Mrs. VolTexan...Part 1

[Vol Texan]

My wife had two stories involving her EDC this week - so that's why I named these Part 1 and Part 2. Part 2 is found here.

Last Thursday, my wife was in her jewelry store, and a pair of yoots walked in. They were in their late teens, dressed like a couple of hood rats, and she didn't get a good vibe about them. It was one of the rare instances where she was alone in the store, as she'd let her other employees out earlier in the day for personal business.

She left her jeweler's bench and met them halfway through the store, and her Spidey Sense was on overload. One of them (Thing 1) moved to his left, toward her more expensive cases (away from her cash register area), and started asking tons of questions about specific pieces, "Is this real gold?" "Are these real diamonds?", etc. The other guy (Thing 2) moved to their right, to an area where he wouldn't necessarily be easy to see while Thing 1 kept peppering her with questions.

She was now in the right rear corner of her store (viewed by looking forward toward the street).

After a few moments, Thing 3 came into the store, and quickly approached my wife and Thing 1. She had already separated herself from them as much as possible, by keeping a display table between them, but she was rapidly (a) running out of safe zone, and (b) rapidly losing all sight of Thing 2 and the register area while Things 1 and 3 had her occupied.

They were in no way threatening, but she recognized what was about to happen. She was either being cased for a late night burglary later, or it was going to be a smash-and-grab for her cash drawer / computer.

At that moment, she felt the urge to 'adjust herself' and make a point of letting the yoots see her actions. She lifted her shirt a bit on her strong side, hiked up her jeans with an audible, "Sorry guys, I've been sitting at my work bench all day, and I need to adjust a bit." Her hand rested on the grip of her handgun in a Crossbreed IWB holster and (in her words), she let it linger for a few moments.

Thing 1 locked eyes with her, and then on her gun, and immediately spun and walked toward the door. He grabbed Thing 3 on the way out, and yelled to his buddies, "Time to go."

Thing 2 was mostly obscured by a column, so he had no idea what was going on, and said, "But I'm not done here."

Thing 1 emphasized, "Yes, you are, it's TIME TO GO." As they closed the front door behind them, Thing 1 was very animated in his descriptions to them as to what he had seen.

-----------------------------------------------

This was Thursday evening. Friday morning, my wife's heart fell from her chest when she saw two constable units parked in front of her store. After she parked and talked to them, she learned that her store was untouched, but two of her neighbors had suffered smash and grab burglaries overnight - one was two doors to the right, and the other was three doors to the left, across the street. Both robberies were under 1 minute in length, and in both stores, they targeted only the computer / cash drawers.

Camera footage from the previous day's shifts and during the burglaries indicated that (a) the same guys had cased several stores in the area on Thursday, and (b) the punks that hit the stores overnight wore masks, but had many of the same physical characteristics (size, mannerisms, ethnicity) of the ones who had cased the stores.

Nobody can know for sure, but my wife hopes that her actions may have helped their decision making process when selecting stores other than hers for their overnight activities.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Now that's way too close to going bad! I'm glad she's okay.

Chas.

[Lynyrd]

Another instance where "seeing" the gun was an obvious deterrent. I'm so thankful your wife is okay. She obviously had her wits about her. That could have gone bad quickly.

[flechero]

Wow, she was calm and kept her wits about her! 3 to 1 with obvious ill intentions- kudos to her!!!

[Jnazee]

Praise God she is safe! WTG Mrs. VolTexan

[RoyGBiv]

My hands got sweaty reading that.. Glad she's ok.
Could have gone sideways fast if one of the Things decided to test her on the spot.

[ELB]

A close run thing indeed! Well done!

[Excaliber]

Kudos to Mrs. VolTexan!

Something really bad was about to happen, and she stopped it cold without going the confrontation route.

I'd call this a masterful display of situational awareness, tactical positioning, and verbal engagement with outstanding results.

[mrvmax]

Good for her, but m glad they didn't rob her when they were in the store. A scary situation for sure that went the best it possibly could.

[SewTexas]

Holy Biscuits! that was way too close! I'm so glad she's ok, and her store.

[1911 10MM]

My wife had two stories involving her EDC this week - so that's why I named these Part 1 and Part 2. Part 2 is found here.

Last Thursday, my wife was in her jewelry store, and a pair of yoots walked in. They were in their late teens, dressed like a couple of hood rats, and she didn't get a good vibe about them. It was one of the rare instances where she was alone in the store, as she'd let her other employees out earlier in the day for personal business.

She left her jeweler's bench and met them halfway through the store, and her Spidey Sense was on overload. One of them (Thing 1) moved to his left, toward her more expensive cases (away from her cash register area), and started asking tons of questions about specific pieces, "Is this real gold?" "Are these real diamonds?", etc. The other guy (Thing 2) moved to their right, to an area where he wouldn't necessarily be easy to see while Thing 1 kept peppering her with questions.

She was now in the right rear corner of her store (viewed by looking forward toward the street).

After a few moments, Thing 3 came into the store, and quickly approached my wife and Thing 1. She had already separated herself from them as much as possible, by keeping a display table between them, but she was rapidly (a) running out of safe zone, and (b) rapidly losing all sight of Thing 2 and the register area while Things 1 and 3 had her occupied.

They were in no way threatening, but she recognized what was about to happen. She was either being cased for a late night burglary later, or it was going to be a smash-and-grab for her cash drawer / computer.

At that moment, she felt the urge to 'adjust herself' and make a point of letting the yoots see her actions. She lifted her shirt a bit on her strong side, hiked up her jeans with an audible, "Sorry guys, I've been sitting at my work bench all day, and I need to adjust a bit." Her hand rested on the grip of her handgun in a Crossbreed IWB holster and (in her words), she let it linger for a few moments.

Thing 1 locked eyes with her, and then on her gun, and immediately spun and walked toward the door. He grabbed Thing 3 on the way out, and yelled to his buddies, "Time to go."

Thing 2 was mostly obscured by a column, so he had no idea what was going on, and said, "But I'm not done here."

Thing 1 emphasized, "Yes, you are, it's TIME TO GO." As they closed the front door behind them, Thing 1 was very animated in his descriptions to them as to what he had seen.

-----------------------------------------------

This was Thursday evening. Friday morning, my wife's heart fell from her chest when she saw two constable units parked in front of her store. After she parked and talked to them, she learned that her store was untouched, but two of her neighbors had suffered smash and grab burglaries overnight - one was two doors to the right, and the other was three doors to the left, across the street. Both robberies were under 1 minute in length, and in both stores, they targeted only the computer / cash drawers.

Camera footage from the previous day's shifts and during the burglaries indicated that (a) the same guys had cased several stores in the area on Thursday, and (b) the punks that hit the stores overnight wore masks, but had many of the same physical characteristics (size, mannerisms, ethnicity) of the ones who had cased the stores.

Nobody can know for sure, but my wife hopes that her actions may have helped their decision making process when selecting stores other than hers for their overnight activities.

Just a guess but by the way things went down I bet if she had been open carrying they never would have entered the store.

[troglodyte]

Glad she was aware and ahead of them. Good job!

[puma guy]

I glad she was able to get these guys "gone"!

[Vol Texan]

Thanks to everyone for their responses, and yes, I'm glad everything turned out alright as well. Actually, I'm quite proud of her for her situational awareness, but I think she got stuck balancing tactical positioning vs. 'covering the most expensive stuff in the rear of the store'. There were better tactical options, and we've discussed them since the incident, but given the situation (not knowing at the beginning if they were planning to maneuver her or not, not knowing at the beginning that Thing 3 would enter, etc.), she opted for the balancing act, and admit she made the best decision with the information available at the time.

That's the challenge...definitively predicting when the situation moves from "I should be giving good customer service" to "this is moving the wrong direction and I need to forget customer service altogether" is more of an art than a science. With two employees in the store, it's always easier but with only one, it is harder to decide when to make that transition.

I posted this story on here because I think that every situation like this should be a learning opportunity, not just for her and me, but for all of us. The learning opportunity I'd like to highlight (especially for our newer forum members) is the idea of Jeff Cooper's color codes.

If you're not familiar with Cooper's color codes, please stop and read the article I linked above.

I'm reminded of a key section in the article posted just this morning by GeekWithAGun:

Preparedness is the situational awareness that something may happen and “prepares” the mind by thinking out the what-ifs, i.e. if this happens, I will do that. This little saying is one of the best thoughts to have before an event actually occurs. Human reaction times to a stimulus are as fast as .25 seconds. These reaction times are achieved when a person can think thru the actions needed to accomplish a task before it is needed.

This is a mental rehearsal.

My collegiate wrestling coach was a big advocate of the mental rehearsal. The night before matches, I would lie in bed and mentally picture the match in my head. I would visualize the actions I was going to do first and think to myself, “If this or that happens, then I will respond like this…” I wrestled the match mentally/virtually many times before I wrestled it actually/physically.

Side topic: I love that last sentence, "I wrestled the match mentally/virtually many times before I wrestled it actually/physically."
I've conducted Monte Carlo simulations on major capital projects for the last 12 years, and this is a fantastic explanation of what Monte Carlo does, using a real life example.
</math geek>

"I wrestled the match mentally/virtually many times before I wrestled it actually/physically."..I know that she has done this in the past in her store, because we've talked about it occasionally. But I also know she's doing it a lot more this week than in the past, and she's putting more variables into the simulation based on what happened last week.

This is exactly what we should all be doing, virtually all the time. No, I'm not suggesting that we spend our life in Condition Orange, but I do believe that in order to be in a proper Condition Yellow, we should always be aware of the potential variables and options available to us. Failing to do so relegates us to being in Condition White status, which is not a good choice, armed or not.

My wife is no spec ops operator. She has very little tactical training. She is a mom, a wife, a jewelry store owner, and an immigrant to the US. Until 7 months ago, when I lost my job, she was virtually a single mom, due to my (at the time) heavy international travel schedule - so she never had the free time to get more just 'time at the range' (hopefully, that will change when I get employed again). At only 4' 12" tall, she would appear to be an easy target for a not-so-large assailant. So no, she's no operator, but she's NEVER in Condition White.

Last Thursday, she was there in her store, happily working in Condition Yellow when Thing 1 and Thing 2 walked in
Thing 1 and Thing 2 separated, and Thing 2 was trying to distract her, and she moved to Condition Orange.
Thing 2 obscured himself by the column, and Thing 3 walked in to help Thing 1 keep her boxed in, and she moved to Condition Red.

Red did not require her to draw and engage in this instance, but it did require her to move from being viewed as a "potential victim" to being viewed as a "potential threat". Luckily, that was sufficient in this case, and the Things scurried off.

Her actions when transitioning from Yellow to Orange to Red were not altogether unrehearsed. Of course, she didn't know exactly how it was going to unfold, but she had a general idea of how she was going to react - because of the mental rehearsals she had done in the past.

In this case, it worked, and the threat left immediately. If the threat had continued, would her follow-up actions have been sufficient? I hope so, but we'll never know, and I'm glad we didn't have to find out this time. But either way, the mental prep that she had done in the past served her well in this instance - and I'm glad she is using it as a continued learning opportunity.

I hope all of us here can do the same.

Just a guess but by the way things went down I bet if she had been open carrying they never would have entered the store.

You're probably right, but if she open carried regularly in the Houston Heights area, she'd end up closing her doors forever. The political climate (and customer base) there would never support a business owner who did such a thing.

[JustSomeOldGuy]

The sad fact is that certain professions make you a more likely target, and life's randomness makes EVERYONE a potential target of crime. Mrs. VolTexan, by operating in yellow and having a plan(s) has proved once again the adage about "you don't have to be faster than the bear you just have to be faster than the other guy". So the goblins moved on to what they deemed to be less risky (less aware/prepared) targets. Operator level skills not needed. As Donald Hamilton put it in one of his novels, "if you show them that you're a wild woman with a gun, no one is going to ask to see your 'expert' rating".