Man is Buddha—the day and I grow dark as one.
This section covers the aftermath of violence, showing that it’s almost never over when it’s over. We’re going to assume, for the sake of argument, that once the dust has settled you are still alive. Otherwise, there won’t be much aftermath for you to deal with; that’ll be left for the authorities and your mourners to hash out. So, under our scenario, the good news is that you’ve survived. The bad news is that living through the fight is just the beginning. There are a host of other consequences to address, including first aid, legal issues, managing witnesses, finding a good attorney, dealing with the press, interacting with law enforcement, and dealing with psychological trauma.
If you were unexpectedly attacked, ambushed with a weapon, or suddenly discovered that what you thought would be a simple fistfight had escalated in to something far more serious, you will need to get your head in the right place after it’s over. You may be gravely wounded and/or facing serious short- and long-term repercussions. Your first order of business must be to know your priorities and act accordingly.
The rules of the military are five: measurement, assessment, calculation, comparison, and victory. The ground gives rise to measurements, measurements give rise to assessments, assessments give rise to calculations, calculations give rise to comparisons, and comparisons give rise to victories.
All things entail rising and falling timing. You must be able to discern this. In strategy, there are various timing considerations. From the outset, you must know the applicable timing and the inapplicable timing, and from among the large and small things and the fast and slow timings find the relevant timing, first seeing the distance timing and the background timing. This is the main thing in strategy. It is especially important to know the background timing; otherwise, your strategy will become uncertain.
Once you survive a violent conflict, there are hosts of other consequences to address. Your first order of business, however, must be survival. If you have been injured during a fight, you may have to take care of yourself until professional help can arrive. First, you need to make a mental commitment to live. Your attitude plays a large part in your ability to survive. It’s also important to know how to treat your own injuries as you may be on your own for a long time until paramedics or other assistance can arrive.
Once you have taken care of any life-threatening injuries, you will want to turn your attention to notifying the authorities, calling your attorney, contacting your wife, girlfriend, or appropriate family member, and identifying any witnesses who may be able to testify about your actions and those of your adversary. It is extraordinarily important to act in a manner that demonstrates to any who observe a violent encounter that you are the victim rather than the instigator of the attack. Always act as if you are on video camera, even if no one else is around. Assume anything you do will be interpreted in the most derogatory manner possible and likely used against you in a court of law. Calculate your verbal response and physical actions to put yourself in the best possible light.
It’s tough to remember to do this if you are in pain or shock from a traumatic experience but your fight on the street is only the first of several fights you may endure. While you may or may not have to fight to work through and recover from injuries and/ or emotional scars, you almost certainly will have to fight for your freedom and livelihood in court. Your defense begins before the altercation gets physical and often doesn’t end for months or years to come. While the opening salvo is playing to any witnesses who might see the fight or video equipment that might record what happened, one of the most important skirmishes will be your first contact with the police.
Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence.
When the authorities arrive, approach the responding officers calmly and politely. A confrontational attitude will do you no good. Follow the officers’ instructions without hesitation. Expect to be arrested. It may or may not happen, but if you are arrested do not resist for any reason. Similarly, do not interfere with an attempt to arrest anyone who is with you at the time.
Do not, under any circumstances, make any incriminating statements that may be used against you at a later time. Despite Miranda[29] requirements, your fundamental rights and responsibilities may not always be clearly spelled out by the responding officers, especially in any conversations that precede an arrest. Remember that you have a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and that it is often prudent to have an attorney present during any questioning. Your priority should be to alleviate or minimize any potential charges against you, so be enormously cautious about what you say and do.
The legal process is arduous, complicated, and expensive. It generally begins with an arrest followed by a booking, arraignment, evidentiary hearing, and trial. At times, an appeal will be necessary as well. Because your freedom, family, livelihood, and reputation are on the line, it is essential to have a highly skilled and experienced attorney to help you navigate the process. You should always carry the phone number of an attorney you can trust and of a person who can contact a lawyer for you if yours is not immediately available. That means, of course, that you will need to be proactive and find an attorney before you need one. More on that later…
Killing or crippling another human being is traumatic, even when it’s absolutely the right thing to do in order to preserve your own life and well-being. The other guy might be a total scumbag while he’s attacking you, but he’s still a person, someone with a family, friends, and loved ones who will miss him when he’s gone. For example, serial killer Ted Bundy’s mother’s last words to him were, “You will always be my precious son.” She said that right before he was executed by the State of Florida for his crimes.[30]
If you put someone down on his street, there is no legal process, proceedings, or appeal. There is no judge or jury, only an executioner. You fight. You win. He dies. Sure, lesser outcomes are certainly possible, but it’s important to prepare yourself mentally for that ultimate eventuality. It all takes place in the blink of an eye, yet you’ll undoubtedly remember it for the rest of your life if it goes that far. That sort of thing is not trivial stuff. It can be very tough to deal with, a great argument for avoiding violent confrontations in the first place, as well as a great argument for seeking psychological counseling to put your head in the right place afterward. Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence.
Win or lose, there’s always a cost to engaging in violence. Once you survive a violent conflict, there are a host of other consequences to address, including first aid, legal issues, managing witnesses, dealing with the press, interacting with law enforcement, and dealing with psychological trauma. The fight itself is only the beginning. Your first priority afterward must be to ensure your survival. Once you have taken care of any life-threatening injuries, you can begin to deal with everything else.
We’ll go through these things in more detail shortly. At the overview level, however, your most important priority is staying alive and dealing with injuries. Next comes managing witnesses and interacting with law enforcement. We hope you won’t need to do so, but you must be prepared to navigate the legal system next. Finally, you’ll have to deal with any psychological trauma you’ve sustained from the encounter.
Hence, the skillful fighter puts himself into a position that makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment.
Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear fast.
Real fights occur at closer ranges and with much greater speed and intensity than any sparring match. When bad things happen on the street, life-threatening injuries can take place in the blink of an eye. Mentally shifting into survival mode, while critical for your continued existence, can be a significant challenge if you are unprepared. While this is often necessary in a fight, it can happen in other venues as well.
The following story is a real-life example of dealing with a serious injury. While it didn’t happen in a fight, there was a stabbing involved.
Kane’s big project over a three-day Memorial Day weekend was building a knife and fork carving set for some friends as a present for their 50th wedding anniversary. Although he had not yet sharpened the blade, he had already finished the metalwork and was in the process of attaching the handle materials when things went awry. First, he got the blade and handle all glued up, but instead of setting it back on the shelf to dry as he usually did, he left it on a low bench to put up once he got the fork done too. After he finished clamping up the fork, he turned around, took a step toward the bench, and managed to stab himself in the thigh with the knife.
Killing another human being is traumatic, even when it’s absolutely the right thing to do in order to preserve your own life. The other guy might be a total scumbag while he’s attacking you, but he’s still a person, someone with a family, friends, and loved ones who will miss him when he’s gone.
Guess what, it was a lot sharper than he had realized. In a microsecond, he got a three-quarter-inch wide, one-and-a-half-inch deep hole in his leg… Thankfully, it missed all the major arteries, but it was a very serious wound nevertheless. At first, it didn’t hurt much; most knife cuts don’t, but the considerable pool of blood collecting in his sock demonstrated that it was not something to be taken lightly. While this particular incident stemmed from an accident, it plays out much the same way in a fight. Most stabbing victims do not realize that they’ve been cut until after the fight. As he peeled the pant leg away to examine the wound, it began to hurt like hell.
Kane is, sadly, quite familiar with pain. He has been stabbed, sliced, abraded, bruised, contused, and concussed, and suffered a wide range of injuries from martial arts training, physical confrontations, a hunting accident, and a few run-ins with wayward power tools. He has been a bit of a klutz at times too, yet he knows how to ascertain the seriousness of an injury and what to do about triaging it. Good skills to have if you’re in the martial arts business.
He immediately went limping into the house covered in blood, hobbled over to the first aid kit, and patched things up as best he could. Unfortunately, he also found that he had used up the last of the necessary supplies. Given the holiday, he was not sure how long stores would be open, so without taking time to change is bloody clothes he drove down to the local Target department store to buy more.
While knife slashes tend to cause more bleeding, stab wounds are oftentimes more serious. This partially healed injury was photographed about two weeks after the incident.
Picture this: he’s got two days beard-growth, he’s dusty and grimy from the shop, and he’s got a massive blotch of fresh blood (not dried yet) surrounding a hole in his pant leg. He’s also got blood all over his shoes and socks. And he’s limping slightly.
So he went in through the parking lot, past the security guy at the front of the store, and then limped past close to a hundred customers to the back corner where the first aid supplies were kept. He packed a handcart with bandages, gauze, tape, antibiotic ointment, hydrogen peroxide, and the like, and then hobbled back up to the front of the store where the cashiers were located. He must have passed another hundred customers on the return trip.
Sensing nothing wrong, the cashier asked him how he was doing. “I’m fine,” he lied. She then asked him, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” to which he replied, “Yes.” She proceeded to try to sell him a Red Card (Target’s store brand Visa credit card), which he politely declined, yet she still had not noticed anything amiss even though she was looking right at him while they talked.
With the transaction now completed, she told him to have a nice day and he mumbled something along the lines of “You, too.” He then hobbled past the security guard at the entrance, back out into the parking lot, past a roving police patrol car, and over to his truck. He climbed in and drove home. During all that time, no one had noticed anything wrong.
While it wasn’t terribly funny at the time, he found this incident highly amusing in retrospect. That was by far the worst situational awareness he had ever experienced—both on his part for walking into the darn blade in the first place and everyone else’s for not noticing the “stupid bleeding guy” wandering around in the parking lot or the store.
Awareness is important at all times. Pay extra attention whenever you are around anything or anyone dangerous. Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. You may do it to yourself or the other guy may do it to you, but either way it takes only a microsecond to get severely injured. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
Kane went to the doctor when his office opened a couple of days later after the holiday and got some antibiotics and a tetanus shot. Although he also got yelled at for not going to the emergency room in the first place, the wound fully healed several months later, leaving nothing worse than a small scar.
There are two important lessons here.
• Awareness is important at all times. We’ve already beaten you upside the head with this concept, but seriously pay, extra attention whenever you are around anything or anyone dangerous. It doesn’t matter how you get hurt; it’s the wound you have got to deal with.
• Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. Maybe the pain will come from some other guy’s fist yet it just as easily could come from your vehicle, a power tool, or a kitchen knife. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
It takes only a microsecond to get hurt badly, whether in a fight or in an accident. How you act after it happens makes all the difference. Interestingly, it’s much tougher to work through an identical injury if it came from another person. For example, a broken leg suffered in a fall on the ski slopes is much less psychologically traumatic than an identical injury caused by some street thug with a baseball bat. Regardless, you must remain calm and focus on the task at hand. Resolute determination can help you achieve what you need to do.
This is what the Japanese call fudoshin or indomitable spirit. Miyamoto Musashi, arguably the greatest swordsman who ever lived, demonstrated the ultimate evolution of such spirit. In his writings, he related that many opponents fell before his sword simply because they believed that they would, not necessarily, because he was the better warrior.
When your life is on the line, fight not only for yourself but also about those who care about and depend upon you—your family, your wife or girlfriend, your kids, and your friends. In the heat of battle, you will not have time to think of anything beyond the immediate but it is wise to consider beforehand what will happen to your loved ones if you do not make it. Sometimes the impact to others can be even more motivating than the impact to yourself. You must make a wholehearted commitment to survive. This same indomitable spirit is necessary throughout the entire encounter—from first contact with an adversary to the closing gavel in the courtroom (if it gets that far).
Staying calm in a crisis is paramount. Sooner or later, you’re going to get hurt doing something stupid. You may do it to yourself or the other guy may do it to you, but either way it takes only a microsecond to get severely injured. How you act after it happens can make all the difference.
Triage and battlefield medicine are not addressed by either Sun Tzu or Miyamoto Musashi. While ancient warriors certainly learned these vital skills, they were beyond the scope of books on strategy at that time.
Even if you don’t expect to get into a fight, it’s a good idea to know what to do if you or a loved one becomes injured. The Red Cross and Red Crescent provide relatively inexpensive, comprehensive first aid and CPR classes throughout the world so access to quality training is rarely a problem. Once you have received training, it is important to keep emergency supplies in your home and carry a first aid kit in your vehicle. After all, it’s pretty tough to patch yourself up if you don’t have the proper equipment available. Be sure to include rubber gloves to protect yourself from blood-borne pathogens (such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or HIV/AIDS) if you have to treat others as well.
If you or another person with you has been injured in a fight, controlling bleeding must be your first priority. The Red Cross suggests a (1) check, (2) call, (3) care approach, performed in that order. First, discern the safety of the scene and the condition of the victim before doing anything else. Make sure that the fight is truly over and that it’s safe to lower your guard. Next, call 9-1-1 (or the local emergency number) to notify authorities about what happened, asking them to dispatch an ambulance with professional help. The faster the paramedics get there, the better the victim’s chances of survival. Only after these first two steps have been completed do you begin to care for the injured victim yourself.
Once you have taken care of your own life-threatening injuries, you will also want to treat your opponent. Remember that your goal in applying countervailing force is to keep yourself safe from harm. If your adversary is disabled and no longer a threat, it is both prudent and humane to try to keep him from dying from his wounds. It may play well in court too. Whenever possible, wash your hands before and after dealing with another person’s injuries, even when you wear disposable gloves.
Even if you don’t expect to get into a fight, it’s a good idea to know what to do if you or a loved one becomes injured.
There are far too many potential wounds that victims might receive to cover them all, but we’ve included details about how to deal with some of the most common ones below. This information is only an introduction and should never take the place of professional, hands-on instruction.
Control Bleeding. Heavy bleeding is often the most serious, life-threatening injury victims will receive in a fight. For example, Washington Redskin’s standout free safety Sean Taylor was shot in the leg during a home invasion robbery on November 26, 2007. The bullet damaged his femoral artery, causing him to bleed rapidly to death despite the fact that he was a well-conditioned, 236-pound professional athlete.
Fire fighters, military, law enforcement, and emergency medical professionals (for example, paramedic, EMT) often use special blood-clotting sponges, or hemostatic agents as they are called in the business, to treat severe bleeding from gunshots, stabbings, shrapnel, and similarly critical wounds. One brand that is available to the general public is called QuikClot. Made by Z-Medica Corporation, this agent accelerates the body’s natural clotting process by increasing the concentration of platelets and clotting factors at the wound site. Combined with a pressure bandage, this treatment can often be lifesaving even in cases as severe as Taylor’s if it is applied fast enough. The challenge is that uncontrolled hemorrhaging, particularly from weapon wounds, can cause a person to bleed to death very quickly, sometimes in seconds, often in minutes.
If you don’t have a special hemostatic agent such as QuikClot sponges or CE-LOX coagulant granules available, heavy bleeding is controlled first through direct, firm pressure on the injury site, preferably through a gauze pad or sterile dressing. If it is a limb that has been damaged, it will bleed less if it is elevated so that the wound is above the heart. If hemorrhage persists, use pressure points. Only in the worst cases when emergency services will not be available for an extended period of time should you consider use of a tourniquet, which if improperly used could cause gangrene or death. The Red Cross has dropped tourniquet techniques from its civilian training curriculum, as they are rarely needed and dangerous to apply.
Discern the safety of the scene and the condition of the victim, and then call for help before you begin administering first aid. Once you are sure it is safe to proceed, controlling bleeding must be your first priority.
If you are the one who is injured and think that you might pass out, especially if you are bleeding heavily or it is very cold, you have to get help immediately. If you do not, it will most likely prove fatal. Take a moment to gather your wits and locate the nearest cell phone, payphone, or source of friendly human beings. If you are alone and bleeding badly and there is no phone readily available, you will need to decide whether to stay or attempt to go for help. Physical activity will make your heart race faster, increasing blood loss. You are likely to get dizzy and collapse, thereby losing your pressure hold on the wound, and causing even more blood loss.
Firefighters, military, law enforcement, and emergency medical professionals often use special blood-clotting sponges, or hemostatic agents such as QuikClot, to treat severe bleeding from gunshots, stabbings, shrapnel, and similarly critical wounds. This stuff is very expensive to keep in your first aid kit but it saves lives.
If there is a reasonable chance that a rescuer will happen along soon, you may be better off dressing your wounds to the extent you can than putting yourself in “shock position” to wait for assistance. This is done by lying on your back with your legs elevated on something or with your legs bent sharply and your toes locked against a wall or similar object to keep them in position if you pass out. Wrap a garment around yourself if you can to help keep yourself warm. This position helps ensure that as much blood as possible will remain available to your vital organs.
If you don’t have a specialty agent such as QuikClot available, one of the most street-proven trauma dressings is a sanitary napkin or a box of Kleenex, something that ought to be in your first aid kit in addition to regular gauze pads and bandages. Key first aid methods for stopping heavy bleeding include:
• Covering the wound with a sterile dressing such as a gauze pad. If the dressing becomes soaked with blood, apply additional layers over the top of it without removing the original dressing.
• Applying direct pressure to the wound. If bleeding does not stop through a combination of dressings and pressure, remove the dressings, pack the wound with QuikClot (or a similar hemostatic agent), and reapply new sterile dressings. Use a pressure bandage to hold everything in place if available. If you do not have access to specialty agents, you may have to apply direct pressure to a nearby artery to slow the flow of blood. On the arm, the best point is along the inside of the upper arm between the shoulder and elbow. On the leg, the best point is at the crease at the front of the hip in the groin area.
• Elevating the wound above the level of the heart if possible. If you suspect head, neck, or back injuries or broken bones, however, or it may be prudent to remain in place. Moving may increase severity of the damage.
• Never removing imbedded objects before you get to the hospital. Doing so may increase hemorrhaging and severely reduce your chances of survival. Bulky dressings should be placed around the object and bandaged in place to support it so that it won’t move around and cause further damage.
• Wrapping severed body parts, if any, in a sterile dressing, placed in a plastic bag, and covered with ice or cold water sufficient to keep the part cool without freezing. Limbs preserved in this manner can frequently be reattached at the hospital. On the other hand, freezing the severed part will cause irreversible damage.
Head, Neck, and Back Injuries. Head, neck, and back injuries are serious. Do not move the victim unless absolutely necessary. If you do need to move the person, be careful to support the injured area, avoiding any twisting, bending, or other contortions that could cause additional damage. If the person becomes unconscious, you will need to maintain a clear airway and possibly perform rescue breathing or cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.
Concussions. The brain is extraordinarily delicate yet it is protected by a rigid skull and cushioned with cerebrospinal fluid. Trauma to the head, however, can cause the brain to bounce against the skull. This force may damage the brain’s function. There is very little extra room within this cavity, so any resulting swelling or bleeding can quickly become life threatening. In general, a blow to the front of the head is less dangerous than one on the side or back of the head.
If you and/or your loved ones have been wounded in a fight, you may have to tend to the injuries yourself until professional help can arrive. Check the incident scene to make sure that it is safe, call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number for help, and then begin to care for the victims. Once you have taken care of your own life-threatening injuries you will also want to treat your opponent. If your adversary is disabled and no longer a threat, it is both prudent and humane to try to keep him from dying from his wounds too.
Symptoms of a concussion can include severe headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, mismatched pupil size (left vs. right), seizures, or slurred speech. The person may also seem restless, agitated, or irritable. Often, the victim may experience temporary memory loss. These symptoms may last from hours to weeks, depending on the seriousness of the injury.
Any loss of consciousness or memory resulting from a head injury should be promptly evaluated by a medical professional. As the brain tissue swells, the person may feel increasingly drowsy or confused. If the victim has difficulty staying awake, experiences persistent vomiting, develops seizures, or loses consciousness, medical attention should be sought immediately. These could be signs of a severe injury.
Concussions can run from mild to severe. While only medical professionals can tell for sure, one can surmise what type of concussion has been sustained based upon the observable symptoms. Grade 1 or mild concussions occur when the victim remains conscious after a blow but seems dazed or mildly confused. Grade 2 or moderate concussions occur when the victim remains conscious but continues to be confused for a period of time and does not recall the traumatic event. Grade 3 or severe concussions occur when the victim loses consciousness for a period of time and has no memory of the traumatic event. If you suspect that someone has suffered a Grade 2 or Grade 3 concussion, evaluation from a medical professional should be performed as soon as possible.
Watch the person closely for any changes in level of consciousness until medical help arrives. The victim may need to stay in the hospital for close observation. The standard test to assess post-concussion damage is a computerized tomography (CT) scan. Surgery is not frequently required but may become necessary if swelling persists. Recovery from a traumatic brain injury can be very slow. Sometimes several days can go by without seeing any major visible change. Post-concussion syndrome may also occur in some people. This syndrome generally consists of a persistent headache, dizziness, irritability, emotional instability, memory changes, depression, or vision changes. Symptoms may begin weeks or even months after the initial injury.
Although the symptoms tend to go away over time, some victims will need a rehabilitation specialist to oversee a program for their recovery. People who have had a severe concussion also double their risk of developing epilepsy within the first five years after the injury. There is evidence that people who have had multiple concussions over the course of their lives suffer cumulative neurological damage. A link between concussions and the eventual development of Alzheimer’s disease also has been suggested.
Rest is generally the best recovery technique since healing a concussion takes time. For headaches, acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Motrin) can usually be used, but it is best to avoid aspirin as it can increase the risk of internal bleeding. Check with a doctor before administering medications. Bumps and contusions can be treated with ice packs. Wrap ice in a damp cloth rather than placing it directly against the skin.
Eye Injuries. Do not attempt to treat severe blunt trauma or penetrating injuries to the eye yourself; medical assistance is required in such instances. Tape a paper or Styrofoam cup over the injured area to protect it until proper care can be obtained. As always, if there is an imbedded object, do not attempt to remove it.
In the case of a blow to the eye such as a finger rake, jab, or gouge, do not automatically assume that the injury is minor even if you can see properly afterward. An ophthalmologist should examine the eye thoroughly because vision-threatening damage such as a detached retina could be hidden. Immediately apply an ice compress or bag of frozen vegetables (for example, peas, corn) to the eye to reduce pain and swelling. If you experience pain, blurred vision, floaters (black spots that move around), starbursts (fireworklike bursts of color or light), or any possibility of eye damage, see your ophthalmologist or emergency room physician immediately.
The most common type of eye injury is a chemical burn. This is typically from an accident rather than from having something thrown into your face during a fight, but that does happen too on occasion as well since fire extinguishers, hot coffee, and the like make good impromptu weapons on the street. Alkaline materials (such as lye, plasters, cements, and ammonia), solvents, acids, and detergents can be very harmful to your eyes. If you are exposed to these types of chemicals, the eyes should be flushed liberally with water immediately. If sterile solutions are readily available, use them to flush the affected eye. If not, go to the nearest sink, shower or hose and begin washing the eye with large amounts of water. If the eye has been exposed to an alkaline agent, it is important to flush the eye for ten minutes or more. Make sure water is getting under both the upper and lower eyelids.
Chest Wounds. Large chest wounds can cause a lung to collapse, a dangerous situation. Cover the wound with a sterile dressing or clean cloth and bandage it in place. If bubbles begin forming around a wound of significant size (open area that is greater than about an inch in diameter), cover that area with plastic or similar material that does not allow air to pass through. Tape the dressing in place, leaving one corner open to allow air to escape with exhalation.
Most normal stab and bullet injuries will not cause a sucking chest wound because the hole from the wound is smaller than the opening in the trachea. Consequently, it will not cause negative pressure, which inhibits breathing. If you seal a wound that does not need it, you run the risk of tension pneumothorax, which can cause a complete cardio respiratory arrest and subsequent death. If advanced medical care is readily available it is generally more important to transport the victim to the hospital quickly than it is to seal off the wound with anything more than a breathable sterile dressing.
Abdominal Injuries. For abdominal injuries, try to keep the victim lying down with his or her knees bent if possible. If organs are exposed, do not apply pressure to the organs or push them back inside. Remove any clothing from around the wound. Apply moist, sterile dressings or clean cloth loosely over the wound. Keep the dressing moist with clean, warm water. Place a cloth over the dressing to keep the organs warm.
Broken Bones. Broken bones should usually be splinted to keep the injured part from moving and increasing the damage. There is a variety of ways to create an effective splint. The method you choose will be based in part on what materials you have available, the position you find the injury, its location on the body, and a variety of other factors. The most important thing is to pad and immobilize the injury to the extent possible. A basic rule of splinting is that the joint above and below the broken bone should be immobilized to protect the fracture site. For example, if the lower leg is broken, the splint should immobilize both the ankle and the knee.
Anatomic splints affix the injured body part to a convenient uninjured one such as tying one leg to the other. A soft splint can be made from a towel, blanket, jacket, or similar material. A rigid splint can be made from boards, tightly rolled magazines, and similar materials.
Shock. Shock can occur whenever there is severe injury to the body or the nervous system. Because shock can cause inadequate blood flow to the tissues and organs, all bodily processes can be affected. Vital functions slow down to dangerous levels. In the early stages, the body compensates for a decreased blood flow to the tissues by constricting blood vessels in the skin, soft tissues, and muscles. This causes the victim to have cold, clammy, or pale skin; weakness and nausea; rapid, labored breathing; increased pulse rate; and decreased blood pressure. As shock progresses, the victim will become apathetic, relatively unresponsive, and eventually lapse into unconsciousness.
One quick and dirty way to identify shock is by observing a delayed capillary refill response at the fingertips. Press downward on the tip of the fingernail until the skin underneath begins to turn white and then release the pressure. A normal pink appearance should return within two to three seconds. If it takes four to six seconds or longer for normal color to return, the victim is experiencing low blood pressure at the extremities, a clear sign of shock.
You should have already treated any major injuries such as bleeding or broken bones before treating for shock. This care will help ameliorate the source of the shock, but there is more that you can do. Keep the victim lying down, elevate his legs about a foot or so above his chest, and cover him with a blanket or coat to prevent loss of body heat. If the femur (thighbone) has been broken from a gunshot or blunt traumatic injury, however, do not elevate the injured leg as bone fragments may shift around and cause serious internal bleeding. Check the victim’s airway, breathing, and circulation on a regular basis until medical help arrives. It is not advisable to give liquids to shock victims.
Infection. If you have been injured by a weapon that breaks the skin, infection is a possibility even after medical treatment. If the wound area becomes red or swollen, throbs with pain, discharges pus, or develops red streaks, contact medical personnel immediately. If you begin to develop a fever, it may also be a sign of infection. Seek direction from your physician as to how to bandage your injury, how frequently to change the dressing, and how best to clean the wound to minimize the chances of infection.
It’s smart to learn first aid. Even if you never have to use it to care for yourself, odds are good that you will find opportunities to help others. If you study martial arts and learn how to hurt other people, it’s even more important to understand how to help them as well.
Prohibit the taking of omens, and do away with superstitious doubts.
If you attain and adhere to the wisdom of my strategy, you need never doubt that you will win.
Physical blows are oftentimes easier to endure than mental ones. For example, Wilder knows an aikido instructor who was in the wrong part of town at the right time and got into a nasty brawl. He not only lost, but also lost badly, taking a severe beat down. While it’s tough to lose a fight, it’s especially tough for a martial arts instructor. In this case, it shook the very foundation of his dojo, with students questioning the validity of their training and their instructors’ expertise. In fact, it took great effort to prevent their organization from flying apart.
Knowing this instructor’s method of practice and ideas regarding fighting, Wilder believes that he sought perfection in the situation when it called instead for whatever it took to get the job done. While you normally can’t do that and expect to prevail, the reason the guy took a beating is less important than how he handled it afterward. There were physical injuries to deal with, of course, but the blow to the man’s self-esteem was particularly severe.
What happens if you lose a fight? How much it affects you depends a lot on your worldview. If you’re an average guy or faced weapons or multiple opponents, you might consider yourself lucky to have gotten through it in one piece, shrug things off, and go on about your life. Perhaps you’ll be a bit more careful about where you go and/or whom you hang out with, but it likely won’t be a world-changing experience for you. At the very least, you will take self-defense a bit more seriously and will make a better effort to avoid fighting in the future by working on such things as your situational awareness and verbal de-escalation skills.
Losing a fight can be very scary. It can leave physical as well as emotional scars. Oftentimes you will be motivated to study martial arts or pick up a knife or a gun so that you will have the ability to fight back. If you decide to go that route, examine your motivation carefully. While it’s great to be able to defend yourself, it’s easy to slip into vigilante mode, subconsciously looking for opportunities to get payback for your loss or otherwise prove your manhood in another fight as Bernard Getz may have done. Don’t start doing dangerous things like cutting through alleys or hanging out in the wrong bars in order to provoke another attack where you might get a chance to redeem your honor.
Self-defense is really about not being there, using awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation to eliminate the need to fight. Fighting is what you do when you’ve totally screwed up your self-defense.
Guns, knives, and martial arts skills do not ward off danger. They help you deal with it more effectively, and only in select circumstances. Never forget that self-defense is really about not being there, using awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation to eliminate the need to fight. Fighting is what you do when you’ve totally screwed up your self-defense. If you train yourself to fight or decide to carry a weapon, you are working on the two to five percent of the time that those skills will come in handy. Don’t get us wrong; those skills are great, oftentimes lifesaving. Just don’t go looking for opportunities to try them out unnecessarily.
If you ultimately decide to carry a weapon, be sure to do your homework first, researching the applicable laws in the jurisdictions where you live, work, and frequently travel. Be sure to obtain the appropriate licenses or permits where applicable too. Use of a contraband weapon can turn what should have been a legitimate case of self-defense into a long prison term or possibly even a death sentence. While all fights can have repercussions, odds of serious consequences dramatically increase when weapons are involved.
If you think of yourself as a “fighter” and then wind up getting beat down, things may be much worse for you mentally. If you are a big time martial artist like the aforementioned aikido instructor, if that is the center of your whole world, losing a street fight can be extraordinarily traumatic. It’s a major blow to your self-esteem, much more so than a regular, everyday person would typically suffer. You will probably begin to have thoughts like:
• I can’t believe that (technique) didn’t work!
• What did I do wrong?
• What will the other guys at the dojo think?
• I’m such an idiot!
• What I know has no street value; I’ve been wasting my time all these years!
• What the hell is wrong with me?
If you were badly hurt or otherwise failed to protect yourself or someone you care about, it can be pretty rough. It’s important to put things into perspective. Use the loss as a learning opportunity. After all, anything you live through can be a good thing so long as you learn something from it.
Begin by taking a hard look at yourself and your actions before the fight. Did you do everything you could to calm things down or were you raring to go, looking for an opportunity to prove how tough you are? Think about things like why you got into the fight in the first place. Did you do everything you could to de-escalate the situation? If it was unavoidable and you were simply outmatched, that’s a different story than if you set yourself up for the fall. Past behavior predicts future behavior unless you make a concerted effort to change it. If you find that you need to make a change, commit yourself to doing so.
Let’s say that you did everything right, all you could do to avoid fighting but found yourself in an altercation anyway. And you got beat down hard. Now what?
Losing a fight can affect people in different ways. If you’re an average guy or found yourself hopelessly outmatched, you may be less traumatized than if you considered yourself a real “fighter” yet got beat down regardless. Anything you live through can be a good thing so long as you learn something from it. Wallowing in misery does you no good. Wait a few days to regain your emotional equilibrium, dispassionately evaluate your objectives, and then figure out what, if anything, you should do differently in the future.
There are many bad martial artists out there, but few truly bad martial arts. If you think your art let you down in a fight, it is most likely the other way around. You probably haven’t learned it correctly. For example, if you don’t truly understand the strategy and architecture in which your tactics and techniques can be most effective, you have not yet mastered your art. You can do what looks like the right thing but totally miss the mark. In such cases, it’s important to refocus your training to understand not only the techniques but also the nuances that make them work. In addition to working with your instructor, the book Becoming a Complete Martial Artist: Error Detection in Self-Defense and the Martial Arts by Marc MacYoung and Tristan Sutrisno is an excellent resource to help you with that.
You may have a different problem though. As we’ve stated previously, there’s a big difference between sport, fighting, and combat. It’s easy to be good at fighting or good at sport, but really tough to be good at both simultaneously. If you’ve been approaching martial arts from a sports perspective there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great exercise and provides positive feedback, trophies, and other rewards for strong performance. The challenge is that it’s not necessarily going to be your best bet for self-defense on the street if things get violent.
Wait a few days to regain your emotional equilibrium, and then try to evaluate your objectives dispassionately. If you really want to learn street defense but realize that you are practicing a sport, perhaps you’re in the wrong dojo or maybe even studying the wrong art. If concepts like awareness, avoidance, and de-escalation are not part of the curriculum, then you’re really not studying self-defense. If scenario training is not available or if the legal aspects of countervailing force are not taught along with the techniques, your education is incomplete insofar as practical street defense goes. Sparring and competition are great, but may not really be what you are looking for.
By sorting out your objectives and figuring out what you might do in the future, you are taking proactive steps to get over the loss. That’s all for the good. Hand wringing, second-guessing, and beating yourself up are dysfunctional pursuits. The faster you regain your equilibrium after a traumatic event, the less likely you are to have long-lasting negative effects. Consequently, wallowing in misery doesn’t help. Setting a course of action does. Debriefing, counseling, psychotherapy, or other forms of mental health treatment may be necessary as well. We will address these issues a bit in the next section.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), critical incident amnesia, and similar forms of psychological trauma were not understood nor addressed by Sun Tzu or Miyamoto Musashi in their writings. Every warrior society has developed some sort of purification ritual to help returning warriors deal with their guilt, however. Throughout time, these rituals helped reassure them that whatever they did in combat was good and proper, necessary for the safety and security of their tribe, tangentially addressing these psychological issues.
It is perfectly normal to experience grief and anguish after traumatic events. You’ll tend to replay the incident over and over again in your mind, second-guessing your actions and wondering what you could have done differently. This tends to dissipate naturally over time, however. If you have been involved in a violent altercation and experience recurring emotional effects for more than a week or two, it is a good idea to consider professional counseling to facilitate a healthy recovery. The faster you regain your equilibrium the better.
Unfortunately, many guys don’t get the help they need. One theory is that while society seems to presume that women will experience emotional issues after a violent experience such as a rape, men are often expected to take horrendous violence in stride and not let it affect them psychologically. That’s just silly. While you may feel embarrassed or unmanly for seeking help to deal with emotional issues after a fight, it’s important to get it if you need it. Even Special Forces soldiers, the world’s elite fighting corps, seek psychological counseling after their missions as the situation warrants. There are things that ordinary, well-adjusted people simply aren’t meant to experience. Dealing with that sort of stuff often takes help.
For most people, the emotional effects of violent incidents tend to subside after a few weeks. If symptoms last longer than a month or two, you may need a professional diagnosis to see if you have developed a psychiatric disorder such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a psychological condition caused by exposure to or confrontation with highly stressful experiences, typically involving participation in or witnessing of death or serious physical injury. This stressful experience, when combined with feelings of intense fear, helplessness, or horror may lead to PTSD, particularly when the experience is caused by another person such as in a violent confrontation.
These problems can occur whether you win, lose, or merely witness the violent encounter. They can appear after you have taken direct action to harm another person as well as when you have chosen not to get involved.
Symptoms can include re-experiencing phenomena via nightmares and flashbacks, emotional detachment (or hyper control), sleep abnormalities, irritability, excessive startle (hyper vigilance), and uncontrolled rage, among other indicators. Experiences likely to induce this condition include most any form of combat or violent physical attack, rape, emotional abuse, or even catastrophic natural disasters (for example, hurricanes, earthquakes). PTSD often becomes a chronic condition but can usually improve with treatment or, rarely, even spontaneously. There is also the possibility of other psychiatric disorders that may be experienced simultaneously.
Despite the seriousness of these symptoms, most people who experience traumatic events will not develop PTSD. It is possible, however, to have a delayed onset of PTSD years or even decades later. Delayed triggers usually come in the form of life-changing events such as the death of a relative or close friend or diagnosis of a serious medical condition.
The good news is that PTSD and other psychological trauma associated with violence have been thoroughly studied. There are varieties of clinical techniques that mental health professionals and clergy members can use to help victims make a full recovery. With counseling, survivors of traumatic events are able to confront their memories and emotions while working to de-link them from any kind of physiological response.
Autogenic training techniques and structured debriefing sessions are helpful in this process. Similar to biofeedback techniques, autogenic training teaches your body to respond to your verbal commands in order to achieve deep relaxation and reduced stress. These commands help you control your breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and body temperature when you want to. Structured debriefing is a psychiatric intervention that follows a trauma episode to promote recovery and minimizing disruption.
For most people, the emotional effects of violent incidents tend to subside after a few weeks. If symptoms last longer than a month or two, you may need a professional diagnosis to see if you have developed a psychiatric disorder such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The important thing is to get help if you need it. Don’t worry about what others might think. Do what’s necessary for your continued health and well-being.
Critical incident amnesia was not addressed by Sun Tzu or Miyamoto Musashi in their writings.
Traumatic situations are frequently associated with memory impairment, a condition commonly described as “critical incident amnesia.” The greater the stress, the greater the potential of memory problems as victims have difficulty in transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory. There are several root causes for this phenomenon, including sensory overload, tunnel vision, and adrenal stress.
Combatants frequently encounter post-incident amnesia immediately after a traumatic experience, failing to remember the majority of the information they observed during the encounter. After a healthy night’s sleep, there is usually a significant memory recovery, resulting in an ability to remember a majority of what occurred. You will have the most reliable memories of what occurred at this period. Alcohol interferes with REM sleep; you may sleep more, even easier, but it won’t be as deep or as effective, so stay away from alcohol right after the incident. Sleeping pills and other medications affecting the quality of your sleep should be avoided as well, unless prescribed by your doctor.
The most complete memory recovery will happen within about 72 hours, but it will inevitably include at least partially reconstructed (and therefore somewhat contaminated) information. Inevitably, an individual who has experienced some level of memory loss will discuss the event with others and seek retrieval clues from external sources such as media reports.
Human memory is a fallible process. It includes active construction in which prior experiences, knowledge, beliefs, prejudices, and expectations are constantly shaping, filling in the gaps, and potentially distorting our perception of what actually occurred; a reason that eyewitness testimony is not always reliable. Since memory is a product of perception, it can become distorted whenever our perception becomes distorted or disrupted.
It is perfectly normal to experience grief and anguish after traumatic events. Exposure to highly stressful experiences when combined with feelings of intense fear, helplessness, or horror may lead to serious psychological trauma. Symptoms can occur whether you win, lose, or even witness a violent encounter. If you have been involved in an altercation and experience recurring emotional effects for more than a few weeks it is a good idea to consider professional counseling to facilitate a healthy recovery.
Vision is a huge contributor to memory because it is the primary mechanism by which we observe the world around us. Hearing, touch, taste, and smell play a role too, of course, but not to as great a degree in most people. Under extreme stress, visual exclusion or tunnel vision narrows our field of view by as much as 70 percent. Similarly, stress-induced pupil dilation can disrupt our ability to focus (especially on close objects), degrading our depth perception. Since the visual field is disrupted or narrowed, the amount of information we collect from it will be incomplete.
We are constantly bombarded by stimuli from the world around us, much of which is disregarded as unimportant and not transferred from short term to long term memory. Even in individuals with so-called “photographic memories,” focused attention is required to ensure that transfer. Focused attention to certain stimuli can preclude attention to others, resulting in a flashbulb-like effect where only certain aspects of an event are actually remembered (for example, something new or unusual).
Immediately after a traumatic incident, much of what occurred is still in the brain, but it has not been processed in such a manner that it can be retrieved. One of the key factors in being able to access such information is sleep. The brain focuses on problem solving and the resolution of emotional concerns during sleep, particularly during REM sleep (which is when most dreaming occurs). This sleep cycle helps the brain consolidate unusual information that requires a good deal of adaptation in order for it to be absorbed. In fact, REM sleep cycles happen more frequently and last longer for individuals who are placed in circumstances in which they must process great quantities of new information. Although you may not remember much about a traumatic incident right after it occurs, you should experience significant memory recovery after a good night’s sleep.
If your initial night’s sleep is disturbed, however, memory recovery may be disrupted. Further, if you are rendered unconscious or injured to the extent that you require an operation involving general anesthesia, there is a good possibility that normal memory recovery will be greatly disrupted. Your ability to remember crucial details about a violent incident and subsequently to defend yourself in court is greatly influenced by the memory recovery process. Do everything you can to safeguard your first night’s sleep after any violent encounter.
Expect to be debriefed by law enforcement professionals shortly after a fight. If your memory about what occurred is fuzzy, take extra caution to avoid guessing to fill in the blanks. Anything you guess about may be held against you in a court of law. Better still; wait until your attorney is present before making any statements.
Traumatic situations are frequently associated with critical incident amnesia. The greater the stress, the greater your potential of experiencing memory problems. Although you may not remember much about a traumatic incident right after it occurs, you should experience significant memory recovery after a good night’s sleep. Do everything you can to safeguard your first night’s sleep after any violent encounter.
Hence the saying: if you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt; if you know Heaven and know Earth, you may make your victory complete.
When you opponent is hurrying recklessly, you must act contrarily, and keep calm. You must not be influenced by the opponent. Train diligently to attain this spirit.
“They have never hung a mute. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court of law.” That is what an attorney told Wilder some fifteen years ago. He was right then and he is right now. Don’t exaggerate; it will be interpreted in the worst light when it is read in court. And don’t threaten because there is no question, no doubt without exception, that it is going to be used against you in court. Celebrities, politicians, and other powerful individuals often attempt to throw their weight around when dealing with the police, thinking that their name, reputation, or wealth will buy them special treatment. Despite some notorious and highly publicized exceptions, it usually ends badly for them, and almost certainly will for you, too, if you try to go that route.
When the police arrive, they will talk to everybody and write down everything they hear. What is written is neither screened nor reviewed. It is put into the report and the report goes into the official record. Any half-truths, lies, or whatever you utter will get written down and it will be read into court as fact. Don’t hang yourself with your own words.
Officers are there to ascertain the truth, gathering unbiased facts and evidence about what transpired. They are not there to hand you a medal for heroism under adversity even if you really did act heroically. If, in their best judgment, there is probable cause that you should be locked up because you committed a crime, then that’s exactly what will happen. Not exactly fair, but common enough nevertheless, especially if you used a weapon and there is no compelling evidence (for example, witnesses, closed circuit video tape) that you used it in self-defense. The way you interact with police officers when they arrive is critical to your continued well-being. No matter how upset, injured, angry, insulted, or unsettled you are, never forget that your words and demeanor can significantly affect the tone of the entire encounter and the eventual outcome.
Whether or not you are arrested hinges on a concept known as “probable cause.” Probable cause means that the responding officer has a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed and that you are the perpetrator. This belief can be based upon several factors, including direct observation, professional expertise, circumstantial evidence, or factual information. Officers will make a decision based upon what, if anything, they saw during the incident, what they can infer about the incident based upon professional experience, physical evidence or other factors at the scene, statements from witnesses, victims, or suspects, available video surveillance, and other relevant data.
Approach the responding officer(s) positively. Police are people too. They likely have the same emotional makeup that you do. Officers arriving on the scene will be encountering an unknown, potentially hostile environment, where one or more combatants may have been, and possibly still are, armed. Like any sane person, they will be concerned, cautious, and likely at least a little bit scared. Since they do not know exactly what transpired, they also do not know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is yet.
A confrontational attitude will do you no good and may well guarantee that you will be arrested or possibly even shot. Even undercover officers have been killed on occasion by their uniformed counterparts when they failed to follow directions immediately and/ or did not identify themselves properly. For example, on January 12, 2001 undercover police officer William Alberto Wilkins was shot and killed by fellow officers in Oakland California. Detective Wilkins, a seven-year veteran with the Oakland PD, was working a narcotics stakeout when he spotted a stolen car pass by. He pursued and caught the car thief near San Leandro and was holding the suspect at gunpoint in a driveway when the two uniformed officers arrived. Misunderstanding the scene, at least one of the responding officers opened fire, striking Wilkins several times in the upper torso. Eleven shell casings were found at the scene. Wilkins died at Highland Hospital a few hours later. He was survived by his wife and ten-month-old son.
If you are training a weapon on a subdued attacker, be sure to follow responding officer’s instructions immediately without any hesitation. While the officer does not know whether you are the good guy, he knows with absolute certainty that you are armed and dangerous. You don’t want to survive a violent confrontation only to be killed afterward due to a preventable misunderstanding.
Be respectful, courteous, obedient, and kind but remember that the officer(s) is not your friend—not your enemy either, but still not your friend. The officer’s job is to secure the environment, provide for aid, gather facts, and enforce the law. Consequently, he or she will not necessarily be on your side no matter how prudently you acted, at least not until all the facts are known.
You may not be arrested, but if you are, do not resist for any reason. Similarly, do not interfere with an attempt to arrest anyone who is with you at the time. Attempting to flee, evade, or elude responding officers is almost certainly going to make you look guilty and result in a chase and subsequent detention.
Control your emotions to the extent possible. Carefully and calmly, explain what happened so that the responding officer(s) will know that you are the good guy. Retain your composure and conduct yourself in a mature manner at all times, avoiding any words or actions that may appear threatening or volatile. Never forget that police are trained interrogators. They will note your body language, speech patterns, and eye movements to help ascertain your probable guilt or innocence when deciding whether to make an arrest. Worse yet, officers will err on the side of caution, so even a suspicion of guilt may be enough to earn you a night in jail.
Remember the section on critical incident amnesia? Your memory will probably not be firing on all cylinders. Say as little as possible. Here is an example of something you might say that is perfectly honest and should be relatively well received:
“This was very traumatic experience. I think I’m in shock. I don’t think I should say anything until I’m calmer. Can I please call [your attorney or contact person]?”
Approach the responding officer(s) positively. A confrontational attitude will do you no good and may well guarantee that you will be arrested or possibly even shot if they perceive a significant enough threat.
Do not, under any circumstances, make any incriminating statements that may be used against you at a later time. Do not confess to any crime, even if you think you exercised poor judgment or are actually guilty. Having said that, however, do not withhold any information that can affect the responding officer’s safety either. Bad guys may still be roaming; armed friends may have melted into the crowd.
Officers usually distinguish between a debrief/interview conducted at the police station where legal representation is appropriate and a tactical debrief which takes place at the scene to make sure the situation is really resolved and that you are really safe. If you withhold information that endangers officers, you will not make friends and could get someone seriously hurt, but information you give could (rarely but theoretically) incriminate you. It could also break down your resistance to talking and get you blabbing, which is generally unwise.
While there may be a fine balance between implying guilt through silence and being overly talkative, err on the side of caution. You really do not have to say anything at all without an attorney present though it is generally prudent to identify yourself, state that the other person attacked you, and that you were in imminent and unavoidable danger, fearing for your life. You may even wish to explain why you could not simply run away. If you used a weapon and have a concealed weapons permit, it is generally a good idea to let the officers know that as well.
The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits seizure of persons without a warrant. However, in some instances a warrant may not required. These instances can include felonies, misdemeanors, danger to the public, and violent crimes. A fight probably qualifies for warrantless arrest under any of these conditions. If you are arrested and taken into custody, be sure to understand why.
You should always carry the phone number of an attorney you trust (see “Find a Good Attorney” later on in this section for more information) and of a person who can contact an attorney for you if your lawyer is not immediately available. Ask permission to telephone your attorney or contact person immediately after being booked into jail.
Be polite and respectful to the jail guards. They can deny you phone access and generally make your life even more miserable if you act inappropriately. In most jurisdictions, you must be taken before an officer of the court (for example, judge, magistrate) within 24 hours of your arrest, except on weekends. You should always secure counsel and have legal representation before this initial court appearance. If you cannot afford an attorney, you can be represented by a public defender though that is generally not preferable.
When responding officers arrive, don’t exaggerate, and don’t threaten. Be calm, polite, honest, and non-confrontational, saying as little as possible until you have an opportunity to consult with your attorney.
Officers arriving on the scene will be encountering an unknown, potentially hostile environment, where one or more combatants may have been, and possibly still are, armed. Like any sane person, they will be concerned, cautious, and likely at least a little bit scared. Since they do not know exactly what transpired, they also do not know who the good guy is and who the bad guy is yet. Retain your composure and conduct yourself in a mature manner at all times. A confrontational attitude will do you no good and may well get you arrested or possibly even shot. Don’t exaggerate; it will be interpreted in the worst possible light when it is read in court. Don’t threaten; there is no question that it will be used against you if you do.
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
The spirit of fire is fierce, whether the fire be small or big; and so it is with battles.
The fight is over, the police have arrived, and somebody is going to jail. Responding officers really don’t care a whole lot about how it started or what you were fighting about. A couple of questions to make an assessment, a professional assessment based on their experience, and more often than not, somebody gets arrested. Officers will err on the side of caution, prudently letting a judge determine guilt or innocence. They just want to eliminate the immediate threat and control the danger that you and/or your adversary caused to the public welfare.
You might think that what you are involved in is the most important thing in the world at that moment. You might be fighting over the love of your life, defending your honor, trying to get paid for a bet or a loan, or collecting sports memorabilia that was stolen from you. It might be very important to you, yet these officers have just left a scene just like yours to deal with you. And the odds are good that they’ll get another half a dozen calls just like yours before the night is over.
From the jaded perspective of a veteran officer, you’re really not that special. You’re barely a name, let alone a face. Your story, your issues, they mean absolutely nothing to these guys. The officers cannot afford to get emotionally involved; they have a job to do. Now don’t take that as an anti-cop comment because it is not. They have a dirty, unglamorous, rotten job to do that few are willing to take. We should all be damned thankful that there are people willing to step up and do it. The challenge is that in order to survive on the mean streets of most any city, a certain level of emotional detachment has to come with the territory.
Law enforcement officers have to have a shell; without it, they can’t function. They are not bad people, but they simply see, hear, and feel too much to allow an emotional attachment for every person and every problem. You with your petty problems don’t have a chance at cracking that shell. Police officers don’t like fighting, so if you get into a fight they almost certainly are not going to be all that thrilled with you.
To illustrate this point, Wilder was standing in the control center of a jail with a police officer friend of his when an internal call came in. A young woman was going through drug withdrawal and had started having seizures. The ambulance was called and the mobilization process was underway to get her to the hospital.
Holding the chart in his hand, Wilder’s officer friend read the file. “May I see it too?” Wilder asked. The officer closed it and handed it to him as he turned to the issues at hand. Wilder looked at the file and after scanning it said, “Wow, twenty-seven, pretty, and strung out, what the hell?”
“Yup, you can’t afford to get involved,” his friend said as he reached for the file.
“No,” Wilder replied, “You can’t, but I can.”
His friend gave a small smile and nodded. Simply put, law enforcement officers have to have a shell; without it, they can’t function. They are not bad people, they just see, hear, and feel too much to allow an emotional attachment for every person and every problem. You with your petty problems don’t have a chance at cracking that shell.
Attorneys and legal counselors were not addressed by Sun Tzu or Miyamoto Musashi in their writings. Feudal warlords developed judicial codes that were administered by the sword without complicating factors or intricacies of modern laws. A disgraced samurai, for example, was expected to salvage his honor by committing seppuku, ritual suicide.
If you’ve been in a fight, there is a very good chance that you’ll be charged with a crime. When that happens, you need a professional on your side to help you navigate the complex legal system and give you the best odds of prevailing. As the old saying goes, “Lawyers who represent themselves in court have idiots for clients.” Seriously, the average person is woefully unprepared to defend himself in court. That’s like a weekend golfer trying to compete with Tiger Woods. You could get in a lucky shot and win a hole or two, but your odds of victory over an 18-hole course are miniscule at best.
You need the best attorney (or team of attorneys) you can afford to help you out. The legal fight is just as dangerous if not more so than the physical fight you just survived. Lose this one and you may very well lose your freedom, your job, your house, your relationships, and your money. Relying on an underpaid, overworked public defender appointed by the court is the last thing you should do unless you absolutely have no other choice. You want someone fully committed to win your case.
It is very useful to have an attorney in mind before you actually need one. It’s downright imperative if you have a concealed weapon permit and carry a firearm or work in a violence-prone vocation (for example, bouncer, bounty hunter, security guard). The challenge is that surfing the net or browsing the yellow pages is a time-consuming, haphazard way to find one. A good place to find a solid reference is through a friend or relative. Even if they have only used someone for civil matters such as creating a will, their attorney will likely know someone who specializes in criminal defense law. If you are enrolled in college, you can check with the law school there. They will often have an excellent referral service. You can also contact the Bar Association where you live or work to find solid referrals.
Officers tend to err on the side of caution, prudently letting a judge determine guilt or innocence. They want to eliminate the immediate threat and control the danger that you and/or your adversary have caused to the public welfare.
It’s important to find a lawyer who has a long track record in the applicable field of law, someone who has successfully worked on cases like yours in the recent past. For example, a DUI[31] attorney might be the top player in his field, a real expert at defending accused drunk drivers, yet totally incompetent to handle a murder case. Further, since many violent crime cases like murder or aggravated assault are settled with a plea bargain instead of going to trial, you will want someone who has experience adjudicating a case like yours through the whole process. If you truly are innocent, pleading guilty to a lesser offense would be highly inadvisable in most instances. Take your attorney’s advice on that though, not ours.
In firms with multiple attorneys, different lawyers may represent different cases or different aspects of the same case. Be sure to meet the person who will actually be representing your case. If a team is likely to be involved, be sure to meet with each specialist before agreeing to anything. This reasonable request should be readily accommodated. After all, you are the paying customer. It is your welfare on the line.
Understand what and how you will be charged for the case. You will undoubtedly want to hire the best attorney you can possibly afford, but you should always understand the pricing structure before signing any contract. For example, research work may include activities performed by clerks, investigators, or analysts in addition to the attorney who heads up your case. Expert witnesses may be retained as well. Understand how the fees for each aspect of the case will be handled and what options, if any, there are. Some attorneys quote flat fees while others charge by the hour. Some accept payment schedules while others require payment prior to performance of the service.
Ascertain how reliable, available, and responsive your prospective lawyer is likely to be. Most attorneys keep a running backlog of cases, managing multiple clients at the same time. Regardless, it is important that you be able to contact your attorney whenever you need assistance throughout the legal process as well as whenever any new information about your case may arise. Understand your prospective attorney’s schedule and availability, asking questions such as how often you will be able to meet with him or her. You may be relying on this person not only to defend you in a criminal court but also in any follow-on civil procedure as well, so you don’t want someone who’s too busy to give you his or her best work.
Once you have selected someone to defend you, you will need to be patient and cooperate. Never forget that your attorney is literally your lifeline, protecting your freedom and reputation. While you are bound to be anxious and generally afraid, the justice system moves rather slowly at times.
Ask about the costs, benefits, and risks of pursuing any particular legal strategy. Cooperate with your defense attorney to help expedite the process by promptly providing information. Be willing to do some of your own legwork, gathering documents and information as requested. Keep a log of any questions you might have so that you can discuss them during regular consultations rather than contacting your attorney every time something pops into your head.
As your case progresses, your attorney will work with you to develop a plan for securing your freedom and restoring your reputation. Criminal defense strategies can include alibis, justifications, procedural defenses, and excuses. While the particulars of each case will be different, alibis and justifications are fairly common and are generally effective defense strategies. Procedural and excuse defenses can be challenging to prove in a court of law. There are a few other innovative defenses as well, but they are unorthodox, fairly rare, and not generally effective.
The average person is woefully unprepared to defend himself in court. That’s like a weekend golfer trying to compete with Tiger Woods. You could get in a lucky shot and win a hole or two, but your odds of victory over an 18-hole course are miniscule. You need the best attorney you can afford to help you out. Relying on an underpaid, overworked public defender appointed by the court is the last thing you should do unless you absolutely have no other choice. You want someone fully committed to win your case. This legal fight is just as dangerous if not more so than the physical fight you just survived. You may be facing both criminal and civil litigation with your freedom, your job, your house, your relationships, and your money on the line.
• An alibi is based upon a premise that you are completely innocent, attempting to prove that you were in another place when the alleged act was committed and could therefore not possibly be guilty.
• A justification is where you admit that you committed the act but should not be held liable for your actions because of certain special or extenuating circumstances. A justification for murder, for example, is a legitimate claim of self-defense (which makes it not a murder in the eyes of the court).
• A procedural defense attempts to prove that while you broke the law, you cannot be held criminally liable because the state violated a procedural rule. Examples include entrapment, prosecutorial misconduct, double jeopardy, or denial of a speedy trial. In these instances, you may have done something wrong but cannot be found guilty.
• An excuse is an argument that you were not liable for your actions at the time a law was broken. Examples include diminished capacity, duress, or insanity. While you may not be criminally liable in such instances, you may still be civilly committed to professional counseling in order to assure that you recover from the illness that let you off the hook.
• Other so-called “innovative defenses” can include allegations of long-term abuse, premenstrual syndrome, battered women’s syndrome, urban survival syndrome, and other creative things that lawyers occasionally use to try to convince a jury to acquit a defendant. These things rarely work, however, and are generally not something a prudent attorney would try. Be cautious if your attorney suggests pursuing this line of defense.
If you face a legal fight in the courtroom, it can be just as dangerous if not more so than the physical fight you survived on the street. You may be facing both criminal and civil litigation with your freedom, your job, your house, your relationships, and your money on the line. Find the best attorney you can afford, someone with the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to help you win.
The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one’s deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
Until you realize the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way.
If you are looking for justice from the courts, you are playing a fool’s game. Courts are not interested in justice, they are interested in resolution. While judges are honorable, hardworking individuals, the courts are jam-packed with cases, notoriously understaffed, and in some cases, truly overwhelmed. Your case is a minor blip to the average judge. You may think that your case is different, special, or unique, but it is not. Your case means nothing; these judges have seen thousands of people just like you. They don’t have the emotional investment in your case that you do. They are not bad people by any means, yet like police officers, they simply cannot get that emotionally involved with every person they come across while performing their official duties. Frankly, the three cases that came on the docket before yours are probably the same. It all becomes a blur after enough time.
Look at the lists of people with rap sheets five feet long who are still out on the streets—these guys became professional criminals a long time ago. If there were justice, they wouldn’t be out preying on the weak, vulnerable, aged, and defenseless of our society. Jail to these professional criminals means three free meals a day, long showers, plenty of sleep, and a great opportunity to study up on what they did wrong and refine their technique. It is a nice respite to help them get ready for their next go in the world of violence and crime.
Facing a shortage of bed space, severe overcrowding, and a lack of taxpayer willingness or political wherewithal to build additional facilities, prisons throughout the country are forced to make tough decisions. They use a variety of processes to identify low-risk offenders, such as prison matrixing, to routinely releasing prisoners early. Unfortunately, there is rarely such a thing as “low risk” when it comes to criminal offenders.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, recidivism rates are very high. About three percent of the adult population has spent time in prison. That’s not jail, mind you, but prison, the place where you are sent for serious crimes with convictions that result in long-term sentences. Jail, on the other hand, is where inmates are locked up for a relatively short time, such as awaiting trial or serving a short-term sentence. Almost three quarters of parolees are re-arrested for felonies or serious misdemeanor crimes within three years of release. About half of those are re-convicted for a new crime.
You, most likely, are not a professional criminal. That means that you are just the kind of person that the justice system likes. You are inclined to make bail (that costs you money). You are likely to show up in court with an attorney (that costs too). You are looking to earn some sort of parole (that takes time, and time equals money). Depending on what you have been accused of, you might well be assigned a psychiatric examination (that costs money) and a violence education program (that takes a lot time, the cost for which you have the privilege of paying too).
In short, as a regular, generally law-abiding citizen, you are also an easy mark for the courts. You will bear the full brunt of the legal system. You can pad their conviction statistics by pleading guilty to a lesser crime in order to avoid the risk of an extended prison stay. In most cases, you probably shouldn’t cop a plea, but you certainly may be tempted to. After all, you value your life and your lifestyle. The professional criminal, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what the judge says. All he hears is, “Quack, quack, woof, woof, ninety days, yadda yadda…” The threat of a jail stay or prison term is not an earth-shattering, life-changing event as it would be to the rest of us. It is, rather, a minor inconvenience.
Courts are designed to process people and come to resolution. Justice is an expensive commodity. The police do their job and the courts do theirs. Unfortunately, if you engage in violence you will get pinched in the middle.
For the professional criminal, a jail stay or prison term is a minor inconvenience. Recidivism rates are high; roughly 75 percent of felons are re-arrested within three years of release and about half of those re-arrested are re-convicted of a new crime.
If you still think that courts are about justice, go ask Nicole Simpson or Ronald Goldman what justice is all about. Oops, you can’t… because they are dead. Their murderer, O.J. Simpson, has been living in Florida, playing golf as a free man. Well, legally he wasn’t the murderer now was he? He was acquitted in criminal court. Even though Simpson lost the subsequent civil trial, the victims’ families have not been compensated for their losses. A Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to Simpson’s book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer to the Goldmans in August 2007 to satisfy partially the unpaid wrongful death judgment, which had risen, with interest, to over $38 million.
To further illustrate the point that the courts are about resolution rather than justice, here are a few more examples. These situations involved law enforcement professionals, the very people who go out there and protect the rest of us every day. The system failed them too. All three of these events took place in Seattle, Washington, over a four-month period in 2006.
• On August 13th, Seattle Officer Joselito Barber, 26, was killed when her car was hit by the vehicle that Mary Jane Rivas was driving. Rivas, who had just been released from prison, was accused of being high on cocaine at the time of the incident and was subsequently charged with vehicular homicide. She pled guilty in King County Superior Court on September 21, 2007.
• On November 13th, Seattle Police Officer Beth Nowak was killed on her way to work when a convicted felon, Neal Kelley, with an outstanding warrant for his arrest, crashed a stolen Honda into Nowak’s vehicle. Kelley died at the scene as well.
• On December 2nd, Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Cox responded to reports of shots being fired in the White Center neighborhood and was interviewing several people at a house party when one of them ambushed and killed him. Deputy Cox was shot in the head twice by one of the witnesses, Raymond Porter, a convicted felon who was on active supervision by the state Department of Corrections. After fatally wounding Cox, Porter shot and killed himself as well.
It works the same way in civil court too. For example, administrative law judge Roy L. Pearson, Jr. filed a 54 million dollar lawsuit against a drycleaners that lost his pants. While Pearson ultimately lost his infamous case, the defendant, Soo Chung, was run through the emotional wringer and had to pay out thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend himself. The case was filed in June of 2005, cycled through two judges, three settlement offers, dozens of exhibits, and hundreds of pages of court filings before culminating in an emotional two-day trial. During the proceedings, both the plaintiff and the defendant burst into tears. The case was finally wrapped up in June of 2007. Tired of the whole ordeal, the Chungs sold their business and closed up shop three months later. According to news reports, Pearson is expected to appeal so it may not be over yet. If a mundane matter like a lost pair of pants can bring about this much heartache, imagine what a wrongful death lawsuit might be like.
Courts are not interested in justice, they are interested in resolution. For the professional criminal, a jail stay or prison term is a minor inconvenience. Recidivism rates are high; roughly 75 percent of felons are re-arrested within three years of release and about half of those re-arrested are re-convicted of a new crime. Justice is an expensive commodity. The police do their job and the courts do theirs. Unfortunately, if you engage in violence you will get pinched in the middle.
We’ve all seen examples in the news where celebrities who can afford handlers, fixers, and small armies of attorneys can get away with things that the average citizen cannot. Despite the tabloids and the headlines, however, the justice system really does work pretty well much of the time. Even the rich and famous can wind up doing hard time when they get caught. Imagine how much worse it might be for you, the not so rich, and mostly anonymous. Your best bet is keeping your nose clean, of course, but if you ever do find yourself caught up in the legal system, it is paramount that you find yourself an excellent attorney to help you navigate the process.
Courts are interested in resolution, not justice. If you find yourself caught up in the legal system it will cost you. The police do their job and the courts do theirs. If you engage in violence, you are bound to get caught in the middle. It’s expensive, time-consuming, and fraught with peril. Think about that the next time you’re in the mood to hit someone.
A tribute to slain Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Cox. Deputy Cox was gunned down on December 2nd, 2006, by a convicted felon who was on active supervision by the state Department of Corrections at the time of the shooting.
In the times of Sun Tzu and Miyamoto Musashi, the ruling aristocracy controlled the media. Warlords and kings commissioned songs and plays to honor their names and legacies. An independent press was unheard of; hence, reporters were never discussed in their works.
Dealing with the press is dangerous. You may be excited to do an interview or get in front of the cameras, but it is very important to look before you leap into headlines. Never forget that your fifteen minutes of fame could easily be used against you in a court of law. Much as you’d like to have a moment in the spotlight, it is critical that you check with your attorney before accepting any interviews. Be prepared to have him or her either coach you or handle questions in your stead.
Hardly anyone is truly fair and balanced. Almost all humans have biases, even reporters. In fact, there is an ongoing debate in the United States about the liberal/conservative bias of the media. Whatever side of the line you fall on, if you get cross-wise with a member of the press you may not be treated fairly. This is important because any interviews you may provide to the press could be taken out of context in a manner that can adversely affect your case.
For example, a Rabbi we know accidentally struck and killed a pedestrian while driving his daughter to school. Since he was talking on a cell phone at the time, he was charged with a crime and eventually tasked to perform community service, a light sentence that caused a lot of anger and even some anti-Semitic incidents. The local news media focused on this man’s poor driving record; he’d been in fender-benders before, but the media did not fully explain the circumstances surrounding the accident that took place that morning. The person he hit was wearing dark clothing, listening to an iPod, and stepped out into the crosswalk directly in front of him without looking. Even though he was traveling just under the speed limit, neither the Rabbi nor anyone in his vehicle (or even the car behind him for that matter) saw the victim in the early morning darkness. All these facts came out in the trial where he was acquitted of 15 of the 16 charges against him.
While what was reported was not factually incorrect, it was not the whole story either. This man and his family were devastated not only because he accidentally killed someone but also because the incomplete reporting turned the community against him. His life will never be the same.
It is prudent to consider that if you speak with a reporter about a violent incident you were involved with, you may well be dealing with a hostile audience. We all know that reporters should be completely objective, of course, but that does not necessarily mean that they always are. It is important to understand what angle a story is likely to take. If the reporter is evasive, tread lightly. It may be useful to pull up copies of other stories the person has written or produced to get a feel for how you might be treated.
It is generally considered taboo for a reporter to send you a copy of a story to review or approve, so do not expect to be able to do that regardless of how much you may want the opportunity to do so. Always get the reporter’s contact information and find out when and where the piece will appear so that you can view the end result however.
You may be excited to do an interview or get in front of the cameras, but it is very important to look before you leap into headlines. Never forget that your fifteen minutes of fame could easily be used against you in a court of law. Avoid talking to reporters unless specifically advised by your attorney that it will help your case to do so.
On- and off-camera interviews should be handled a bit differently. Here’s some advice:
• For on-camera interviews, ask for some warm-up questions so that you can compose yourself before you speak. If you can get a hold of the questions you will be asked ahead of time, you will have some time to think of answers that are meaningful and hard to be misinterpreted or taken out of context.
• If it is an off-camera interview, take your time to answer, and then say what you feel. Be sure to check in with the reporter and understand whether he or she understood your message. If the person repeats back your quotes and paraphrases his understanding, you will have a chance to clear up any confusion.
Dealing with the press is dangerous. You may be excited to do an interview or get in front of the cameras, but never forget that your fifteen minutes of fame could easily be used against you in a court of law later on.
Once the interview is published or the story is aired, you can call or e-mail the writer or editor and request a correction if you were misquoted or there is an egregious error. Better still, avoid talking to reporters altogether, unless specifically advised by your attorney that it will help your case to do so. Be wary of the press.
At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening; afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.
Or, in single combat, start by making a show of being slow, then suddenly attack strongly. Without allowing him space for breath to recover from the fluctuation of spirit, you must grasp the opportunity to win. Get the feel of this.
Dispute the presumption of innocence in most jurisprudence, as a man you are almost always assumed guilty when it comes to domestic violence. Domestic violence can be very serious so courts tend to err on the side of caution. Consequently, when the police arrive for a domestic violence call, someone has to be arrested and taken to jail. If you are it, as guys almost always are, you will have the expensive proposition of proving that you are innocent.
Various states and municipalities have different laws governing how domestic violence is governed, yet the following is a general overview of what you can expect. This scenario is what some attorneys call the “Friday Night Special.”
Let’s pretend for a moment that you and your spouse (or girlfriend) have been having some troubles lately. Not too unrealistic a starting point, right? After all what relationship doesn’t have a few rough spots? So you come home on a Friday night after a long day at work or school, have a beer, and get into a spat with your significant other. She dials 9-1-1 and reports you for domestic violence.[32]
Maybe something happened and maybe it did not. Maybe you were the one who got shoved or hit or perhaps you initiated the confrontation. Sadly, it makes absolutely no difference to the arriving police; they are going to arrest you because that is the law. A report of domestic violence means that somebody goes to jail. If she made the call, you are the one who’s going.
The beer on your breath isn’t helping either. After being handcuffed and arrested, probably right in front of your child if you have one, you get processed into the jail. This could take hours. You get a statutory phone call, but reaching an attorney on a Friday night is simply not going to happen. The attorneys will be back in the office on Monday, so unless you’ve got his home phone number and a solid relationship, you’re stuck until then. Regardless, in most jurisdictions you must be held for 24 hours before you are eligible for release.
Saturday morning rolls around and you share a phone with several other men in the cell while trying to reach some relative or an attorney to bail you out. Here’s where it often gets really ugly: While you are on the phone trying to make bail, your significant other has gone to the bank and removed all of the money from your joint account.
Sunday rolls around and you still are not out of jail yet, but you discover that there is a twenty day Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against you that she has imposed by simply asking for it. In most cases, no proof is needed for a TRO, only an accusation. Since the law errs on the side of caution when it comes to accusations of domestic violence and spousal abuse, it is pretty easy for her to get a TRO. Hearings to evaluate the merits of the TRO will follow but that does you no good right now.
On Monday afternoon, you finally get bailed out. You ask your friend who has secured your release to take you back to your place to get a new set of clothes. Before you get there, you suddenly realize that you can’t get any of your possessions from your house or apartment because of the temporary restraining order. The TRO states that if you come within sixty feet of her, you will be in violation of the order and immediately go back to jail where you will be held until your trial date.
Since going home is not an option, you go to the bank to get some money for a set of new clothes and some food instead. Unfortunately, the teller tells you that you don’t have an account with this bank anymore; your significant other withdrew all the money and closed it. Now, you’re broke! Oh, and don’t forget that you still need to call your boss and tell him or her why you didn’t make it to the office on Monday.
Finally you talk one of your friends into lending you some couch space and a set of clothes. A day or two later, you’re back at work, but it’s still not over yet. While you have been setting your life back in order, she is preparing a yard sale for your stuff, assuming it hasn’t already been placed on the curb with a “Free” sign on it.
Want to do something and get your possessions back? Sadly, you can’t because it is only hearsay as to what is hers and what is yours. The police are not going to stop a yard sale and you’d better not break the restraining order by showing up, and even asking that your stuff not be sold or you go back to jail.
A week later, the landlord calls your cell phone because the rent is late. You explain the situation and he says, “It’s your name in the lease. You gotta pay up!”
Suddenly you recognize that your credit is at risk too. You open you eyes wide and grasp the fact that you have a joint credit card. Frantically you make that fateful call to the credit card company only to discover that your worst fear has been realized—your card is maxed out too! Hanging up the phone, you realize that
• You have been arrested for domestic violence.
• Your job was placed at risk.
• You have lost all your possessions in a yard sale.
• Your credit is ruined.
• You are in debt, deep.
• You owe an attorney.
• You have to take time off from work to go to court.
•…but wait, it is not over yet…
Last weekend she left the apartment, took your kid(s), and moved in with her mother in a state that has no reciprocity agreement. This means that the state she has left for does not recognize your state’s laws. You didn’t file for divorce or separation because you didn’t think about it and, frankly, you didn’t have the money even if you had wanted to. And you couldn’t take the time off of work to meet with an attorney and file papers, so now you have no standing in the eyes of the court.
What does this mean? It means you may never get to see your child(ren) again. Let’s hope she doesn’t accuse you of molesting the kid too. That’s a common enough tactic and will almost certainly bar you from ever seeing your child again.
Oh and don’t forget the truck she took was registered in your name and the payments are late. Ka-ching… again.
Done? Nope, not yet… You get to pay child support for a child you will likely never see. Refuse to pay and suddenly you’re a “deadbeat dad.” If you become one, you are going to get reported; guess by whom? Now the state will garnish your wages to get the money you owe her.
Now jump ahead a couple of years. You could not afford an attorney so either you’ve had an incompetent public defender who let you get convicted, you actually were guilty, or you simply pled to a lesser charge to get things over with. Your life is somewhat back in order, you’ve got a little money, so now you go and try to rent a nice place to live. Unfortunately, you’ve still got bad credit.
But wait, it gets worse still. When you get to the checkbox on the application that asks, “Have you ever been convicted of a crime; if yes please explain,” what are you going to do? That is just what the landlord wants in his or her place, a dangerous domestic violence offender. Oh, and you will find that checkbox on your next job application too.
Never lie about the domestic violence conviction. Tell the truth by checking the little box and you get rejected for that great job that would have almost doubled your annual income. However, lie about the case to get the job and you will always have that Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. And rest assured it will be found out sooner or later. No matter how good you are at the job, you are out the door looking for a new job as soon as someone uncovers the truth.
What do you think about this little scenario? An exaggeration you think? Sure, we presented the worst-case scenario, but we know a couple of real live individuals that a number of these things have happened to. So, do this little drill: Go ahead and cut half of the events out of the story. Still looks pretty grim doesn’t it? Now cut the story in half once again. Not a whole lot of improvement, is there?
What can you do about it? First off, to state the obvious, choose wisely when entering into a long-term relationship with anyone. Whoever you let move in with you will have an unprecedented level of access to you and your stuff. While it might seem a bit paranoid to conduct a background check on your prospective partner, it can be a good (and relatively inexpensive) way to protect yourself. Since everyone puts on their best face forward while they are dating, you may not discover a history of mental illness, deviant behaviors, sexually transmittable diseases, financial difficulties, or legal problems until it’s too late. Consider hiring a private investigator or using a resource like www.netdetective.com, www.ussearch.com, www.crimcheck.com, or www.sentrylink.com before taking a major step such as moving in together. Regardless of whether you do a background check or not, pay attention to any mental alarm bells that go off while you are together (see “Listen to the Subtle Warnings You Get” in Section One for a refresher on the signs of an abusive relationship).
If you have a solid partnership, domestic violence, and accusations thereof should never become an issue. Relationships are a two-way street, however, so you’ll need to hold up your end of the bargain. Work on your active listening and communication skills to ensure that little problems don’t fester to become big ones. If you sense signs of trouble brewing and cannot resolve them on your own, consider professional counseling or, potentially, ending the relationship before things can get ugly. If you do get into an argument, watch your temper. No matter how mad you get, never be the aggressor, at least not physically. Do your best to respond rather than react so that you cannot be goaded into starting something that you will regret.
According to many experts, serious relationship problems are often rooted in two areas: sex and money. Infidelity and financial difficulties are two of the leading causes of divorce. Until you are married, it is relatively easy to deal with the sex thing by either staying committed or breaking things off if you’re tempted to stray. If you plan on getting married, be faithful to your wife. A few moments of pleasure is never worth the consequences of getting caught cheating, particularly when your soon-to-be ex-wife can use the legal system to make your life a living hell in retribution. False accusations of domestic abuse often stem from resentment. Hell hath no fury, and all that…
The money issue can be a bit more of a challenge, but nothing insurmountable. Never commingle your assets by conjoining your bank accounts, sharing credit cards, buying a house, or making investments together without the legal protections of marriage. Strongly consider a pre-nuptial agreement as well. Many couples find that they can eliminate much of the stress by maintaining separate bank accounts while collaborating on large purchases after they are married too. This type of arrangement also makes it much harder for your partner to pilfer your bank account without your knowledge.
There is no excuse for beating a woman. Unfortunately, even the accusation of abusing your significant other can land you in serious trouble. While both men and women can instigate violence, men are statistically more likely to be the perpetrator. Consequently, the laws of domestic violence are written and enforced to err on the side of caution. This means that they are stacked against you as a man. Act accordingly.
In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
The essence of strategy is to fall upon the enemy in large numbers and to bring about his speedy downfall.
A fight can take place over a long period of time. It’s called a feud, and it’s bad. For example, in 1878 a hog was stolen in the Appalachian Mountains. Twelve years later, in 1891, the result of the feud was
• One deserted pregnant woman (the guy left her for her cousin).
• One kidnapping.
• More than a dozen men dead, one stabbed 26 times and subsequently shot.
• About twelve bounty hunters presumed dead as they never returned and were never found.
• The call up of the West Virginia National Guard.
• Intervention by The U.S. Supreme Court.
• Seven life imprisonments.
• And, one hanging.
Want to get even with someone? Want to bump up against the law for your brand of justice? Just remember the Hatfields and McCoys because over a hundred years ago they got into a feud not too different from the one you might be thinking about. Nothing good will come of it. Don’t start a feud. Oh, and in case you are wondering, nobody is really sure what happened to the hog.
Could something like this happen to you? Could you start something that you can’t stop? Absolutely! Perhaps you have a girlfriend that wants to go out with some guy from the other fraternity so you decide to have a blanket party[33] and beat him senseless. His fraternity brothers subsequently get together and come gunning for you. Guess what? You’ve just started a feud.
Is this sort of thing real? You bet. Though he was not involved in the violence, something just like this happened in 1986 while Kane was in college. The instigator supposedly told his buddies that the other guy had raped his girlfriend, a claim she vehemently denied. No one died but there was at least one hospitalization, a very long recovery for the victim, several visits from the police, and more than one arrest.
Fistfights, acts of vandalism, and serious hard feelings between these two fraternities lasted for years, long after the guys involved in the incident had graduated and moved away. On one occasion, about a year after the original incident, Kane had to band together with a group of his fraternity brothers to prevent another guy, Ron, from bringing his gun to one of the subsequent brawls. Had they not intervened, someone would undoubtedly have been killed in that street fight.
A fight can take place over a long period of time. It’s called a feud and it’s bad. Feuds tend to begin because one party correctly or incorrectly perceives itself to have been insulted, wronged, or attacked by another. A long-running cycle of retaliation then ensues. Feuds can last for generations, even in modern times where certain cultures practice revenge killings today. Often the original cause is forgotten, yet the cycle of violence continues simply because it is perceived that there has always been a feud. Consider this before you do something stupid.
Violence is bad. Long-running violence is particularly so. Feuds tend to begin because one party correctly or incorrectly perceives itself to have been insulted, wronged, or physically attacked by another. Like the Hatfields and McCoys, a long-running cycle of retaliation, often involving the original parties’ family members and/or associates, then ensues. Feuds can last for generations, even in modern times where certain cultures practice revenge killings today.
For example, American hip-hop and rap stars are famous for taking verbal potshots at each other. This war of words occasionally turns into physical violence, sometimes even murder. Perhaps the most infamous incident of this type was the dispute between Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, known to his fans as The Notorious BIG. These two principles may or may not have been directly involved with the violence, yet it nevertheless escalated out of control. There were several attacks on both of these rap stars as well as on their friends and associates, including several shootings. The feud ended after Shakur was gunned down on September 13, 1996 in a drive-by shooting and Wallace was subsequently assassinated on March 9, 1997.
A fight can take place over a long period of time; it’s called a feud and it’s bad. Consider this before you do something stupid. Just because you think it’s over doesn’t mean that the other guy agrees. Once the ball gets rolling, it may not stop until someone is dead. And maybe not even then.
The following is a brief recap of the content you have read in this section.
• The fight itself is only the beginning. Win or lose, there’s always a cost to violence. Once you survive a violent conflict, there are a host of other consequences to address, including triage, legal issues, managing witnesses, dealing with the press, interacting with law enforcement, and dealing with psychological trauma.
• If you have been wounded in a fight you may have to tend the injuries yourself until professional help can arrive. Check the incident scene to make sure that it is safe, call 9-1-1 or your local emergency number for help, and then begin to care for the victims. Once you have taken care of your own life-threatening injuries you will also want to treat your opponent too.
• If you’re an average guy or found yourself hopelessly outmatched you may be less traumatized than if you considered yourself a real “fighter” yet got beat down regardless. Anything you live through can be a good thing so long as you learn something from it. Wait a few days to regain your emotional equilibrium, dispassionately evaluate your objectives, and then figure out what, if anything, you should do differently in the future.
• It is perfectly normal to experience grief and anguish after traumatic events. Exposure to highly stressful experiences may lead to serious psychological trauma. Symptoms can occur whether you win, lose, or even witness a violent encounter. If you have been involved in an altercation and experience recurring emotional effects for more than a few days, it is a good idea to consider professional counseling to facilitate a healthy recovery.
• Traumatic situations are frequently associated with critical incident amnesia. The greater the stress, the greater your potential of experiencing memory problems. Although you may not remember much about a traumatic incident right after it occurs, you should experience significant memory recovery after a good night’s sleep.
• Retain your composure and conduct yourself in a mature manner at all times when interacting with law enforcement personnel at the scene. A confrontational attitude will do you no good. Don’t exaggerate; it will be interpreted in the worst possible light when it is read in court. Don’t threaten; there is no question that it will be used against you if you do.
• Law enforcement officers have to have a shell; without it, they can’t function. They are not bad people, but they simply see, hear, and feel too much to allow an emotional attachment for every person and every problem. Police officers don’t like fighting, so if you get into a fight they almost certainly are not going to be all that thrilled with you.
• The average person is woefully unprepared to defend himself in court. You want someone fully committed to win your case. This legal fight is just as dangerous if not more so than the physical fight you just survived. You may be facing both criminal and civil litigation with your freedom, your job, your house, your relationships, and your money on the line.
• Courts are not interested in justice; they are interested in resolution. While the thought of jail might be abhorrent to you, to the professional criminal a jail stay or prison term is a minor inconvenience. Recidivism rates are very high. If you engage in violence, you can expect lengthy and expensive criminal and/or civil litigation proceedings.
• You may be excited to do an interview or get in front of the cameras, but it is very important to look before you leap into headlines. Never forget that your fifteen minutes of fame could easily be used against you in a court of law. Avoid talking to reporters unless specifically advised by your attorney that it will help your case to do so.
• There is no excuse for beating a woman. Unfortunately, even the accusation of abuse can land you in serious trouble. The laws of domestic violence are written and enforced to err on the side of caution. Consequently, they are stacked against you as a man. Know this and act accordingly.
• A fight can take place over a long period of time. It’s called a feud and it’s bad. Feuds can last for generations, even in modern times where certain cultures practice revenge killings today. Consider this before you do something stupid.
Ryushi (1684-1764) was a haiku poet. He died on September 6, 1764 at the age of seventy. Translation from the original Japanese reads:
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436. Ernesto Miranda was arrested for robbery, kidnapping, and rape in 1963. He was subsequently interrogated by police and confessed to his crimes. Prosecutors offered only his confession as evidence during his trial where he was convicted. The Supreme Court later ruled in 1966 that Miranda was intimidated by the interrogation. Neither understanding his right to not incriminate himself nor his right to have counsel present during the interrogation. On the basis of that finding, the court overturned his conviction. He was later convicted in a new trial where witnesses testified against him and other evidence was presented, serving 11 years for his crimes. This Supreme Court ruling forms the basis of the “Miranda Rights” that all suspects must be read prior to interrogation by law enforcement.The actual wording states,“The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with an attorney and to have that attorney present during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to represent him” Police are only required to Mirandize an individual whom they intend to subject to custodial interrogation. While arrests can occur without questioning and without the Miranda warning, the warning must be given prior to any formal interrogation.
Theodore Robert Bundy (1946-1989) was one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history. While Bundy confessed to raping and murdering some thirty women before his execution, his total number of victims remains unknown.
Driving Under the Influence (DUI) or Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) in some jurisdictions, is a crime committed by a person who operates a motor vehicle while impaired by alcohol or drugs.
Domestic violence typically means: (a) Physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or the infliction of fear of imminent physical harm, bodily injury or assault, between family or household members; (b) sexual assault of one family or household member by another; or (c) stalking of one family or household member by another family or household member. This definition is from the Revised Code of Washington 26.50.010. That “infliction of fear of…” part gives responding officers and prosecutors a lot of leeway.
A “blanket party” is when a group of guys tackles their victim, wraps him up in a blanket, and beats on him with baseball bats or similar bludgeons until he stops squirming and making noises. It’s positively brutal.