[New] FIGHTING IN & AROUND VEHICLES

experienced it. There is no one "drill"... All you can plan/train for is a messy, ugly, and entirely "… in the moment…" application of a response option - a response option that you may never use again, because no two situations are ever the same.

Waving your firearm around, as a de-escalation method doesn't work (not that I should need to reference this incident to prove that). If you draw it - use it and use it until (a) you are no longer able to. Or (b) until you have created sufficient time/space to bail and run (not that this would have necessarily worked for Howes and Woods either, by virtue of the hostility of the neighborhood they were in - but it MIGHT have given them more of a chance).

If a crowd has surrounded your vehicle and you cannot drive through/reverse out and you have to bail - what door(s) do you bail from? Do you bail from different doors? Or the same door or even the same side of the vehicle?

I can't answer that for you because that will only be decided when something like this happens. All I'm doing here is deep-diving this incident, in order to suggest "options" of response. You have to have more options than the usual suspects preaching their unrealistic Sunday sermon of "... drive through/reverse out..."

Training for fighting in, from and around vehicles has got to be based on worst case scenario and it doesn't get much worse than this horrendous example.

Parting Thoughts

To clarify - I am a huge advocate of the drive through/reverse out option, but I don't base any of our "practical" course content on that single response option because the reality, chaos and unpredictability of a street- scene environment is completely different to a skid-pan or airfield. And, in the event that you cannot drive through/reverse out, you still need "options.” But these options have got to be based on "something" - they cannot simply be pulled from thin air because you think they'll work.

Fighting in, from and around vehicles is chaotic, messy, and confusing and if I could give some examples of how easily that confusion manifests itself, it is this: At what point do you/can you, decide to go noisy/initiate the contact? Do you wait/hold off,