Three women walking together on a Philadelphia street are punched in the face by a stranger in an unprovoked attack.
They are walking single file on a sidewalk at about 11:30 p.m. when a man overtakes them and suddenly begins punching them. The woman walking in the middle is suddenly and viciously punched with an overhand right. She falls to the ground after being punched.
The woman walking in the rear of the line is punched so hard it knocks her back onto the sidewalk against a parked car. And the woman walking first in line comes back to aid her friend and punched multiple times. The woman who was punched first gets up and tries to help and she is punched again.
The attacker doesn’t take anything from them and stalks off. Police did not catch him. News reports say his motive was unknown. Over on the Tactical Studies Group blog we've talked about how we should judge the attacker's behavior during our defensive encounter. We cannot know what motive the attacker has.
The women are walking as a group, and they still are attacked. We say to be aware of the people around us, and the woman walking third in line DOES see him as he walks up.
We must train to protect our head. And we need to use our strongest weapons against his weakest targets. We train for the solutions for both in upcoming Module 1: Stay with People in the Never Defenseless: Empowered Women's Self-Defense curriculum.
We can expect more attacks like this as our society continues to degenerate.