Survival Options:
Recap
Your survival options in an attempted kidnapping are two basic choices – with no guarantee either way:
Risk escalating the violence right away by fighting or fleeing and get better survival odds, versus cooperating with a (deceitful) kidnapper and worse odds. Trust your intuition to guide you.
• Although life-and-death crises allow no guarantees, possibly the best response to a hostage crime – following your intuition – is to refuse to be bound, and instead surprise him with a sudden, furious attack. The sooner you act the better. If you're with others and one of you does
act, the others had better immediately join in attacking him, or creating chaos by fleeing [you're not abandoning the others - you're running to get help while yelling, "I'm getting our neighbor, the ""cop"" (or anyone to call the police), thereby destroying his control and spurring him to flee]! See Kidnapping Prevention.
• The home panic-button/siren – described in Security Products - Alarms – and/or a Safe Room are good survival options. Any victim pressing a nearby panic-button and setting off a loud alarm – and/or escaping to a Safe Room to call police on a cell-phone – will destroy the criminal’s advantage of secrecy from neighbor's eyes and ears.
• A weapon was present in 26 percent of violent crimes: 55 percent of all robberies, and 7 percent of all rapes/sexual assaults – according to the U.S. Department of Justice report, “Trends in Violent Victimizations 1973-2001.”
If the assailant is armed and you’re in an isolated area, you may try to Flee, Outsmart him, Surrender, or use Fighting Strategies.
• Whether a worst-case scenario is a shooting rampage, hostage-taking, kidnapping, multiple attackers, or facing a weapon, the key to your survival is to snap out of fear paralysis and act as soon as possible, biding your time only if you absolutely must. A worst-case scenario is not hopeless unless you give up hope. Many victims escape as long as they never give up. See Stress Control.
Enhancing Your Survival Options
Deter a predator by carrying a Personal Security Alarm (screamer or noisemaker) & Pepper Spray in plain sight. Those pages tell you how to use them most effectively.
Recommended Reading
• The Anatomy of Motive: The FBI's Legendary Mindhunter Explores the Key to Understanding and Catching Violent Criminals by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
• The Evil That Men Do: FBI Profiler Roy Hazelwood's Journey into the Minds of Sexual Predators by Stephen G. Michaud.
• The 48 Laws of Power by Joost Elffers and Robert Greene.
• How to Protect Yourself from Crime by Ira A. Lipman.
• On Killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.
• Malicious Intent by Sean Mactire.
• Overkill: Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed by James Alan Fox and Jack Levin.
• Protecting Your Life, Home, and Property by Captain Robert L. Snow.
• Strong on Defense by SWAT instructor Sgt. Sanford Strong.
• Tough Target by Detective Lt. J.J. Bittenbinder.
• What Cops Know by Connie Fletcher.
