Justification & Secondary Motives

Gershon Ben Keren

Fri 26th Jun 2015

Violence against groups, is in many ways very different, to that which targets individuals e.g. as a member of a group it is extremely difficult to predict, if, when and how you will be targeted. Those attending the prayer meeting at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, last week, had no way of predicting that they would be the target of a hate crime – they may have recognized that being members of a significant and famous black church (which had been burnt down previously), in the south of the U.S. had risks attached to it, however no...Click To Read More

Real Life Predator Process

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 22nd Jun 2015

In New Hampshire on Wednesday there was an attempted abduction of a 16 year old girl at a retail outlet. The attack happened at 4:15 pm, in broad daylight, and was thwarted because an employee at the mall overheard the victim’s screams, and investigated their source – something most bystanders and observers fail to do – which in turn ended up scaring the assailant away. The assault was immediately categorized as being “completely random”, which may have been the case, but at the same time might not have been. It is always worth taking a look at real-life incidents, so...Click To Read More

Backing Down & Backing Away

Gershon Ben Keren

Mon 15th Jun 2015

Although we can act as predators, we are by nature “prey” animals, that is, when we are confronted by a threat or danger, our default behavior is to run, and get to a safe place. This behavior is engrained in our DNA, and has been our species most successful survival strategy – it doesn’t always work at the individual level e.g. people have run away from danger into oncoming traffic etc. but for the species as a whole it has proven to be a pretty effective way of working i.e. if you’re not there it can’t hurt you. When I look...Click To Read More

Scanning

Gershon Ben Keren

Sun 7th Jun 2015

Last week’s blog article, looked at situational awareness, and the use of the environment both to assist you, as well as creating problems for you etc. In this week’s article I want to take a look at “scanning”, and how this can be used to create a 360 degree understanding of your environment, and those who are in it. Most people see scanning as something that they are actively engaged in e.g. they are looking for people, acting and behaving in a certain way, that may have harmful intent towards them – such as people who are walking aggressively towards them,...Click To Read More