Ouch!
13/May/2008 Filed in: Personal
I got into a bit of a scuffle with
some teenagers the other night.
They were in the schoolyard to the
back of the house making to much noise for 11:30 in the night and I
went out to get them to move on.
On of them pulled a can of bear spray out and yelled "I have mace! I'll mace you man!"
...and then I went to disarm him. I really need to work on my disarm techniques in the future. The kid blasted me in the face causing me to miss the can and grab the kid instead and haul him across the pavement and to the ground. Over the next ten(?) seconds I remember sitting on the ground holding the kid I thought still had the bear spay while another of his ilk was punching me in the face repetitively. One of the other kids must have picked up the bear spray as I got blasted with it a couple of more times from a side angle. Since the kid I was holding onto could not have done it I let him go to defend myself from the more immediate problem of the kid with the fists and the holder of the bear spay.
Of course they all just took off at this point.
I made my way home, Andrea called 911, and I explained to the police officer what happened while I was busy flushing my eyes out in the sink.
I don't think that I'll be doing that again. Going out there with a stick or something would get me in trouble legally and I would expect that if the kids show up again they will be better prepared and possibly carrying a knife or something. I can't expect a bunch of punk kids would realize that I was trying to avoid hurting them or it never occurred to me to try to hurt them.
Oh, I've also come to the opinion that mace or bear spray is not a really good defensive weapon. I was still active and able to defend myself reasonably well. I think that the reason none of the kids got hurt by me was more along the lines that the effects of the bear spray never really made me felt seriously threatened and that it didn't seem appropriate to go after these kids with heavy force. If I had been a dangerous assailant that blast would not have stopped me from taking (at least) the 1st kid apart.
As an offensive weapon I think it's pretty good. I wasn't able to see very well so someone who could pick their timing to attack would have had a pretty good advantage. And the effects of the spray 15 min later were really really annoying. I wasn't able to sleep at all that night.
On of them pulled a can of bear spray out and yelled "I have mace! I'll mace you man!"
...and then I went to disarm him. I really need to work on my disarm techniques in the future. The kid blasted me in the face causing me to miss the can and grab the kid instead and haul him across the pavement and to the ground. Over the next ten(?) seconds I remember sitting on the ground holding the kid I thought still had the bear spay while another of his ilk was punching me in the face repetitively. One of the other kids must have picked up the bear spray as I got blasted with it a couple of more times from a side angle. Since the kid I was holding onto could not have done it I let him go to defend myself from the more immediate problem of the kid with the fists and the holder of the bear spay.
Of course they all just took off at this point.
I made my way home, Andrea called 911, and I explained to the police officer what happened while I was busy flushing my eyes out in the sink.
I don't think that I'll be doing that again. Going out there with a stick or something would get me in trouble legally and I would expect that if the kids show up again they will be better prepared and possibly carrying a knife or something. I can't expect a bunch of punk kids would realize that I was trying to avoid hurting them or it never occurred to me to try to hurt them.
Oh, I've also come to the opinion that mace or bear spray is not a really good defensive weapon. I was still active and able to defend myself reasonably well. I think that the reason none of the kids got hurt by me was more along the lines that the effects of the bear spray never really made me felt seriously threatened and that it didn't seem appropriate to go after these kids with heavy force. If I had been a dangerous assailant that blast would not have stopped me from taking (at least) the 1st kid apart.
As an offensive weapon I think it's pretty good. I wasn't able to see very well so someone who could pick their timing to attack would have had a pretty good advantage. And the effects of the spray 15 min later were really really annoying. I wasn't able to sleep at all that night.