I have received several emails about this event: (Read the article and see my comments at the bottom)
Gun terror: 'I'll shoot her'
By Michael Dickison 5:30 AM Friday Jun 17, 2011
Link to original article HERE
A shopkeeper used a hockey stick to fend off an armed gunman who was holding a pistol to the head of a customer, the mother of "two beautiful, young children".
As the robber demanded cash from the till - "Give me money or I'll shoot her" - the dairy owner had other ideas.
Jayesh Amin, owner of the Farm Cove Superette in East Auckland, said he could think only of saving the woman, a regular customer who he knew had two children.
Mr Amin was preparing to close the shop at 7.45pm on Wednesday when his last customer approached the counter with a couple of icecreams.
At the same moment, a young hooded man ran in, grabbed the woman by the neck, shoved a pistol at her head and yelled: "Give me money or I'll shoot her."
For a couple of seconds, Mr Amin stood frozen. "I was shocked because it happened so fast. I didn't understand what was happening."
Another man came in with a metal bar and told the first offender: "Go ahead, bro, go ahead, bro. Shoot her, bro."
As the second man lunged across the counter, Mr Amin was too rattled to notice that a third robber had followed the others into the store.
Mr Amin took $600 from the till and held it up.
"I offered the money. I told them to leave the woman alone and take the money: 'Don't do anything silly - just leave the woman'."
But instead of reaching for the money, the three young men yelled further threats at the female customer.
"They should have come to me to take the money but they didn't," Mr Amin said.
"It was very hard to know what to do because I had shown them the money. My first priority was to save the woman. She was local and I knew she had two beautiful young children."
So Mr Amin reached behind the counter for a hockey stick he had there and swung wildly at the three men.
He struck one, then ran around the counter towards the man with the gun.
The three men scurried out the front door.
"I think they got a little scared," Mr Amin said.
Police were quickly on the scene - Mr Amin's wife saw the incident on a security camera monitor in their upstairs residence, and called 111.
Two teenagers have been arrested for the robbery and appeared in court yesterday. Two others - one the driver of a getaway car - are being sought.
Last night, Mr Amin said he was still shaking because of the ordeal.
"I'm so tired. I couldn't sleep all night," he said. "From yesterday morning at seven, I haven't slept. I was so scared."
The drama did not end with the robbers running out the door.
Mr Amin chased them outside and called for help. The owner and chef from the next-door restaurant came to his aid.
The three robbers then ran to a car driven by a fourth man and sped away - only to be pursued by a member of the public.
The man chased the offenders until they stopped the car, got out and one pointed the gun at him.
As the man tried to flee, his rear windscreen shattered.
Police say they are exploring several possible reasons for the window breaking, and have not confirmed that it was caused by a gunshot.
The four offenders abandoned the car, and police later found an air pistol in it.
The two men arrested are aged 17 and 18 and appeared in the Manukau District Court yesterday on charges of assault with intent to rob, threatening to kill and commission of a crime with a firearm. Further charges may follow.
Police said that the store owner and the customer escaped serious injury but had been extremely shaken by events and were being counselled by Victim Support.
Detective Senior Sergeant Albie Alexander said criminal investigation branch staff had examined the premises and were following "very positive" leads regarding the identity of the two missing suspects.
By Michael Dickison
When I first heard this story I was told that a man had pointed a gun at the dairy owner and instead of handing over cash he had attacked the offender with a hockey stick and chased him out of the store. At that point he was being hailed a hero. Based on that limited information, I thought it was another case of a 'hero' who could have easily become a martyr. This is NOT the right course of action to take in armed hold up situations in most cases, the best option is compliance.
But then I looked into this further and the above article shed different light on the situation. Mr Amin did comply and offer money, but the offender did not take it and instead began to escalate his level of violence towards the woman who was at that stage being used as a hostage. That changes thinigs, and like it or not, unless you were actually there in that situation, none of us can say what was right and what was wrong. At the end of the day, what Mr Amin chose to do worked. Could he have taken other options, possibly, yes, but what he did was successful and I agree that he should be acknowledged for his actions.
What worries me is that many are hailing his actions as the way everyone should deal with these situations, and that is wrong. Black and white. Mr Amin's situation should not be considered typical. Confronting armed robbers in most cases is not a good thing. Bluntly, it may get you killed. In Mr Amin's unique situation, I applaude him for doing what he believed to be right in the moment, and acting in spite of his fear in defence of another person, and his actions worked. But his situation is not ALL situations, and therefore I am worried to hear the attitude of many that this response should be applied to ALL situations, as it most definitely should not.
My advice is to get some training around Armed Holdup Safety. Protect's half day course is excellent and provides people with realistic skills and options to deal with the majority of situations. Training can obviously help prepare people to deal with a situation in the best possible way, and also to control impulsive behaviour which could place you in danger, such as chasing the offenders car down the road, forcing them to stop, get out, and point the gun at the person. This could have had disatrous conssequesces. Our course teaches how to reduce the chances of an armed hold up, how to best manage during one, and how to manage the scene directly afterwards too. All three of these aspects are vital to understand, are highly valuable as a life skill, and believe it or not are actually interesting and even 'fun' to learn.
Remember, you don't need to work in a job where armed hold up is possible/probable to be involved in one. You may be a customer in a bank, service station, dairy, liqour store, bar, or anywhere that has cash or merchandise. So these skills are important to know.
My main point here is that Mr Amin did very well given the options and training he had available to him, and good on him for that. Please do not look at this situation though and think it is typical and that Mr Amin's response should be generically applied, as that is not (by a long shot) the best option.
Showing posts with label Armed robbery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armed robbery. Show all posts
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, July 18, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Hindsight: 20/20
A little while ago a few of our members and I were having a discussion about some of the recent salient violent events occurring around New Zealand. We watch these events closely as they give great insight into current trends and behavioural psychology as it relates to violence. The discussion found its way to the topic of Mr Singh, the Manurewa liquor store owner murdered in 2008 as part of an Armed Holdup. I was asked by a martial artist who was attending our group class what I would have done if I were the person in the liquor store. In other words, if I was Mr Singh.
My reply to him was along the lines of; "Well he was shot in the chest at close range so I probably would have died. Why do you ask?" This was clearly not the response he expected and he immediately retorted with "well, that's a great attitude from a self defence teacher!"
I asked him why he felt that way and he went on to explain how his (martial arts) instructor had told the class exactly what he would have done in the situation to not only not get shot, but to physically harm the three robbers, one of whom was armed with a gun (which incidentally involved jumping the counter in front of the gunman and kicking him in the throat etc *Sigh*). I find this attitude incredible. Actually, I find it blatantly ignorant.
No-one can say how they absolutely would react in that situation. We can theorise about it, but there is no way we can say with certainty what we "would" have done. There is never any black and white answer to violence. Ever.
It reminded me of what Rich Dimitri told me about a magazine which called him up after 9/11 to ask him what he would have done if he had been on the plane when the highjackers took it over. Several other self defence 'experts' had told the magazine how they would have dealt to the highjackers and resumed control of the plane saving the day, whereas Rich's reply was "I would have died of course". His reply was not published.
Certainly there is merit in analysing the situation and what occurred retrospectively to help create 'mental blueprints' and provide greater understanding of how these situations unfold and occur, and also to adapt our training to suit and give greater chance of adapting to the specific scenario, but we will never 'fully' bridge the gap between how we think it may happen and how it really happens, unless...It really happens. There are always too many variables which could occur to try to "run a script". But if your self defence training is reality based it will prepare you as much as possible for this type of event. The 'stress inoculation' training that is a core concept of what we teach at Protect helps you to prepare and to make decisions under pressure which best serve you.
I don't know exactly how the events unfolded in the liquor store, and whether any previous training for this type of situation could have helped Mr Singh, I would like to hope it may have, but one thing I know is that he did the best with the knowledge and preparation that he had and in the end he tragically had his life taken from him and his loved ones.
All we can aim to do with our self defence training is gain as much knowledge and preparation against real world violence as we can so that if the worst happens we are as prepared as possible. Still, we will never be 100% prepared but 90% is better than not prepared at all. If the worst should happen you only have a small gap to bridge and will be far more able to adapt under pressure.
Self defence is not about flashy Hollywood moves and being a hero, it is about staying safe and getting home to your loved ones. That's all. And effective self defence training should reflect that.
My reply to him was along the lines of; "Well he was shot in the chest at close range so I probably would have died. Why do you ask?" This was clearly not the response he expected and he immediately retorted with "well, that's a great attitude from a self defence teacher!"
I asked him why he felt that way and he went on to explain how his (martial arts) instructor had told the class exactly what he would have done in the situation to not only not get shot, but to physically harm the three robbers, one of whom was armed with a gun (which incidentally involved jumping the counter in front of the gunman and kicking him in the throat etc *Sigh*). I find this attitude incredible. Actually, I find it blatantly ignorant.
No-one can say how they absolutely would react in that situation. We can theorise about it, but there is no way we can say with certainty what we "would" have done. There is never any black and white answer to violence. Ever.
It reminded me of what Rich Dimitri told me about a magazine which called him up after 9/11 to ask him what he would have done if he had been on the plane when the highjackers took it over. Several other self defence 'experts' had told the magazine how they would have dealt to the highjackers and resumed control of the plane saving the day, whereas Rich's reply was "I would have died of course". His reply was not published.
Certainly there is merit in analysing the situation and what occurred retrospectively to help create 'mental blueprints' and provide greater understanding of how these situations unfold and occur, and also to adapt our training to suit and give greater chance of adapting to the specific scenario, but we will never 'fully' bridge the gap between how we think it may happen and how it really happens, unless...It really happens. There are always too many variables which could occur to try to "run a script". But if your self defence training is reality based it will prepare you as much as possible for this type of event. The 'stress inoculation' training that is a core concept of what we teach at Protect helps you to prepare and to make decisions under pressure which best serve you.
I don't know exactly how the events unfolded in the liquor store, and whether any previous training for this type of situation could have helped Mr Singh, I would like to hope it may have, but one thing I know is that he did the best with the knowledge and preparation that he had and in the end he tragically had his life taken from him and his loved ones.
All we can aim to do with our self defence training is gain as much knowledge and preparation against real world violence as we can so that if the worst happens we are as prepared as possible. Still, we will never be 100% prepared but 90% is better than not prepared at all. If the worst should happen you only have a small gap to bridge and will be far more able to adapt under pressure.
Self defence is not about flashy Hollywood moves and being a hero, it is about staying safe and getting home to your loved ones. That's all. And effective self defence training should reflect that.
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