The Choke Point: Summer in New Orleans
TL;DR: I was almost carjacked last weekend, and below are some simple tactics I learned from my days at the U.S. State Department providing security for ambassadors and diplomats that kept me safe.
It is now summer, and as Shakespeare says in Romeo and Juliet, “For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.”
Before I go any further, let me state this as clearly as possible: in almost every mugging or jacking situation there is nothing you can or should do except comply. The criminal will always leverage the element of surprise on you because they have absolutely planned the attack that way.
In most cases, even if you do everything right, the end result will be the same, but there are rare times when being situationally aware and using a few simple techniques will help you to mitigate or avoid a dangerous situation entirely. These edge cases are what I want to talk about today, specifically tactical driving. While I am talking particularly about driving, these same principles could be extrapolated to other modes of travel, including walking.
The reason I’m writing this at all is I was almost carjacked driving home this last Saturday night and was lucky to escape unscathed and with all of my property. Even though there was a lot of luck involved, my chances of avoiding the situation were greatly increased by a few simple things I learned while working overseas providing diplomatic protection for the U.S. State Department. I want to share these tactics with you in the hopes it will give you just a little more chance of avoiding a dangerous encounter.
To set the scene, I was coming home from a fish fry Sunday morning around 12:45 a.m. from Mid-City to Central City. While heading down First Street, about halfway between Claiborne and St Charles, the situation began to unfold.
As I entered the block traveling down a narrow one way street, I observed a car, half of a block ahead of me, pull from the cross street to my left into the middle of the upcoming intersection and stop perpendicular to my car in front of me, blocking the entire road. Because it was late, I was in a bad neighborhood, and three friends had recently shared their own mugging stories with me, my spidey sense was already tingling.
As soon as I saw the car come to a stop in the middle of the intersection, my training immediately took over. One core principle of tactical driving is controlling distance. When approaching a stopped vehicle in front of you always maintain a minimum distance of a half a car to a full car length of space, depending on the situation. This is great advice for even everyday driving for many reasons, the least common of which would be a potential attacker.
On Saturday, I stopped four car lengths away from the suspicious vehicle because it was particularly odd behavior and seemed even odder at that time of night. When I saw a man exit the vehicle to the sidewalk, I thought maybe it could be a friend dropping someone off at home, but here’s the thing (and the same applies to stopping at an everyday traffic light), you gain no advantage pulling directly up to the stopped vehicle in front of you if you cannot pass them. With that in mind I maintained my distance, waiting at full attention to see what would happen.
When the man on the corner just stood there and the car continued blocking the intersection, it confirmed my suspicion that something sinister was happening. I calmly put the car in reverse with my foot still on the brake and after a few seconds started easing slowly backwards out of the situation. This is when the car blocking the intersection did a quick turn and reversed towards me, at first slowly and then with increasing speed. I tried to maintain distance as best as I could reaching speeds of nearly 30 mph backwards. Luckily when I reached the end of the block, the car abruptly stopped then sped off the way it had come. The man on foot simultaneously moved just as quickly down a side street. My guess is they decided I was too aware of the situation, and there were easier targets to be had that night.
I created a fairly crude animation of the situation, but used a map of the exact intersection and applied decently accurate time intervals in hopes it will better illustrate exactly what happened to me and might prevent this from happening to anyone else.
I feel incredibly lucky because I know that this situation could have gone much worse. Although I was aware of my surroundings and performed the techniques I had been taught, getting away was still an edge case.
Tactics Used
The method the carjackers used was a textbook Choke Point Ambush, although typically there’s a second trailing vehicle that blocks you from the rear, boxing you in completely. If you’ve seen the movie Training Day you’ve seen this team maneuver executed cleanly.
Despite getting away unscathed, my skills since my State Department days are significantly diminished. In those days, I would have definitely documented a license plate and a description of the perp who exited the vehicle. I’m just glad I wasn’t hurt and didn’t lose my property to those goons, but at the end of the day I had nothing to give law enforcement. That is why I’m reaching out to all of you, to remind you to be safe out there and look out for each other.
Further Reading
If you’re interested in further reading on this topic, there is a great excerpt from the book, Executive’s Guide to Personal Security by David S. Katz & Ilan Caspi, that talks more about tactical driving in this exact scenario.
Author’s Note
I almost didn’t write anything about this encounter, but I’ve had three friends mugged in the past eight days, and just as their posts helped keep me extra woke this weekend during my situation, I hope my words will do the same for you.
