By: Trevor Thrasher, Director of Training
This local home invasion incident has some important lessons.
1. All exterior doors should be hardened like the main front door and they should not have glass that makes it easy to break in simply by turning the lock from the inside. Look at the door in the photo from the story.
2. In every class we preach about the effect that denial has on your safety. Don’t reason away the true threat because you are in disbelief. This person heard breaking glass and thought it must be a Christmas ornament. When in doubt, go with your safety in mind first.
3. Generally, when you believe someone is in your home, execute your safe room plan. If you must explore and confront an intruder, be prepared to immediately defend yourself. You lose a lot of advantages when searching for a bad guy in your home. In this case, the woman was easily surprised and held captive. It could have been much worse.
4. Defend your home at the Breach point when you can. Don’t rely solely on a safe room response. Here is a prime example with multiple little ones in the house. By the time you gather everyone and move to the safe room, the bad guys could very well be in the home.
5. Even without a weapon, after you are aware of a threat and take your initial action, let others know. We provide the example of using alarms, throwing items out home windows, and other measures to alert neighbors that you are in trouble. In this case, she used the garage door to alert the police.
These lessons are just a small piece of what you can learn in our new Basic Home Defense course.
I will say that this woman did some really smart things. The old adage of an ounce of prevention and a little bit of training would have prevented a pound of cure is 100% applicable here. She worked her way out of a very bad place with some quick thinking and a committed response. Well done.
