A survey: How would you identify and respond a threatening person?

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18 thoughts on “A survey: How would you identify and respond a threatening person?”

  1. In question 1, C looks most able to physically overpower me.

    I wish I could choose both C and D for question 2. I don’t know many women who *haven’t* been followed by a stranger in a threatening manner at some point in their lives. You stop calling for help because it just happens so often.  Day or night, regardless of what you’re wearing. It’s just part of being female in America.

    I still chose “all of the above” in question 4 because I still try to get quickly to where other people are, which sort of counts as help.

    1.  I mostly agree with this. I chose option C for the first part because he looked most likely to be physically bigger and more imposing. Honestly, I have found both men and women to be threatening (once a woman assaulted me on the street because I had no spare change. I ran away…), and most of the time it has to do with attitude, expression, and method of carrying themselves, so a fairly neutral still shot of a face isn’t a good thing to judge by. Men and teenage boys often make me uneasy in public spaces, regardless of race or age. I based the rest of my answer on real instances when I have been threatened. I am more likely to try to get away without calling for help, but I have called for help in a couple of cases. I have not ever become violent myself in a situation like that, though I think it’s possible I could under certain circumstances.

  2. Weirdly, option D got the most knee-jerk fear response from me despite the fact that he looks the youngest.  I think it’s the combination of hoodie + black clothes + facial expression.  The other guy in the hoodie has a sort of soft expression, with the upturned lips almost suggesting a smile, and the light-colored hood almost looks priestly or angelic.  The biggest-looking guy (C) just looks sort of melancholy and lost-puppy to me at first glance.  I go a lot by facial expression/body language, and choice of clothing.  To me, black hoodie says “I would like to commit a crime today” (which is ironic as I wore one to the corner store today myself), and that last kid looks more confident/angry than anyone else in the lineup, with his slightly narrowed eyes and the tilt of his head, like he’s looking “askance” at you.

    1.  Now that I have read the names of who everyone is, I am deeply embarrassed by both my poor visual judgment and my complete disconnect from popular culture.

  3. I assume you don’t expect most of us to respond to this objectively, right?  Because there’s no way I can answer these questions without being tainted by my own thoughts about the Trayvon Martin case.  I can only hope to think back to before all this became an issue, which is, at best, guess work.

      1.  I had read about the case but had not seen pictures.  Now that I see what the kid looked like I’m even sadder.  He looks so young.

  4. I’m trying to remember if Larry Correia covered handgun accuracy on an unreleased writing Excuses, but your best option is to run at a diagonal. It’s surprisingly difficult to aim those things, and semiautomatics are more likely to jerk and run out of ammo.

    I think it’s really unfortunate this is being politicized. Once there was sufficient attention to get the case re-opened, people need to reserve judgement until the real facts come out.

  5. Without recognizing Zimmerman as The Guy Who Killed A Kid, I wouldn’t find any of these four terribly threatening-looking…

  6. Without recognizing Zimmerman as The Guy Who Killed A Kid, I wouldn’t find any of these four terribly threatening-looking…

    1.  ‘cept, I recognize George’s photo. as a mug shot “style” along with knowing the case of what he did.

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