Bad guy down, kids safe, moms safe, another firearm off the street. Job well done and I'm not arrogant enough to second guess a police officer that did it successfully.

You guys remind me of the investigations wanting to know why so many of the Marine Corps snipers shot bad guys in the head, like they were excuted...
 
So *You* think, in that armchair watching videos... She, in the heat of the moment *Should* have done something else, this or that...
I think she got it dead bang right all the way around.
Bad guy down, kids safe, moms safe, another firearm off the street. Job well done and I'm not arrogant enough to second guess a police officer that did it successfully.

You guys remind me of the investigations wanting to know why so many of the Marine Corps snipers shot bad guys in the head, like they were excuted...
Click to expand...
Nobody is on trial here and nobody is being investigated for wrongdoing, so the comparison is bankrupt.

Part of the point of this subforum of TFL is to discuss how things are done and how they can be done better. To examine real-world situations and determine what happened, what should have happened, what did go wrong or could have gone wrong, what went right and what actions might have been taken to improve the outcome or to eliminate problematic aspects of the scenario.

People who don't want to partake in that kind of discussion, those who prefer to dismiss any action taken as being ideal as long as the outcome can be roughly characterized as positive, should avoid this subforum.
 
Exactly.. because this is how future tactics, concepts and training is developed. Its also how a person can become aware and ultimately address certain lapses in their own methods. If this were a video of me, I would be watching it 100 times and I would certainly invite others to offer their thoughts on it.

This is really done in the spirit of any "after action report". I know that people want to use the term regarding the latest restaurant they have patroned or what self defense class they attended.

The critical analysis of combat as well as the tactics, decisions and strategics associated with such an action is really what its all about.

isn't that what we are doing here? At least in spirit?

I don't understand all the huff

:confused:
 
The lady does appear to have a bit of tunnel vision, but I can't tell how severe it really is by viewing the videos I have seen. It could easily be that she is glancing around a fair amount by moving her eyes. I have seen videos that show trainers and trainees going to the other extreme, turning shoulders and head first one way and then another in such an exaggerated way that it creates blind spots on alternating sides and has the defender turning away from a downed assailant. I hope I would find a happy medium in such a situation, only slightly less than I hope that I don't have to find out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top