Imagine this: you are walking down a street at night when suddenly an assailant jumps out at you wielding a knife: The assailant is a 12 year old boy.

You are standing at your car in a supermarket parking lot when an elderly gentleman, who is down on his luck, asks you for money. When you tell him you have no cash to give, he pulls a knife and demands it anyway.

In a bar with friends, a man who has obviously had too much to drink, approaches you in a threatening manner, mistaking you for some one else.

At your office, a person whose sexual advances you've been ignoring, confronts you in the copy room, demanding that you go out with him.

When these elements are juged to be present, your response will be examined, scrutinized, second guessed and torn apart in court. You will have to justify it verbally. The standard the court judges your actions by is, "what would a normal, reasonable person have down in the same circumstances?" Remember also that once in the courtroom, your chance to "tell your story" won't actually result in your being able to do that.

The defense attorney will disrupt you in just about any way he can to discredit you, and the prosecutor is only going to allow those elements that are deemed necessary to successfully prosecute the case. The best thing you can do is develop a plan based on education that covers:

• Knowing your enemy-understand the different
  types of crimes and criminals.
• Understanding FEAR-what causes it and how to
  use it to help you.

In his book, The Gift of Fear, Gavin DeBecker, an internationally recognized expert on violence, addresses these concerns, and we highly recommend this book. Briefly he states that "....intuition is a COGNITIVE process" that is inherent in everyone. FEAR is a part of that, and therefore can be used to help, rather than paralyze you.

By using this mental process, your physical response, whether to avoid or exit the situation, or respond with force revelent, to the circumstances, i.e: control or impact force, will bring a successful resolvement, the results of which will be justifiable to yourself AND the law.

Portions of this advisory were adaped from an article by Sargent Jim Wagner, a California law enforcment officer who trains police, military and personal safety personnel. Gavin DeBecker's book, "The Gift of Fear" as well as his Protecting the Gift, Keeping Children Safe (and Parents Sane) and "Fearless are available at Barnes and Noble, Borders Books and Amazon.com

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