Armed Robberies in Kiwi Businesses (and the 'armchair critics' advice...)

Sorry for the lack of regular blogs lately, we have had a huge month and been a bit snowed under!

In the past week I have had several people ask me about the 60 Minutes documentary shown last week discussing the spate of armed robberies happening to dairies and liquor stores in NZ, and specifically whether the staff should ‘fight back’.

The programme featured several different dairy owners who have been victims of armed holdups in their Auckland dairies (some multiple times). Some of them were of the opinion that they will always simply comply with the robber’s requests. Others believe it is better to ‘fight them off’. One man chased a robber who was armed with a knife out of his store with a machete and has labelled a hero by many.

The programme featured strongly the case of Mr Navtej Singh (who I wrote about here) who was shot dead by a robber in his Manurewa liquor store even though he was complying fully with the robber’s demands. Another dairy owner who complied had his throat cut (survived).

The question being raised was “what is the ‘right’ way to deal with these situations, fight back or comply”? I can appreciate where many people are coming from with this as it seems that the ‘rules have changed’ somewhat from the old belief of ‘give them whatever they want and get them out of there and you won’t be hurt’ as with the case of Mr Singh who it is believed complied fully and was still shot dead.

Firstly I want to make something very clear; I am not judging the actions of any of these people who have been victims of robberies in any way. They did the best with the information they had and whether it worked out well for them or not, that is all that can be asked of anybody.

So removing this blog away from any particular person and making it generically focused on the topics raised on the programme, let’s have a look at some of the points made.

Firstly, is it ‘better’ to fight back or is it ‘better’ to comply? My take on this is the same as my take on any self defence related question along the same lines, and that is ‘it depends’. There are never black and white answers to dealing with violence. Anyone who says there are is someone who is misinformed or has an agenda. Violence is not clean, it is not precise, subtle, or rule-bound. It is a million shades of grey, often chaotic, usually scary as hell and has many aspects to it which are influenced by any of thousands of variables. It annoys me when I hear people (often arm-chair critics) saying ‘he should have done this’ or ‘you should have done that’ as there is simply no such thing. People who offer this type of ‘advice’ are usually worth ignoring.

The fact is, NOBODY can say for sure what they would do in one of these situations. We can hypothesize, and we can train to prepare ourselves as much as we can so we will know how we will ‘probably’ react, but no-one ever knows for sure until you are actually put in that situation.

While it is true that sometimes people who comply with robbers’ demands are still hurt or even killed that does not render this a flawed strategy. It is still the safest strategy against an armed offender in ‘most’ situations. Are there exceptions to this ‘rule’? Yes, of course there are. But that does not mean a knee jerk reaction should be adopted because a couple of compliant victims of these robberies were still injured/killed. The fact is that most are not.

One thing I am certain of is that if we adopt the (dangerous) belief that it is ‘always’ better to fight off an armed robber/robbers, as was being suggested by several people on the program, then we are going to be faced with a lot more injuries and deaths in these cases than we have seen so far. In fact, they will become commonplace.

One question I have is why have the vast majority of these shop-keepers not received training for dealing with armed robberies and/or self defence training? This is clearly a serious, growing issue and one that is held at the forefront of many of these shop-keepers’ minds. So perhaps it is time to get some training to learn how to deal with these situations if they should arise. I asked the owner at my local dairy this morning about this and if he was concerned about it. He told me he is very concerned and that he is on edge every day while he waits for what he believes is inevitable, that his store will be robbed. I asked him why, if he is so worried about this, that he has not received any training on it. He said it was too expensive and he can’t get time away to do it. Now I am not pushing our training here, but our armed robbery course is not expensive and are anywhere from 4 hours to a day long. Neither are the others run by other organisations out there. And certainly not when compared to the uninsured loss of cash from even one armed robbery, completely forgetting about all of the other factors for a moment. This needs to change. There is a genuine threat to these people’s safety and yet there seems to be a barrier in the way stopping them from getting training to help them deal with it both physically, emotionally, mentally, legally, and ethically.

I wondered to myself, upon watching the video footage of a shopkeeper armed with a machete running after a robber who was armed with a knife; “what would he do if he caught up to him?” what if the robber stopped, turned around and confronted him? What if the robber tripped and the shop-keeper, fuelled by adrenaline, fear and anger, with a loss of fine motor skills and complex and rational thought processes, found himself suddenly standing over the robber armed with his machete, what would he do? You see, as we sit here reading this blog in a positive state of mind, without the effects of extreme fear and anger (the two most predominant emotions in these situations), without all of the effects of the Adrenal Conditioned Stress Response, without all of the thousands of variables which can occur and lead you to misinterpret actions and situations, without the emotional momentum caused by the situation, among many other things, we can probably say just what ‘we would do in this situation’. But that is not how these situations unfold. The shop-keeper will have all of the effects listed above and a lot more. With no rational thought processes present and fear and anger in the driver’s seat the consequences could be disastrous. He could be injured/killed or could injure/kill the offender un-necessarily.

One of the issues raised on the programme was around a person who did ‘defend himself’ and was prosecuted for his actions resulting in people crying foul about it and going on about how the justice system is so flawed. Now I don’t know the full case here so I am writing based solely on what was said, which may be incomplete, but the situation here is probably pretty straight forward. The Self Defence law in NZ is pretty simple really:

Section 48 of the Crimes Act 1961 - Self-defence and defence of another - Everyone is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.

The key word in there: ‘Reasonable’. Reasonable force. Section 48 does not provide immunity from prosecution for using self-defence. Unless the circumstances clearly show the force used was appropriate and in self-defence, meaning that it was reasonable, justifiable, and proportionate, the person who has used the force may have to explain their justification to a criminal court. If it is found that the actions of the ‘defender’ were not reasonable, justifiable, and/or proportionate then that person may find themselves up on charges.

The law is designed to protect people, not punish them for protecting themselves when it was reasonable to do so. Generally this means that a person who is prosecuted for ‘protecting themselves’ has gone too far. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t be prosecuted (all other things being equal). But how far is too far? And what causes an otherwise placid person to smack a robber over the head with a hammer when they were already fleeing, or strike them with the machete when they were already on the ground and looking to get away? Lack of any training for one thing. Under pressure we can do things that we would otherwise never think we were capable of, there is a reason for that but I will explain in another blog to keep this from being 10,000 words. You only need to look at the psychological dynamics of ‘crimes of passion’. In most cases the person who just stabbed their spouse to death, 10 minutes before the incident would never have thought they could ever do such a thing, and 10 minutes after it they would do anything to take back what they have done. Why? Because 10 minutes before and 10 minutes afterwards (for example) they are thinking rationally, whereas in the heat of the moment, that part of the brain is shut down and doesn’t have access to the right ‘files’ if they have never been trained for it.

Training (correct training) bridges these gaps. It helps to fill the brain with files which will work for the person, not against them in these situations. It lets them make a conscious decision on whether to physically hurt the person, not an unconscious one which could result in disastrous consequences.

And putting the ‘fighting back’ question aside, if we simply look at basic skills for dealing with Armed Robbery, these are absolutely vital to ensuring the best outcome possible given the situation. If compliance is the best option, it is important to know HOW to comply. Understanding tactical body language, eye contact, use of voice, information capture (for police response), the reactions of someone on methamphetamine, dealing with evidence, dealing with customers, making the store safe while police get there, even how to call for help (there is more to this than meets the eye), along with a lot of other things are all vital skills to ensure the shop-keepers/their families/staff/customers/Police’s safety in an event like this. Something as seemingly small as understanding how to ‘hand over the cash’ can be the difference between life and death if you have not been trained on how to do it.

Training is not going to stop these events from happening, the problem is much bigger than any one incident in any one dairy obviously, but it can go a long way towards helping the shop-keeper make informed decisions under pressure on how best to deal with the situation to ensure the best possible outcome in a very horrible situation.

I say again, there is no right or wrong in these situations, there is no “he should have done this”, it is just about having an understanding of the dynamics of these situations and having the right training to help deal with them. Is it better to fight them off or just to comply? Good question. The answer; It depends. The best thing that these people can do for themselves is to be as prepared as possible.