Robert Siciliano, a personal safety expert, shares self-defense tactics after recounting a mugging and stalking case. Trust your instincts and create distance. If attacked, shout loudly, target the eyes and throat, and surrender valuables if a weapon appears.
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An assault, a carjacking, life-saving ways you can survive an attack, next on Fox 25 News at 10.
If you're in store, in a store when an armed robber walks in, a mugger grabs you when you're just walking down the street, would you know what to do and how to get out safely?
Fox 25's Angelica Thornton has tips tonight on how you can survive an attack.
We bring you their stories every day.
He had a knife.
Victims of crimes.
I thought I'm going to die. He's going to kill me.
Still stunned by the savagery of their attackers.
And he was like a wild animal.
Like most of them, Suzanne Besser never thought it would happen to her. She was stalked as she walked alone on one of Beacon Hill's swankiest streets.
He yelled at me to stop, and that was when I thought, I'm being really rude, but something is telling me that something is wrong. So I didn't stop, and I totally ignored him.
That was Suzanne's first mistake. She heard footsteps but didn't turn around. She chose to be polite, hoping her gut feeling was wrong, but it wasn't, and she was mugged.
When he caught up to me, he said to me, "Don't you see what I have in my hand?" And he pointed to his hand, and he was shaking the gun.
Suzanne gave the man her bag, and fortunately he took off without assaulting her, but she was left scared and angry, wishing she hadn't been so trusting.
It is better to be rude wrong and raped.
Robert Siciliano is a personal safety expert. He wrote the book "The Safety Minute," which teaches people to tap into their survival instincts.
We're brought up to give kisses and hugs, to say please and thank you, to have manners at the dinner table. At no time are we educated that there is, and there always has been, and there always will be predators out there stalking their prey.
So what should you do if you're getting unwanted attention? Siciliano says the first 30 seconds are crucial. First, look the person right in the eyes and let them know you're suspicious of their behavior. Then cross the street, walk or run to a more populated area. And if the predator still makes a move, start screaming. But be sure to send out the right message.
People think yelling "Help!" and "Rape!" will, you know, fend off an attacker. It does nothing to fend off an attacker. It only adds fuel to the attacker's fire.
Experts say you should never beg. Saying, "Please, I'll do anything," doesn't work.
Instead, you should yell, "Stop!" or "No!" If you're near other people, shout, "Fire!" Yelling profanities can also push an attacker away too, because when they view you initially, they think you're weak and you're frail, you're not going to offer any resistance. If you start yelling profanities with an angry face and a loud tone of voice, you're going to push them away.
And if that doesn't work, it's time to fight. Can someone my size really hurt someone like you?
Absolutely. A woman who is 100 pounds 20 pounds can debilitate a guy who is 200 pounds very easily.
Siciliano shows people how to poke their attacker in the eyes, hit them in the throat, the groin, stomp on their feet. If they have a gun or a knife, he says give them your pocketbook or wallet. If they want more than material items, resist and never let them take you from point A to point B.
The secondary crime scene is where they have to bring in family members to identify the body and the coroner and law enforcement to scoop up the remains. You don't want to go to the secondary crime crime scene.
He says if you can't run, if you're in a car, try to jump out. If you're behind the wheel, crash into something.
If you hit a parked car doing 20 or 30 miles an hour, you're going to disable your vehicle and bring some significant attention to that situation, and your attacker is going to want to run out of there and get out of there and seek their own safety.
But even Siciliano admits sometimes it's more effective to act submissive. The woman who was taken hostage by the alleged Atlanta courthouse killer escaped after 13 hours of praying and Bible reading with the suspect. She was able to walk away and call police when the gunman let his guard down.
She tapped into something that, that they both saw eye to eye on, and she was able to communicate at his level, and that ensured her personal security.
Suzanne Besser has signed up for self-defense classes but says the most important lesson she learned is to be more aware of her surroundings. To always have a plan of action.
I feel terribly lucky. I'm terribly lucky because of the way it ended up and that nothing happened to me. You know, I'll never have that great pocketbook, but that certainly is just totally not important compared to my own health.
Angelica Thornton, Fox 25 News.
If you want more tips on how you can prevent or survive an attack, just go to our website fox25.com and click on the red tab that says "For More Information."
