A Most Dangerous Game

Guest blogger and Personal Protection Expert Sam Rosenberg explains the rules of the Knockout Game and how you can win it.

The Set-Up

By now, you've likely heard of a phenomenon called the Knockout Game. The rules are quite simple.  A single member of a gang of juveniles blind-sides an unsuspecting passer-by with a sucker punch, the goal being to knock the victim unconscious in a single blow. Typically, these attacks occur from behind, or as the victim is distracted by other members of the gang.  No target seems to be off limits.  Pregnant women, children and the elderly have been included among the victims.  This most dangerous game has resulted in serious injury and more than one death.

To police and most people, knockout game attacks are random and unpredictable.  Yet, as with all human violence, it is neither random nor illogical—even if this logic is pathological.  To understand, predict, and prevent this manifestation of violence requires an understanding of predatory logic in general.

Human Predators

www.humanevents.com

Human predators are opportunists, who fundamentally prey on the conscience and goodness of decent people. They live in a world devoid of decency.  A world ruled, rather, by a perversion of the notion of respect.  To the predator, aggression and dominance equals respect, and respect is everything.

The predator’s notions of right and wrong are also corrupted: “if I can get away with it then it is ‘right’, if I can’t then it is ‘wrong’.  Further, the conscience that governs decent people is absent or thoroughly corrupted in predators.

Predator’s Weakness

Those who seek respect through aggression are in fact some of the biggest cowards, with the weakest psychology.  They never achieve respect, only fear. And when they run into someone who isn't afraid they collapse like a house of cards. This is why even the most desperate predator is careful in how they select their prey.   Because they know – deep down – that they can only succeed if the target is unable or unwilling to fight back.  They are fundamentally cowards lacking the confidence and resilience to challenge someone who could fight back.  For them to succeed, the attack MUST be one sided.

The Prey’s Strength

Imagine, if you will, encountering a wolf while walking in the woods.  It locks eyes in a hard stare.  The hair on its back stands up; it bars its teeth, and begins to snarl.  If the wolf attacks, would you be justified in saying afterwards “but I never saw it coming”?  The warning indicators of predatory humans are not quite as obvious…or are they?

Now, imagine you are walking down the street and you see a person or group that causes you to feel fear.  Are you not being warned?  Are your instincts not telling you to avoid that situation, just as it would tell you to back away from that wolf?

Trusting your hardwiring for survival

Fear is good.  It is a messenger that wakes you up and is not something you need to overcome in your life. It is simply an impulse to be understood.  But most people try, at all costs, to override this impulse, or they mistakenly believe that experiencing fear somehow means that they lack courage.  But intuition allows you to know, without knowing why, and when safety is at stake, intuition communicates through fear.

Denial, however, is the exact opposite.  Denial is seeing the facts, yet choosing to disregard them.  Denial could flat-out get you killed, and it will always leave you vulnerable.

Situational awareness 

Attention is the active embracing of your primal instincts.  It is something that must be cultivated.  It must be practiced, and done so consciously.  Pay attention to your environment and trust your instincts no matter what the person looks like, and no matter how your logical mind desires to interfere or make excuses.

Recognize that all violence is situational.  When you allow yourself to be preoccupied, particularly with technology, you shunt your senses to such a degree that your mind cannot do its job, and you create a situation of vulnerability, even if you wouldn't otherwise have been perceived as vulnerable by a predator.

Winning the game

As predators are inherently cowards, you don’t have to be bigger, stronger, faster, better to deter them, you just have to be willing and able.  Willingness comes from ability.  Train the body, the mind follows. To recap in 4 simple rules:

1. Accept, first and foremost, that there are predators out there who will prey mercilessly on those whom they perceive as vulnerable.
2. Your first objective is to cultivate situational awareness, and to trust your intuitive threat recognition software.
3. If you perceive threat, move.  Get off the “X”, as we say in protection terms.  Take decisive action to avoid the situation and remove yourself as a target of opportunity.
4. Training is invaluable as it tunes your awareness and makes you a less inviting target, but remember that there are no silver bullet techniques if you don’t follow rules 1 through 3 above.

Sam Rosenberg is an internationally recognized expert on personal and institutional security.  A former Marine officer and close protection specialist, he is the director of global protective services for CSI.  His Pittsburgh based company INPAX | Academy of Personal Protection, provides comprehensive training and consulting services for individuals, families, corporations, and schools nationwide.  Read Sam’s full article on the knockout game here.