Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"

Both aspects of that statement are just as valid an important as the other. Too frequently we caution ourselves and others to be a "hard target", which to an extent is great advice. Just don't take it too far, like this guy

http://barrow.patch.com/articles/ma...tened-with-pistol-after-asking-for-directions

The story essentially covers an incident where a man asked a stranger for directions, and the stranger brandished a pistol in response.

On it's face, most if not all of us would say "I would never do that". But when threads come up about how to deal with strangers asking for cigarettes, change, directions, a ride, etc, we virtually always say that the question is just part of the interview process of a thief, and that by appearing brusque, mean, and hard ourselves, we dissuade the thief from continuing their attack. But don't take it too far. Brandishing is illegal. Assault is illegal. This is where the "be polite be professional" comes in to play. You can give them the 1000 yard stare and use your command voice, as you should. But you can say things like "I can't help you sir, good bye". And you certainly shouldn't brandish. Unfortunately I've seen more than one on here that people would put their hands on their guns, move their jacket so the gun is visible, even draw and keep their gun at their side in order to scare off a (maybe) thief from asking directions.

Well in this story, it appears someone did just that. Except here, the "theif" was really just a guy asking for directions and he ended up calling the police. Now who's the criminal?

Be careful how you act and react. And as always, be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet

 

[taraquian]

That has to be the best advice I have ever heard!
BTW you are my hero...or at least your namesake is.

 

[Nushif]

I'd go as far as saying giving someone a "command voice" "I can't help you, sir" and a "1000 yard stare" for asking directions is far from polite. And rather unprofessional.

 

[HDCamel]

I'd go as far as saying giving someone a "command voice" "I can't help you, sir" and a "1000 yard stare" for asking directions is far from polite. And rather unprofessional.

This.
Being cautious and being a paranoid jerk are two different things.

 

[Fred Fuller]

I've seen this remark attributed to USMC GEN James N. Mattis, who certainly has a reputation for ... colorful speech. I don't know if the attribution is correct or not, but I do know it has been widely adopted by Marines in the field.

While this would certainly seem to be good advice for those in uniform going in harm's way in a battlefield environment where uncertainty is a byword, I'd have to wonder why being at Condition Yellow as best we can manage it is not a sufficient level of awareness and preparation for normal life as lived by normal people on the street here in the USA. And the quote, whatever its origin, is not a sentiment I'd care to hear attributed to me, if I ever wound up in court over some encounter where I was forced to defend myself.

Just a thought, and of course, YMMV.

 

[Kleanbore]

Very Poor Choice of Words

The phrase ""...be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"" is one of the last things I would want being attributed to me by a prosecutor after an ambiguous encounter. There must be dozens of better ways to say it.

That phrase, along with "always cheat, always win" was found in training material possessed by Larry Hickey, and the prosecutor used it with effect in one of his trials.

Posted by Fred Fuller:

And the quote, whatever its origin, is not a sentiment I'd care to hear attributed to me, if I ever wound up in court over some encounter where I was forced to defend myself.

Oops, beat me to it.

 

[MtnCreek]

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"

I understand why some would have a problem with the last part of that statement, but what I take from that is not so much looking to get the drop on any stranger that approaches me, but to have a plan, or at least consider, how I’m going to deal with him before he gets within striking distance. In other words, have a plan to Not Get Attacked by every stranger I meet.

I think there can be a fine line between coming across as a ‘hard-target’ and tempting those that live by the ‘you don’t dis me’ code. IMHO, appearing confident, capable and aware should be the goal while keeping in mind that too much bravado could ‘force’ someone to attack because of pride and ‘street-code’ crap.

I appreciate the post, although many here attempt to remind us a pistol in the waistband is not the first and only answer, reading about real people getting attacked has the potential to make us a little edgy if we’re not careful.

Thanks.

 

[Loosedhorse]

The phrase ""...be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"" is one of the last things I would want being attributed to me by a prosecutor after an ambiguous encounter. There must be dozens of better ways to say it.

+1.

I am particularly leery of having a plan to kill any 3 year-olds I meet. I don't mind being aware of people and exits (Condition Yellow), and developing a plan of escape or defense based on that if I go to Orange.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Posted by Fed Fuller

Sorry, but I'm not a Fed any more - I retired .

 

[scaatylobo]

Works for me

I would NEVER say aloud "be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet".

But that does not mean it is not how I live and plan daily.

A good survival plan is just that = period.

 

[sidheshooter]

As is often the case, military ideas and tactics sometimes need modifications to fit within day-to-day civilian life.

How about "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to deal with everybody you might meet in a manner appropriate to the situation"

None of us should shoot to kill; we should only shoot to live.

 

[Cosmoline]

Yeah I prefer that one. Getting a read off people is incredibly important, and 99% of the time there's no harm in giving directions. The elderly tourists from Germany are unlikely to mug you. But the squirrely dude who keeps jerking his arms in and out of his pockets is probably trouble. If you concentrate on how to kill everyone you meet, you may be missing the more important signals that can tell you if real trouble is in front of you.

 

[MachIVshooter]

A more appropriate way to put it for those of us living in a civilized country would be something like "be polite, be professional, and have a contingency plan if the people you encounter become a threat"

I'm not even trying to put a PC spin on it; I feel, as Fred does, that this is good advice for a soldier or other professional in a dangerous place who may be become threatened by those who appear benign. But envisioning your front sight leveled at every man, woman and child you meet on the street, in the supermarket, etc. does not seem like sage advice to me. That would go well beyond paranoia; Sociopathic is more accurate:

A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

In ST&T, situational awareness is a constant theme, and it definitely applies here. We certainly don't need a plan to kill everyone we meet, we just need to recognize the difference between a dangerous individual/situation, and everyone/thing else.

 

[conw]

There is wisdom in the statement, but what single statement could capture all the nuance required to interact well with others while remaining cognizant of the risk of doing so, and the full spectrum of cause and effect inherent to it? None.

Personally I think it comes pretty close though. Sure we can nitpick about "everyone," but I like to think of positioning and initiative in my daily interactions. Standing at a slightly different angle in a line, moving a little bit to see better from your peripheral vision, are more likely to happen when you think "What if I need to do something about this guy? What would I do?"

I don't think the healthy mind is capable of literally formulating a plan to kill everyone one meets, but those who we don't suspect of being capable of harm, or as being likely to harm us, are of course more capable of it. Pre-emptively considering this, as a habitual part of interaction, and spending 1-2 seconds optimizing position or other aspects of the interaction, could make a huge difference.

The kill part is definitely more military-influenced, and is usually going to be overkill. But a reasonable person might want to quickly visualize how a seemingly benign scenario could go wrong, and his/her response, before it happens. If you are getting approached by someone in a somewhat questionable area with his/her hands inside of a winter coat and it's a warm summer night, you probably want to think ahead to "If I draw and shoot, what's behind this person? Exactly what am I looking for RIGHT NOW as a cue to draw? If he/she runs straight at me, and is unarmed, what do I do and when does lethal force come into play, if at all?"

I think HAPTKEYM is an exercise in mental agility as much as anything. It can be taken literally, but the value - to me - is occasionally exercising that faculty when we don't expect to need to kill anyone, because it can lead to visualizing unexpected scenarios and being better prepared for them. If the "plan to kill" actually includes hunting for possible early cues of aggression, it is an exercise that hones our perception.

As an example...forget about the winter coat guy. Imagine you're in a restaurant. Look around and rather than thinking "How could I kill all these people" (no real point visualizing being an active shooter, that's not relevant to lawful self-defense) try thinking one person at a time what that person could possibly do that would trigger you to go into a defensive mode, up to using lethal force, and how things might play out based on your relative positions.

It's a good thought exercise, not necessarily a mantra for life, in my opinion. And if you do it enough, you'll find you consistently pick better positions, and I'm not just talking about sitting in the back corner booth and cliche examples like that.

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by conwict: There is wisdom in the statement, but what single statement could capture all the nuance required to interact well with others while remaining cognizant of the risk of doing so, and the full spectrum of cause and effect inherent to it? None.

What single statement could be quoted with greater effect in an effort to establish mens rea?

 

[conw]

I didn't say use it in your sigline or have a t-shirt printed .

To me, using the potential legal ramifications of a statement or strategy as the primary basis for initial evaluation, such as you did in responding to my post, is kind of like using the OSHA workplace safety guidelines for a kitchen to learn how to be a chef.

Here's a quote that comes to mind...

Beware of the “Black Swan” fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you--with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the “Gigo Law,” i.e., “Garbage in, garbage out.”-Heinlein

Sure you can get "screwed" legally even if you do everything right, or due to a small mistake. The same is true of using lethal force - you can do everything right in a self-defense scenario and still die. But of the two, the latter has worse consequences, and is more difficult to train and prepare for. It's also somewhat less predictable, and a more perishable skill. And crucially, if we increase the complexity of a hypothetical SD scenario, the unpredictability of the imminent physical outcome increases exponentially greater than the unpredictability of the legal outcome.

Don't get me wrong - I can get on board with Fred's statement in post #5, but to me, your reply was a bit of a non sequitur. If you are right* it doesn't really have any bearing on whether the statement is otherwise valuable to someone, as a thought-exercise.

*To my non-legally-trained mind, any statement that has greater demonstrable relevance to the situation at hand would probably be much more useful for "determining mens rea." The fact that it's demonstrably a cliche not coined by the person saying it, and possibly being quoted ironically, would probably marginalize the usefulness of it for something as central to a trial as mens rea. Now that I think about it, since "self defense" is essentially an affirmative defense, mens rea is probably not really the term you meant to use. Perhaps you should more frequently include the disclaimer "I am not a lawyer..."

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

It's interesting that the entire point of my original post was that you shouldn't go overboard with how you actually react to someone, as illustrated in the story. I only used the "be polite, be professional..." quote because that is a famous line used by many to denote having a courteous outwardly appearance but being prepared for the worst inside.

 

[Fred Fuller]

It's interesting that the entire point of my original post was that you shouldn't go overboard with how you actually react to someone, as illustrated in the story. I only used the "be polite, be professional..." quote because that is a famous line used by many to denote having a courteous outwardly appearance but being prepared for the worst inside.

Consider subsequent discussion reinforcement of that point - and a gentle steer away from adopting and repeating the statement whole cloth, without further thought, by those less contemplative and sometimes overly enthusiastic souls who aren't living in a literal combat zone. The problem with aphorisms is that they lend themselves to being spouted all too easily sometimes. In a case where there could be serious ramifications, due caution and care should be exercised in speech. Words are like bullets - once launched, they cannot be retrieved from the ears that hear them.

GEN Mattis' statement that "...there's always somebody else out there that needs to be whacked" several years ago brought him more attention than he was accustomed to having, I'd say, and not all of it was approving. But in the situation (time, place and conditions) where that statement was uttered, it was more appropriate than a lot of those who objected were willing to admit. That fact didn't make the statement sound any less bloodthirsty to those tender ears, but a combat zone in Iraq is a long way from the carpeted and paneled salons where most of the objectors were hanging out.

And it's a long way from the streets of America, too, even the meaner streets...

 

[Claude Clay]

"Be polite, be professional and comport yourself knowing that all is often not as it appears.

since i began carrying i keep a j-fram in my outside left coat or vest pocket. its in a holster of sorts so that it can not be fowled by the car keys and it is free to shoot through the material. it allows me to have my hand on piece of mind while i converse with a stranger and no one is the wiser.

over the years dudes 'asking' for my car keys--they saw me put them in that pocket--so it was not a bad thing for me to put my hand back in it.....but it comes out with the gun.
it is amazing how fast some one can not be there.
if the other person ment me no harm than on my side, there was no fowl.

i also slice and oversew the inner right pocket so that i can, with my hand in the pocket access whats on my belt aat 3:30 without unzipping the coat.

---> be prepared but appear ~normal

 

[conw]

if the other person ment me no harm than on my side, there was no fowl

So what you're saying is, don't get your feathers ruffled if the person you're dealing with isn't a turkey. And if they are, don't be a chicken.

 

[Alaska444]

I have been in situations twice before where I was almost mugged and managed by awareness of what was happening to avoid that outcome. This was prior to me ever carrying a weapon.

Today, I went down to our church to play the piano for a few minutes. I locked the door as we always do. A few minutes later, I heard someone trying to open the door. I stopped playing and surveyed. There was a young man probably about 25 yo in camo hat and coat trying to get in. I waited and he went away. After about five minutes, I left and locked up the door from the outside.

As soon as I came out, I saw him about 50 feet away sitting on a bench. The church is in an outlet mall. He approached me asking where he could get a shower. I told him our church didn't have a shower. He pressed the issue and asked which other church would have that "service." I stated matter of fact that I didn't know which enraged him.

He was very close to me in proximity. I had already assumed a karate ready stance with my legs so he couldn't knock me off balance with my weak arm forward and my strong arm near my weapon. When he got in my face and started accosting me verbally. I stiffened, looked him directly in the eyes and said, sorry, I can't help you.

He looked me over and after hesitating a couple of seconds walked away muttering about me as he did. He was only about an inch taller than me but I outweighed him by quite a bit and without shaving for 3 days probably looked more homeless than he did with my leather jacket and an army cap on.

I have no doubt he was confrontational and trying to intimidate me. At that point he was too close so I had no option but to stand up to him and hold my ground. I am glad he walked away, but I truly believed it would go further. Glad it didn't.

Not sure why people are disparaging "I can't help you" and a thousand yard stare. I believe it kept me out of trouble big time today. I had tried to do everything I could to avoid a confrontation, but there came a time where the only thing left was to act accordingly and meet his challenge head on with body language and words. I had already ascertained he was alone otherwise I would have taken more direct evasive and defensive actions.

I have never been in a true fight, but I was prepared for whatever I had to do. How would folks have handled this differently?

 

[Kleanbore]

Posted by conwict: Now that I think about it, since "self defense" is essentially an affirmative defense, mens rea is probably not really the term you meant to use.

Oh, yes it was.

The defendant admits to having done the deed and presents evidence supporting each of the various elements of justification.

The prosecution can either discredit that evidence or introduce other evidence of guilt. Examples could include motive (e.g., the victim had just humiliated or fired the defendant), or indications that the defendant was predisposed to violence (that introduces the issue of state of mind).

For that purpose, I can think of no more damaging evidence than an indication that the defendant had suggested that it was a good idea to "have a plan to kill everybody you meet".

In the case of Larry Hickey, the prosecutor took the fact that training material from courses that Hickey had attended contained that phrase and used it as an indication of state of mind.

They did not get a conviction, but the defense was unable to get an acquittal in either of two trials.

 

[Savage99]

Ragnar,

The title of your post is very bad:

Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"

Why do you write things like that?

 

[conw]

Ragnar,<br />
<br />
The title of your post is very bad:<br />
<br />
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet"<br />
<br />
Why do you write things like that?

He incorrectly assumed people would read the body of the post.

 

[Loosedhorse]

He incorrectly assumed...

Standard journalism principle: don't bury the lead. If you've got a point, make it your the first sentence.

If you lead with a first sentence that is the opposite of your point, expect confusion. And if you lead with a high-profile, controversial sentence that's related to your point, expect your point to be lost.

Nothing bad, just the way it is.