Round Two (protector 7 feet from attacker) teaches the benefit of being closer. Because most protective details require that each protector observe many bystanders, some distance from bystanders is necessary. The more people one wishes to take in and assess, the farther back from them you must be. Fifteen feet allows a protector to take in many bystanders, which is great -- but the distance limits one's ability to respond quickly enough to any of the people being observed, which is not great. Closer is better, but since we can't afford to assign one protector to every bystander, a middle ground must be chosen -- and 7 feet emerges as that middle ground. At 7 feet, each protector can take in many bystanders and yet still have a viable chance of reaching an attacker in time. Nevertheless, while much better than 15 feet, 7 feet doesn't ensure success.
Round Three (protector positioned directly next to attacker) teaches that when you can position yourself so that the suspect is within your arm's reach, you will prevail virtually every time. Your closeness by itself might deter a suspect from attacking, but even if it doesn't, you'll still likely prevail.
Round Four (protector positioned directly next to attacker, hands pre-positioned) teaches that if your hands are already in position when the attacker tries to present the gun, you actually have less moving to do than he does. It will take you less time to interfere with him than it would take him to do harm.
Photo by Lee Celano/WireImage.com
Co-author Tom Taylor on protective assignments with hands pre-positioned.
Photo by Lee Celano/WireImage.com
Note: Gavin de Becker & Associates does not disclose the identity of clients. The public figure in these photos has been named and identified as a client in financial disclosure reports made public by the political campaign as required by law. Subsequently, the information appeared in other public reports.
Experienced protectors often pre-position arms and hands while working a crowd on a protective assignment because at arm's reach with hands pre-positioned, you've actually started the race before he has. A suspect who sees he is within arm's reach of an attentive protector whose hands are pre-positioned at the ready, will likely be deterred from attacking. And he is almost certainly prevented from success if he does try an attack. Deterrence persuades a person not to act, but prevention does much more: It works on the mind and the body.
An important note about training: Because it is critical that the experience of prevailing over an attacker is imprinted more often than the experience of failing, we run more rounds with each trainee at 7 feet and at arm's reach than we do at 15 feet.
Overlaying TAD concepts onto real attacks, the success rate for protectors would be even higher than in the exercises. That's not just because TAD attackers are more capable than most actual attackers, but also because TAD grants them some benefits few real attackers get:
They have the ability to practice -- a lot.
They are firing at an unobstructed target that cannot move.
They know the precise location and attention level of protectors.
In stark contrast to an actual attack, our attackers have relatively little stress because the stakes for them are fairly low.
Given the many conditions that favor the TAD attacker, it's all the more impressive that protectors can win the race some of the time from 15 feet, about half the time from 7 feet, and virtually all the time when within arm's reach.
In TAD, it's reasonable to consider lower-body hits as a partial success because almost all lower body hits occur when the gun is being pushed down by the protector, not when it is on its way up for the initial shot. In other words, protector intervention is responsible for turning potentially lethal upper-body hits into quite survivable lower-body hits.
Protector and Attacker Heart-Rates
We've placed heart-rate monitors on TAD students to observe the points at which heart rates spike. With protectors, the big spike occurs at the moment they task their bodies to move very quickly toward the attacker, having seen the attacker draw the gun. No surprises there.
Attackers don't really have to move much at all, so their heart rates remain normal and stable prior to the attack. The heart rates increase as the protector bears down on them, and immediately before the collision. Because it all happens in a second or less, it isn't possible to break down precisely which aspect of the event is causing the attacker's stress and increased heart rate. The main insight gained from monitoring is that attackers are calm pre-attack, and their heart rates do not staircase (climb steadily upward) prior to the attack. Based on interviews with TAD attackers, we glean that the heart rate spike has little to do with their physical actions in the attack (drawing and firing); rather, the spike is associated with muscular tensing, girding the body to resist being pushed over, thoughts of failing, and the general stress caused by time running out as the protector bears down on them. While actual attackers surely have more stress than TAD attackers, what's clear in either instance is this: Having a protector charging toward you has a destabilizing effect on your ability to perform. The teaching here for protectors is that even before the collision, your movement toward the attacker (and calling out "Gun!") is already bringing benefit to your mission. That's because the attacker becomes less and less capable of maintaining accurate aim as his heart rate increases. So, even if a protector is unable to collide with an attacker prior to all shots being fired, the effort itself can still have benefit. For an example, the accuracy of Hinckley's fifth shot was destroyed not by any collision or tackle, but by Hinckley's awareness of and reaction to Dennis McCarthy bearing down on him.
The Physical Power of Information
The charts and statistics from TAD have an inherent power you can harvest right now if you're willing to take this knowledge deep into your cells: Just knowing that you can prevail -- just knowing what the body can do -- enhances what the body can do.
A global example of this truth occurred when Sir Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile. Prior to that, it was widely believed that the four-minute mile was the limit of human possibility, but after Bannister did it, runners all over the world were suddenly able to do it. Just knowing it was possible made it possible -- and you now know that protectors can prevail over attackers.
Right now and forever, banish the false belief that all attackers have advantages that make them too difficult to defeat.
TAD has provided an excellent opportunity to assess which strategies are associated with protector success and which are associated with attacker success. Moving out of the small details, we'll now describe specifically how the lessons can be applied in day-to-day protective work, which is better thought of as moment-to-moment protective work.
DATTS (Down And To The Side)
Our studies have shown that the best way to approach and interfere with an attacker who has already drawn a weapon (or is already firing it) is to push the gun arm Down And To The Side (DATTS). There are several reasons:
Ergonomically, the shooter has less ability to resist a downward push of his shooting arm than an upward push. If you try to push someone's arm up, you have a mechanical and muscular disadvantage, and they are likely to prevail. If you try to push someone's arm downward, you will prevail, even over a much stronger person.
As the DATTS diagram shows, sideways is the fastest route out of the lethal target zone. But, if you go sideways only, and don't also push down, you might be moving the gun into someone else's lethal target zone.
You do not want your actions to move the gun upward into position for a head shot that otherwise might not have occurred.
Your goal is to control both the gun and the attacker, and both tasks are more difficult if the gun is above your head.
In a crowd situation, a motion of yours coming from below is more likely to encounter interference from the arms and bodies of others.
Though the DATTS acronym helps keep the best approach in mind, anyone who completes TAD training will already have the information firmly embedded in muscle memory.
Time Can Work for You
In the TAD exercises described above, protectors have been told to expect the attack to occur within 30 seconds. There is another TAD exercise in which attackers can shoot at any point within a 10-minute period. Students often assume that with the longer time period, their performance will decrease, reasoning that they can't remain as attentive for 10 minutes as they can for 30 seconds.
Perhaps surprisingly, TAD protectors are usually more successful in the 10-minute exercises. Why? Because given more time, the protector gets to know the attacker and the environment; he is able to establish a baseline against which to measure change. As in a poker game, the protector learns the attacker's tells, the small signals sent as he mentally and physically gets ready to attack. Perhaps there's a small but telltale change in his eyes, a change in respiration, a movement of facial muscles, or a slight shift of weight right before the attack. Whatever it is, we know it's beneficial when protectors can orient themselves and become familiar with the people in their environment for a period of time in advance of the protectee's arrival. Conversely, an attack that commences the instant a protectee comes into view gives fewer chances for protectors to detect the Pre-Incident iNdicators (PINs -- See The Gift of Fear for much more on PINS).
Twenty-Five Feet
Stage Two of the TAD exercise repeats most of the series described above with the addition of a close-coverage protector positioned closer to the protectee and given the job of moving and/or blocking the protectee as soon as the attack is recognized. The exercise is first done with the protector 7 feet from his protectee, and then repeated with the protector within arm's reach of the protectee.
The addition of a close-coverage protector substantially enhances protector success rates. With one protector focused on the protectee and another protector on the suspect, protectors will prevail virtually every time.
However, when the protector is too far from the protectee, his ability to act effectively is profoundly reduced. Those words are not strong enough, because the fact is that if the protector is 25 or more feet from the protectee, he will have no impact on the outcome of an attack. TAD attackers are able to fire six perfectly aimed shots before the protector can cross those 25 feet and reach the protectee. The protector is simply too far away to get there in time to make a constructive difference.
Let's clearly define this situation that offers attackers a success rate of 100%:
Protectee at center stage
One or more bodyguards in the wings at side-stage
No protectors near the attacker
Those three conditions describe one of the most common real-world scenarios -- and they offer a nearly perfect situation for an attacker to succeed. Public appearances often occur at the center of large stages that result in forty feet of distance between the protectee and the nearest protector. Further, it's common that nobody is assigned near the general public at the front of the audience. Protectors, even many of them, might be posted in the wings, around the backstage area, and at other locations of secondary importance -- while the concern about appearances has compelled all but a few protected persons to resist allowing protectors to have front-stage posting.
Since this situation offers attackers almost certain success, it leads to a critical tenet of effective protection: Have a protector at least as close to the protectee as is the nearest member of the general public. Stated differently, no member of the general public should ever be closer to a protectee than is a protector. Though the wisdom of this tenet is clear, it is frequently violated because protectees and their assorted advisors are so concerned about how things look.
Risk can be substantially reduced if decision-makers are persuaded to have the speaker's podium set up at the far left or far right of the stage instead of in the center, allowing acceptable proximity to protectors positioned in the wings, and still having protectors out of view of the audience. This is completely practical for speeches. For protectees who are performers, it might sometimes be impractical since most perform from center-stage, or, even worse from our point of view, all over the stage. Still, we need to make it known that from a safety point of view, it's best to appear at the side rather than the center of the stage.
When conditions dictate that protectors cannot be close to their protectees (as in the on-stage example), then the entire reliance is upon those protectors assigned to observe, assess, and respond to people who might attack from within crowds and audiences. As will be explored more later, safety is nearly assured when the set-up keeps the nearest members of the public more than 25 feet away from the protectee. So, 25 feet emerges in three critical tenets:
Always strive for 25 feet of distance between protectee and public;
Always strive for much less than 25 feet between you and protectee;
Always strive for much less than 25 feet between protectors and public.
We have a favorite solution to the on-stage challenge when stages are elevated to a height that allows our people to walk underneath. In our preferred situation, the front of the stage directly facing the front-row audience members is made of plywood painted flat black; however, we remove four sections of plywood and hang black curtains. Protectors are posted behind those curtains, and able to see the audience perfectly through fabric screens sewn into one-foot sections of the curtains at head-height. Since the area under the stage is completely dark, audience members are never aware that protectors, just a few feet in front of them, can observe any approaches to the stage. In the event of an alarming approach, protectors can simply walk through the curtain and intervene from a location that no attacker is likely to be aware is manned. This arrangement provides a situation in which security is literally invisible to audience members -- and thus has no impact upon the show or performance. In venues that can physically accommodate this option, it really ought to be the standard approach. Alas, what ought to be done for protected persons and what is done are rarely the same.
Protector Lessons
Those playing the role of protector in TAD exercises offer us some important strategies for improving performance:
Be present. Thinking about being ready impedes action. This is not the time for preparing to be ready -- it is the time to Be Ready, to Be Pre-sent.
Don't dive. Diving through the air rarely gets you there any faster, and diving lessens the likelihood of connecting with any precision (i.e., you might miss altogether).
One foot ahead of the other. Pre-attack stance is important; have sure footing with one foot ahead of the other.
Photos by Gavin de Becker & Associates
First things First. Disruption of aim is the primary goal.
Gaining control of the gun is a secondary goal, for which there is lots of time, relatively speaking, whereas disruption of aim must be accomplished right now.
Grabbing the gun (or grabbing anything) is not a necessary component of success.
Mid-arm! Connecting with the mid-arm offers your best chance at success. If you seek to disrupt aim by aiming for the gun itself, you are choosing a small target that is easy to miss.
Start close. Get close. Where you begin decides who'll win. If you and the attacker start the race from the same place (you standing right near the attacker), you need spend no travel time to meet him -- and you'll win the contest. It takes hardly any energy to disrupt aim once you reach the attacker.
Keep your protectee moving. Attackers lose accuracy when required to track. Hence, moving the protectee somewhere (rather than just down) will improve chances of successful protection.
"Hold-Hold, still my hand. Steady my eye, chill my heart, and let my gun sing for the people."
Sara Jane Moore, attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford
Attacker Lessons
While TAD is not intended to improve the performance of assassins, those trainees who play the role of attacker do learn strategies that help us better understand the overall dynamic.
TAD attackers found that beginning a
countdown or other mental routine before they drew their weapon made their internal commitment less obvious to others, thus reducing the likelihood of telegraphing intent.
TAD attackers found that it was better to begin their attacks as early as possible, giving protectors less time to observe them and less time to get the "lay of the land" prior to the attack.
TAD attackers found they were more successful when they weren't in the front row of people in a rope line. This way, protectors could not fully see and observe them prior to the attack.
The attacker's first two shots usually matter most, but...
TAD attackers keep shooting as long as they are able.
Once they commit, they don't hesitate even for an instant. If they hesitate, they fail.
TAD attackers had to ignore all that was going on around them. They had to stay on mission and not be intimidated by the rapid approach of protectors. After a lot of practice, attackers came to learn that even a lightning-fast protector response doesn't mean a thing until he actually touches them. In effect, the lesson was: Don't flinch -- it uses up too much time.
The last two lessons apply equally to protectors and attackers.
Toward the goal of better understanding attacks, here is a summary of the ideal instruction for an assassin:
The moment you have all the ingredients in place for your attack, Act. Don't wait. If your target is in clear view, and no protector is close enough to be effective, and the weapon is in hand, Act.
Assuming some proficiency with the weapon, the ingredients for successful attack are relatively few:
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