Knife Attack! What would you have done?

[Sifu Sin Bin]

Monday morning quarterbacking is always easy to do. The first thing anyone is going to do in this situation is bleed. If you want to try a drill some time try this; The defender has a gun in a holster, the attacker has a knife in his hand. as soon as the knife starts to move pull the gun and shoot. Try it from 1 foot then back it up. I bet you will find out that it will take a twenty foot distance before you can finally get your gun out to shoot before the knife cuts you.
        Knives are no joke, you will get cut. especially if the weilder has any skill at all. I know GM Powell and GM harper both train for real time scenarios and use some of the same techniques I do. I would advise anyone to train real time with their techniques and find out what really works.

[guarded]

Agreed Sifu Sin Bin.  The average person can close 20 feet in under 3 seconds easy.  From the time the clerk noticed the attacker untill the time they came in physical contact was over 4 almost 5 seconds.  Should have been plenty of time to grab the gun and get off a shot.

[Wado]

Well back almost twenty years ago, one test I had to pass was to draw my firearm and fire two shots into the chest of the target at 20 feet in under 1.5 seconds. It took training to do this; I could not do it at first. I could easily see someone losing 3-4 seconds trying to get to a firearm and then taking a few more seconds getting a good shot off. I don't know, ANY weapon would have been nice to have as long as it was in the clerk's hand and not something he had to go get, IMHO.

One statistic that was drilled into me, which I'm not sure if newer information has come out about this since 1991, was that unless the bullet hits the spine (central nervous system), it will not necessarily immediately stop a knife wielding attacker. A shot from a handgun to the chest that does not hit the spine, could take up to seven seconds before the blood pressure lowers enough to the brain that it causes unconsciousness. So even after shooting someone charging at you with a knife, you need to get out of the way because they aren't necessarily going to stop. Even their momentum could take them into you.

[KBOWARRIOR]

That is why law enforcement today is trained to shoot until the threat is neutralized, not the two rounds, stop, look, then keep shooting.  I was at a perishable skills update a few months ago and one of the classes there is a use of force live action video.  You are provided a weapon similar to what is normally carried as well as special OC spray and your baton. Depending what happens in the video is what you response should be.  One was where I had to draw my duty weapon and shoot a charging knife wielding suspect. I hit him 11 times before he hit the ground, with several head shots. I have several years of SWAT training that assisted me, but the instructors were telling the rest of the class that is what they are looking for, to keep firing till the threat hits the ground. I would almost say this wasn't real as the clerk fired one round and the knife wielded drops to the ground. Unless you hit the brain stem or spine that usually doesn't happen.

[guarded]

Not sure of the size of the pistol but it looks like the percussion alone knocked the stuff off of the display shelves.  It may have knocked him unconcious as well.

[Wado]

Thanks for the information Sifu Wallace.

Not sure of the size of the pistol but it looks like the percussion alone knocked the stuff off of the display shelves.  It may have knocked him unconcious as well.

Okay, looked at the video again.

Hard to tell from the video the details, but it looked like the clerk got off two shots. The first shot might have hit the perpetrator in the thigh or leg, and passed through the body, but it looks more like it missed. The round penetrated into the far left 2-liter bottle on the second shelf. There is a fairly good explosion from hydrostatic shock and liquid is seen leaking out of a hole from the bottle after the shot.

It looks like the second round penetrated the perpetrator under the right armpit, about as low as on the side of the floating ribs. A round there could shatter a rib and you can get a lot of internal damage plus the effects of a hollow-point could be like a half-dozen tiny daggers penetrating into tissue. The brain response to trauma is to shutdown, I know a good hit there has made my whole body want to collapse just from a kick or a punch, especially a one knuckle punch. I can't imagine how much worse a bullet would be. Also, when shot or shot at, human psychology can be to go down, even on flesh wounds that can happen.

I'm not sure if the perpetrator did not get up and run away, but this isn't shown in the video. At the end of the video, which is about a minute after the shooting, the clerk appears to be looking for someone and points his gun at something while on the phone. Not sure what is going on there but it could be the perpetrator running away.

As for the firearm, it resembles a Beretta PX4 Storm pistol. This model comes in 9 mm and .40 S&W. The .40 S&W would pack a much bigger punch than the 9mm version.

[Mitch Powell]

I recall six specific situations in my law enforcement career where I faced a person armed with a knife. The most serious was a disturbance call I responded to where I found a guy standing on the steps of a house with his back toward me. He was yelling at someone inside the house. When I asked what the problem was the guy turned around quickly holding a large kitchen knife in his right hand. He immediately stabbed downward toward the top of my head. I block his arm, took him down to the ground, and disarmed him. It was easy and I didn't even think it was a big deal until my supervisor arrived on scene and started talking about the guy going to jail for trying to kill me.

The reason I found this situation to be easy was because in my Kajukenbo training we trained for situations like that over and over and those movements are not difficult. Upward block to an armbar to a takedown and disarm. As mentioned above, one thing we learn from our law enforcement training is our skills disappear if we don't use them and what we do practice needs to be easy to remember and effective.

One of the other situations was quite funny. There was a person armed with a knife threatening to kill themselves. The person was standing inside a bathtub in a very samll bathroom. When I got on scene two other officers said they tried to talk to the person but the person swung the knife at them and threatened to kill them if they came closer. I walked in the bathroom and told the guy I was going to kick his asp if he didn't put down the knife. He believed me and tossed the knife on the floor. I still get a chuckle out of that!

[Mitch Powell]

I forgot to comment on what Prof. Rob (Sifu Sin Bin) said about training in "real time." All of us have the capability to perfrom our techniques from our system/style. Of course we do because the person attacking us has been trained to attack in a certain way and knows what we are going to do. The person also does not want to get hurt, so they "play" along.

From time to time we need to get away from the "set" techniques and see what we would really do when faced with an armed attacker. Here's a cool drill: Get about 8-10 feet from your attacker and turn your back to them. Have someone yell, "Turn" or "Go." Turn around to face the attacker and have them come at you. The attacker will be armed with black marker. They will hold it in whatever hand they choose and they will attack in any manner they choose (overhead, side to side, straight poke, etc.). Defend yourself.

You don't know what they are going to do, so this gives you a chance to see how you would react. Test yourself about 10 times and see how many times you survive. The black marker offers you an opportunity to see where and when you failed. If it's a permanent marker, then the marks will remain for several days. It'll give you something to think about. It's easy to write about what we might or might not do. Practicing to see what we will do is so much better. What kind of drills do you use?

[RizZ]

We use metal training knives w/ fencing masks....Put 1-2 mins on the clock and go....We reset after going to the ground for more than 10 secs or so.

[guarded]

My favorite knife drill is knife grappling.  Two people one knife.  One person attacks, the other defends, disarms, and attacks in return. Back and forth.  Good cardio as well.  Great when there are several people because you can do in 1 or 2 minute intervals then switch partners.

[Tony49]

Has anyone ever used those shock knives in their training?  If so, are they worth the price?  Here is a link for those who have not seen these training knife http://www.shocknife.com/