- Joined
- Feb 26, 2002
- Messages
- 119
MelancholyMutt said:
This is the frame-by-frame description of the situation I was referring to in the thread showing how to conceal a HideAway in your shoe. At no point during what happened did drawing my gun seem like a tactical (or any type of) advantage. Regardless, it was close by if I needed it. But it never seemed like the right thing to do from any standpoint.
My DA told me it's usually not a good idea to talk about something like this before a trial happens, but for several reasons it is probably very low risk, and for other reasons, I don't care.
Context:
This happened within 1-2 minutes after walking into a restaurant while on a roadtrip to my roommate's parents' house. Ironically enough, we were headed to his parents house primarily to get a replacement Mitutoyo from his woodworker father. I had misplaced mine and had just received a batch of hideaways back from the machine shop that Kit Carson referred me to - the one that takes the raw waterjet cut blank and makes it perfectly flat and radiuses the edges and puts the pretty 32ra stonewashed finish on it.
It involved:
- 1 250 pound muscular psycho off his meds who a judge refused to commit just 2 weeks prior
- my roommate
- me
- other people in the restaurant who went into shock and did nothing
End result:
- psycho: is now in jail and is going to be charged with felony assault.
- my roommate: + 15 stitches in his face
- i am uninjured.
Main part happened like in 3 frames in 10 seconds:
Frame 1:
Roommate had walked back towards restaurant area with tray. I turn away from the counter with a plastic tumblers in hand to get iced tea. See my roommate about to hit the floor and weird looking (strange skin color) 250lb completely strong looking muscular + fat 20ish male at the end of throwing a hard punch. Draw HideAway off static cord attached in back pocket of purse. Yell "Call 911" to the people-turned-frozen-popsicles behind the counter. What did my roommate say to this guy? Is this a guy-fight?
Frame 2:
Run towards them, grabbing a metal chair. SCREAM loudly, loud enough to make my throat sore for a day "STOP hitting him!" Plan became to hit psycho on head with seat part of metal chair (barstool). Didn't think anything else would cause enough pain and to make him stop or at least distract and daze. Getting closer - looked jacked, impervious to pain, capable of cracking open my roommates head.
Frame 3:
Almost on top of them. Psycho turns around waving his arms and goes out the side door. I didn't expect that. Why would he be scared of me. Hit him from behind as he was going out door? No, not smart thing to do. Not as good a shot at his head. Look back at roommate. Face now getting bloody. Maybe psycho had a knife?
Hear a female voice say, "He's bipolar and off his meds."
Now it all made sense. Everything that made no sense now made total sense. Felt a different wave of fear. Realized everyone in the restaurant was in danger.
Longer Frame 4:
First 3 frames happened in less than 10 seconds. Next part was several minutes, and more like a blur. After hear the female voice say, "He's bipolar and off his meds", I hear the voice of the police officer that I used to train IPSC drills with say how EDPs can be more dangerous and unpredictable than random perps. Think might need to let go of the chair to draw my gun if psycho comes back inside and starts killing or seriously injuring people. Would throw chair at him and draw. If something happened to gun, would shove my knife in his neck.
Ran to door psycho exited to lock it; afraid he would come right back in when I was there.. Let go of chair. Hideaway stays on. Push-bar kind of door, not deadbolt. How to lock? Couldn't. Roommate up, bleeding and mad, tries to go out after psycho. Hadn't heard female say he was off his meds. Thought psycho was delinquent teenager with car full of teenagers also outside the door. That car of teenagers was meaningless distraction. I push/pull roommate back and yell a VERY loud NO and that he's a psycho. Put foot against wall pulled against pull bar all strength so psycho couldn't come back in. Wonder if psycho pulled against door hard, would I fall forward or backward or be able to hold it or break my wrists. Psycho is walking back and forth by door outside muttering something. Psycho disappears. Where to?
Grab back chair and run towards front door to try to lock it. Thank god. Front door has a simple deadbolt. Flip it. Pick back up chair and yell at frozen popsicles behind the counter to LOCK THE SIDE DOOR. They remain frozen. Felt as much rage at them as psycho at that point. Was not asking them to fight psycho. Just wanted the f---ing door locked. Needed allen wrench.
People in restaurant also frozen popsicles. Like something out of the Star Trek transporter instants. So lame.
Room suddenly looks like room full of doors. One push-bar door back, one push-bar door right, could not lock either. Emergency door side unknown. I could out-run psycho. Consider running to car. But what about my bloody angry roommate. He might see psycho and want to go after him. Moved away from locked front door and yell again to call 911 at the popsicles. We had driven a couple hours. What town were we in? Not sure which county.
Hours of Frame 5:
Army of police arrive almost immediately. Takes 4 to tackle him to the ground. Then they electrocute psycho. Was dark outside. Looked like 3 bolts of blue lightening coming out of his body between psycho and the cops.
At that point, as the familiar kaleidoscope of events "after" starts to happen, I started to cry. Didn't stop for 6 hours. I could talk and think clearly but could not stop crying. Called my DA (who prosecuted the guy in previous incident) and sobbed into his ear for an hour. Called roommates girlfriend and parents. Called my boyfriend and my ex-roommates Julia and Bryce still with my HideAway on my dialing hand.
Paramedics arrive start working on my roommate. Occurred to me that the blood might be not all his. Psycho could have cut his hands on roommates teeth. Was face-down handcuffed on the cement. Grab my Surefire from purse and go outside to look at his hands. Police officer stops me says I need to put down chair. Still had death-grip on chair holding in same hand as hideaway and still couldn't stop crying.
Being told to put down the chair jarred me a little. My thoughts [ Ok. Do I trust that anyone here can handle psycho if he were to get up and break apart his handcuffs? Why should I trust anyone else? Thought about that for a sec. See at least 6 police closeby. Do they look strong enough. Could tell this police officer wouldn't let me near psycho with chair. Need to see psycho's hands. OK, maybe I could put down the chair to get close enough to see psycho's hands. Police officer probably thought this sobbing female was going to bash the snot out of psycho with the chair. Hands looked clean. Best use of my SureFire L4 to date. Picked up chair went back inside.
Went back inside and put head down in arms at the table in the corner and still couldn't stop crying. More LEOs show up. One asked me if I was hurt. Shake head no. Still had knife on. LEO who asked me if I was hurt said, "What the heck is that!" Only thing occurred to me to say was, "It's MINE." Suddenly was afraid he would try to take it. Put hand under the table, Eventually drop it in outside compartment of my purse. Too tired to resheath.
Roommate kept saying he wasn't hurt. Told him to go look in a mirror. He came back totally mad and starts talking about how he is going to have a scar on his face. Put my head down in my arms on the table just cried harder
Police were taking statements from the frozen popsicles who worked in the restaurant. Had to restrain myself to not say, "Are you telling him you were so LAME that you couldn't even f---ing call 911 or move an inch to lock the door?"
Suddenly felt very naked. Was wearing sandals (only kind of sandals I own now are ones that connect at ankle too so I could run. was grateful for that), shorts, white collar'd sleeveless shirt and a very light anti-airconditioning jacket. Still, felt naked. Took my roommates denim jacket and put it over me.
Held roommate's hand while he was getting stitched up. Tried not to cry as much. ER doctor said it's almost impossible to commit a psycho these days. For first time felt some empathy for everyone else who was crying and hysterical when I was the one lying on the bed even though I kept saying I was ok.
Boyfriend was waiting at home. Went from feeling like I needed to repeat it over and over to being non-communicative. Felt like I had total power of concentration suddenly. Couldn't sleep. So, got up and worked on website code for 5 hours straight till I had to get up to pee. Then slept. Next day couldn't get rid of this picture of what my roommate looked like getting stitched up. Thought about how much more awful I must have looked when I was hurt. No wonder everyone was hysterical...
Several days after:
Roommate has said a million what-ifs. He said he had no idea at all - the psycho just walked near him and said "Hey, how's it going?" Then ba-boom - 2 fast punches. That was his *entire* Frame 1. Roommate said first one he barely felt and second one hardly even hurt. Yet he was very injured from them.I saw end of the second punch.
He was on edge for a week. His driving became slightly erratic. He stole 3 of my hideaways! 2 that fit him and 1 that didn't! Heard him upstairs messing around in my rolly-drawer cart of finished hideaways, Said hey buddy where is your reservation. He has 1 attached to the tongue of his running shoes, 1 in his pocket not in the correct sheath for that, and 1 around his neck. He used to just wear one when running for animals. He's yelled at me once since and he's never yelled at me before.
My hideaway performed just as I would have hoped - I deployed it off of the static cord in the outside back pocket of my purse the instant that I realized something bad was happening. What I had minimally trained to do with my knife, I did. That was to deploy external one first (from my purse), instead of the one on me. Was able to keep it on while holding the metal chair, pulling in on the side door push-bar with my foot against the wall so the psycho couldn't come back in, pushing my angry roommate back, running and dropping the deadbolt on the front door when I thought he went around to that side, then later dialing my phone.
That's the net of it.
Psycho is still in jail. My DA (from before) told me he will probably just get ajudicated [something], but at least it is more likely he will be committed.
FrontSight
ps: This is a pic that I took in order to create a thread about non-belt-attached ways of carrying a HideAway. (I know guys prefer belt carry, but I prefer anything but.) I keep it always attached to the hardware on the back of my purse, and the hideaway in the back pouch area. It's always there. The static cord thing can be found at any sports store for $2.
Did more meat testing (more accurately - training - not testing) with various deployment including static cord deployment after this happened. Just to make sure I could still get it deployed in less than 2 secs without looking. I could.
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