Crime statistics are exploding in today's soft-on-crime environment in many states and criminals seem to be emboldened and are burglarizing certain areas with impunity.
Traditionally thought of as a nonviolent crime, burglaries can degenerate into crimes of opportunity against homeowners.
For example, a couple returning to their San Diego area home found their master bedroom door locked from the inside.
A couple on Hartley Drive interrupted a burglary at 7:15 p.m. Dec. 17 when they returned home from dinner to find their master bedroom door locked from the inside. They had been gone less than two hours. The husband went outside to enter the master bedroom from a rear door.
The thieves escaped from a window on the side of the house so a confrontation was avoided. But, despite the couple’s frantic calls to 911 to report a burglary in progress, officers didn’t arrive until 7 a.m. the next day.
In other cases, burglars entering into a home assault the residents, as in the case below:
In the case above, it appears the attacker entered through an unlocked window. In the case below, the intruder entered through an unlocked back door.
A stranger entered a Wingate Street residence and sexually assaulted a woman, according to a sheriff’s office incident report.
The woman said she awoke around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday as the male was performing a sex act on her.
However, even a locked, dead-bolted door may not provide protection. In this case, a man is captured on video viciously attacking a mother in front of her child.
Police are searching for the robber who punched and kicked a young mother in front of her 3-year-old daughter before throwing her down the stairs of her home in an upscale New Jersey community, and authorities hope footage of the attack captured on a nanny camera will help identify the intruder.
Millburn Police in Essex County said the woman and her daughter were watching cartoons on the couch, a baby boy asleep upstairs, when the suspect kicked in the dead-bolted door of their Cypress Street home at about 10:30 a.m. Friday and pounced on the mother.
Although disturbing to see, the video points out three important elements students need to train for:
How to defend against a punch. Men often hit women to gain compliance. The first thing we need to do is expect the punch and get our hands up to defend our face and head.
How to defend against a rear choke. We must learn how to immediately react to keep our airway clear and how twist out of a strangle hold from the rear.
How to use the ground to our advantage. In the past I've heard many self-defense instructors demanding that you "never ever go to the ground". In reality you will not have much of a choice as the attacker throws or drives you to the ground to control you. When we learn to use the ground to our advantage we can see how it allows us to put our strongest weapons between us and the attacker.