Comments

Episode-2455- Expert Council Q&A for 6-7-19 — 5 Comments

  1. Jack – I’m not much of a snake guy but after hearing the show today I looked up the Hognose snake and watched several videos of its playing dead routine. Absolutely fascinating and fun to watch.

    Even after all these years I’m amazed by what I learn and come across following the podcast.

    Thanks!

  2. I think Steven’s response about detecting hidden cameras was correct, but misleading and a little optimistic.

    If someone–even an amateur AirB&B host with no training outside of Google–really wants to put in the work to hide a camera, you’re not going to find it.  There are just too many places to hide a tiny set-and-retrieve camera.  It could be behind a tiny pinhole in the wall or ceiling, or a nail or screw hole in furniture.

    I don’t think most creeps who hide cameras will bother with infrared.  Yes, a lot of cheap cameras on the market have IR lights, but they make the camera more bulky and easy to detect.  And they’re probably just trying to record women changing–who does that with the lights off anyway?

    If you do want to check for infrared lights in the room, before you go buy a specialized device from Amazon, your phone camera might well be able to see IR.  There’s a simple test:  Open your camera app, take a TV remote, point it at your camera, and press any button.  If you see it light up on the phone camera, your phone can see IR at least a little bit.

    It can’t hurt to use a wifi inspector to check for IP cameras, but there are plenty of ways to conceal that too.  If you want to use one, I recommend one called Net Analyzer Pro for either Apple or Android.

  3. On the Citizens Arrest question, I would like to add some additional insight.

    Similar to Jack’s Walmart example, I personally had an off duty, out of uniform instance where I intervened in an armed robbery in a large city many years ago.

    I was on vacation and very unfortunately dressed in t-shirt, shorts and flip flops of all things. (This was an eye opening learning experience for me as well. I don’t wear anything but shoes that I can run in when I leave the house anymore and I also carry more tools now.) I was alone in my vehicle and pulled into a Best Buy parking lot so that I could run inside to purchase a tripod for the family camera for our trip the following day. As I arrived up near the pedestrian crossing area in front of the front door, a male exited the store pushing a shopping cart full of merchandise stacked up about six foot high. I then noticed that the male pushing the cart turned a pistol towards me, which at first I thought he was about to attempt to car jack me, but continued walking out towards the parking lot. As he walked deeper into the parking lot, I noticed a couple of people including employees poke their head out the front door of the business all on their cellphones and watching the male. This confirmed for me that this was almost certainly an armed robbery in progress so I put myself into a tactical mindset and proceeded to drive deep into the parking lot to get ahead of the robbery suspect. I located the male as he stopped at a vehicle at the far end of the lot, transferring all of the stolen property into it.

    I had my off duty pistol in my hand from the second that the male had pointed his firearm at me and I grabbed a set of handcuffs that I happened to have in my door of my vehicle for some unknown reason that day. I then tactically moved up closer to the male from behind him, placing a vehicle’s engine block and the concrete base of a light pole between myself and the suspect. I observed him for a few seconds to make sure he was alone and that there were no other citizens in front of or behind him before I addressed him. As I watched him loading the truck, I could see both of his hands and he did not appear to have his firearm on his waist that I could see. I then yelled out “Police, keep your hands where I can see them!” and the male froze in place trying to locate me for a few seconds. The male finally noticed where I was and that I indeed had a firearm pointed in his direction and looked all around him and didn’t see anyone else with me. The male then turned and ran away as fast as possible, leaving his firearms and all of the stolen property in his truck. After the male was a decent distance away, I moved up by myself and cleared his vehicle to make sure there was nobody else inside of it.

    A couple of citizens and an employee walked up near me as they were still on the phone with 911. I can tell you that this was where I actually became a little more fearful for my safety as I was now a male standing in the parking lot of an armed robbery holding a pistol and surely a bunch of officers were rushing my way to stop a robbery in progress.

    I immediately informed all of the people on the phone with 911 to inform them that an off duty police officer was on scene and to describe the exact way I was dressed so arriving officers would not shoot me thinking that I might be the suspect. I then went to my vehicle and secured my firearm in one more effort to keep another officer from pointing a gun at me. At that point I took care of collecting witnesses and evidence for the arriving officers since they were now looking for where the suspect had run off towards and not immediately responding to the scene anymore.

    The reason I give this story is that I wasn’t in much fear of my life while I was addressing the robbery suspect, but I was very fearful of responding officers looking for someone with a gun. That was me in my mind and I didn’t want to take any chances. I can tell you that most officers appreciate any help from citizens and everything that our Expert Council member stated is true in the regard of being a “good witness” and is some of the most sound advice that even applies to off duty officers, especially when there are other people nearby who could be at risk. I was someone who knew the laws of the state and had quite a bit of tactical training before this incident, to include being a combat veteran. I can say that no matter how well trained you may be, you could still fall victim to friendly fire situations, especially in the more serious crimes in progress that happens near you.

  4. As a follow up and point of clarification on this instance, the reason that I had to secure my pistol in my vehicle is because I was wearing basketball shorts, no place or ability to use a holster with those. I would have literally had to hold my pistol in my hand if I hadn’t secured it in a vehicle. Like I mentioned, I learned a lot that day on the way I dress when I leave the house and what tools that I carry.

    At the very least, I will have a pistol, tactical light and a quality folding knife, even if I were to wear basketball shorts (because now I have a small backup pistol with a belt clip!).

    Now my normal off duty carry is either shorts or pants with a belt. This includes my duty weapon with a light in a high quality retention holster that uses the same manipulation as my duty holster, a quality tactical light, folding knife, a multi-tool, a tourniquet, badge, cellphone, wallet and separate badge wallet. Two sets of vehicle keys (one with a backup flashlight and a emergency knife sharpener/fire starter that I like. My main (small) key ring has that cool, but expensive little titanium box cutter that ITS Tactical sells (it happens to be the most used tool that I own now).

    Yes that’s a lot of EDC, but compared to what I carry at work, hardly even noticeable.

    Something else that I came across this week is a similar instance where an off duty officer was shot by responding police in a similar situation that I found myself in nearly 15 years ago.

    https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/484175006-St-Louis-LEO-sues-city-after-being-shot-by-colleague/

     

    I would recommend your your listeners to go back and listen to your interview with Massad Ayoob and then do anything they can to minimize tunnel vision and to increase their situational awareness.

     

    JC