This is a knife attack. NSFW and bloody.

Silver Sentinel found this one:

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I decided to repost it here so some of the men and women on here who have never had to encounter or deal with violence in any real form can take a look at what happens during an attack. Not just the the victim and the attacker, but also the people around them.

Patrols or homeless outreach or just getting your groceries at the local store: it can happen at any time so best to look it square in the face and try to be prepared.
All the Knife Defense and Armor threads in the world aren't going to help prepare people for the reality of a violent attack.
Videos are poor substitutes for the real thing, but they are better than nothing.

Notice how stunned the group of men are in dealing with the situation. They probably lack any training to deal with violence and are caught up in the moment and too overwhelmed to act effectively. Fight or Flight.

Anyway, take a look.
This is why we have self defense training, first aid training, and weaponry training.

This is a murder attemt. So by most local laws you can do whatever you want to stop it and get away with it (look it up). This guy is so pumped with adrenaline and possibly under influence, only way to stop him is to get him away from her or inflict serius injury. Use something heavy, aim for the face or the limb he's using.

That's discusting btw.

Yeah.

Even those with training can freeze in the face of this kind if violence. I couldn't download the video for some reason, but knife attacks are vicious and frightening as Hell.

Watching this is very frustrating, It's almost unbelievable how humans will act under such circumstances. Sure they "tired" to help her. But gentle nudges with their feet etc . If I was there, a warning shot fired into the air, if that didn't work a shot right into him...

Don't shoot into the air...ask anyone who's been hit by a falling bullet on the 4th...they do not reach escape velocity, and people get hurt. If you're prepared to fire your weapon, fire it at your target. Otherwise, don't.

Dogman wrote:

This is a murder attempt.

If you happen on this and have a gun on you, you'd be perfectly justified to shoot the guy in the head. (EDIT - in my personal amateur not a lawyer opinion.)

Firing a weapon into the air is in violation of one of the four cardinal laws if gun safety. You must have a clear target backstop and beyond before you fire. Firing into the air, you could hit anything or anyone.

As far as shooting the guy in the head, I'd suggest first a verbal warning to stop, then firing if he doesn't stop. You risk hitting the victim by firing, and a warning may be enough. A shooting may not be defensible at this point.

It's much easier to say because I'm sitting in a chair watching this on video.

...But the guy was repeatedly stabbing that lady in the chest/neck/face area. It's not a warning situation... at all. At 2:00 that very well might be her laying down to die. Any single one of those knife thrusts might be the one that kills her.

Exactly how I would do it is run forward and put the gun right next to his head. That's not the right way to do things -- it'd be compensating for not having fired in about 6 months. Anyway, I definitely wouldn't hit the lady.

But even without a gun this called for an extremely violent initial response to make it stop. Nobody did that.

It's depressing.

And in real life I probably would voice a warning, because it'd take time to understand what was really going on. At first most people would probably think "guy beating a woman" --

Excellent input from all sides, thank you. This is what MD and I were hoping for when MD cross-posted this. Thank you, Midnite.

I certainly understand the instinct to simply fire at the guy, or attempt to put the gun to his head. But if there was a crowd of people gathered, you can't take a shot. Getting close enough to put the gun to his head is no better unless you plan to shoot straight down through the top of his head, and you will almost certainly be stabbed.

I'm talking about this specific situation. The bullet would travel through and hit the street behind them where no one is standing. I might get stabbed in the arm doing what I described... yeah.

Also the head thing is not to be vicious or cruel. A torso shot would not necessarily stop him and in this specific situation run a much greater risk of hitting the woman.

Putting a gun to the guy's head would be a big mistake unless you also immediately pulled the trigger -- even then it's tactically wrong and stuff. You have to act according to how confident you are in your skill to manage a situation, though.

I was unable to see the video, so I can't comment intelligently on that. But as long as you get that trigger pulled immediately I guess it'd be okay.

No prob Silver, I was hoping some of the younger ones would get a decent idea of what they might see out there.

Basic knife defense tells us that even taking a shirt or jacket off and wrapping up the guys knife arm while he's ignoring everyone but the target could have given a rescuer a chance to stop him as they did by pulling him off of her by his hoodie.

I didn't see any pepper spray, batons, or other items we carry on any of those civilians. Obviously that would be better, but working with what they had, a shirt would have been the fastest way at least for me.
With mutiple people, let them mass rush him and get him off that woman.
But, once again, thinking about that in the moment can be hard.

I should have worded the title a little better as this isn't a TYPICAL knife attack. A typical one is fast and hard to see coming, a shanking.
This one is slow murder.

Guage:
It's Dutch.
It's in front of some parked cars in daylight near a street.
You can hear some men talking.

Woman is on her left side, face covered in blood, pavement as well.

A deranged man is straddling her grabbing her hair and thrusting a kife, icepick grip, into her face and neck area as she feebly tries to defend.

A couple of civilians are running wildly behind him,and take weak and ineffective kicks to his head. They are obviously freaked out and not sure what to do.A guy kicks him in the back several times and at his head again. They are very weak kicks.again. Others push and pull at him, one at a time, never in mass. He ignores it all and keeps stabbing and cutting her.

Finally one guy grabs his jacket hood and tries to pull him off. A couple of the others then join in and they yank him off by his jacket.

The attack has gone on for over a minute and a half at this point.

He's on the ground looking dazed, surrounded by civilians now.. One guy gives him a weak tap wiht a broken off stick (looks like a branch) before a cop shoves the tapper off and the knifer is surrounded by civilians and the cop. They the knifer down on the pavement.

She is standing off to the side, finally collapses.
Blood is everywhere.

Throughout the video more people gather and the talking turns into very loud shouting and sounds panicked.

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Some pretty severe photos. Most people don't want to get stabbed. Fear can rob people of the will to act. If these were Marines I'd be ashamed, but average folks have a far different mindset.

Exactly.
That's exactly why I posted these to help familiarize people with these situations. Isn't perfect but knowledge is power and it's better than going in blind.

If you can't handle seeing these images, I would not hold out hope that you could handle it live. There's absolutely no shame in that, but knowing in advance can help keep you safe. Newbies should definitely see this.

Nemesis wrote:

Don't shoot into the air...ask anyone who's been hit by a falling bullet on the 4th...they do not reach escape velocity, and people get hurt. If you're prepared to fire your weapon, fire it at your target. Otherwise, don't.

This isn't entirely true, the bullet can only fall at it's terminal velocity, that being said 300 mph is still decently fast, could it kill someone? yes but chances are a 1,000 times less likely then lighting striking them. You just have to make sure you aim straight up, never fire a gun at less then a 75 degree angle or the bullet can come back down still under it's own power and easily kill the poor guy unlucky enough to get in it's way.

That being said:

Quote :

I certainly understand the instinct to simply fire at the guy, or attempt to put the gun to his head. But if there was a crowd of people gathered, you can't take a shot. Getting close enough to put the gun to his head is no better unless you plan to shoot straight down through the top of his head, and you will almost certainly be stabbed.

This scenario is much more concerning, I'll be honest in my rage against this cold blooded killer I didn't even think about the bullet existing him, there are bystanders every where and the chances of them getting hit is very high compared to a fallen bullet. That being said frangible ammo, or very light weight high speed HP's would provide almost no danger to the citizens onlooking as they have almost no penetration. The problem is my concealed carry gun is a .44 Magnum and it's anything but "low penetrating". I'll seriously have to consider getting some fragmenting ammo for it now.

Or a smaller caliber carry gun.

Honestly in this case, a firearm is overkill.
Hell a simple rope or length of twine would have been more useful.

I keep hearing weapons, Why not just kick him in the fucking nose? Or generally anywhere on the face, simple and disabling.

I hate the bystander effect, damn cowards.

Probably because your best chance to stop him is with a weapon. He was kicked in the head several times. They weren't solid kicks by any means but you cannot count on a KO with a kick to his face. Once you've kicked him enough to get his attention you are now the focus of his knife attack. Weapons are a hell of a lot more useful in that scenario than not having one.

He's distracted, the angle is correct, you could kill him with a hard enough kick from where he is.

And even if it didn't disable him, I'd rather become the target and draw attention away from the woman he's slowly killing. At least a standing and uninjured person would have a chance of defending themselves.

You can't always have a weapon everywhere at all times, I'm sure if one of the people in the video had a gun they'd have used it.

If you have a gun on you at the time then she's very lucky, but if you don't and waste time looking for a weapon you are lowering her chance of survival.

He's distracted, the angle is correct, you could kill him with a hard enough kick from where he is.
Go for it. I don't think I could kill him with a solid kick to his head. it would hopefully distract him from the victim though.

And even if it didn't disable him, I'd rather become the target and draw attention away from the woman he's slowly killing. At least a standing and uninjured person would have a chance of defending themselves.
Everyone on this board who has commented would do the same, to draw focus away from the woman.

You can't always have a weapon everywhere at all times, I'm sure if one of the people in the video had a gun they'd have used it.
Probably. They would have hopefully used it properly and not hit anyone else at the scene.

If you have a gun on you at the time then she's very lucky, but if you don't and waste time looking for a weapon you are lowering her chance of survival.
No one has suggested looking for a weapon or wasting time doing so. So far it's been "if I had had a firearm." The guys who are responding on here are too well trained or down to earth to run around wildly lookhnig for a broken tree branch half a block away. They would have acted.

Using what we have: my own suggestion of using a shirt or jacket takes almost zero time to get off and employ. Hell even whipping out a pocket knife and planting a few stabs in his neck is a more sure thing.

But if you feel you can disable him with one good kick to the head/face go for it. I don't know your capabilities in that area.
The guys in the crowd that were there sure weren't up to that standard when they were repeatedly kicking at him.

Weapons, or tools if you prefer, are the best chance to stop the maniac with minimal injury to yourself and others once his focus has been turned away from the vicitm.

One good kick could disable him, but it would be a lethal kick. A soccer player could have pulled that off. But we have to be realistic. I know my skills and limitations, if I kicked him his face, he would barely have noticed it. My fist thought is to look for something to use against his face, the second is disarming him. Disarming is a personal risk, so I prefere the first option.

Being a former martial arts student and soccer player, my first thought on watching the attempts to get him off of her was 'That was a really weak kick.'

I don't know if I COULD bring myself to do that kind of harm in that kind of a situation, but I like to think that when it comes down to life or death of me or someone else, that I could end the life of a person committing murder to save an innocent victim.

As far as instantly killing him via a kick: Really, it all depends on exactly where you aim a kick to a persons head and with what footwear. I mean, with steel toed boots, yeah. A shot to the temple, or neck could do it. But either way, a good solid kick to a distracted person has a good chance of at least knocking them silly. For example, aim for the tip of the jaw or right below the ear aka "The button" and you have a much higher chance of at worst stunning them enough to get the weapon away and neutralize the threat.

Note, that I don't recommend violence like that unless it's absolutely necessary, such as if a situation as happened in the video occurred.