L.O.G. 129 You Never Know

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call Human Behavior Pattern Recognition Analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. And hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

All right, Greg, well, good morning. Let's go ahead and get started here on today's episode. I guess the title of it or the overarching theme would be "You Never Know." And just to jump right into this, Greg, I always kind of – this is my general concept of dealing with humans, or observing human behavior, or interacting with others – I always try to have the right idea in my head, is "You never know." And I use that in a number of ways, right?

So, meaning like, you never know what this person is going to do. You never know what this person has going on in their life, right? So, there are ways to look at it. So, it's a way I use so I don't jump to a conclusion that, even though maybe logical, I might miss something, right? So, you don't know who you're bumping into in the street. You bump into a guy coming out of a gas station that might be the straw that broke the camel's back for him. He's got nine million other things going on in his life and he goes, "You know what, that's enough," because you spilled the coffee on him. And now he shoots the place up. Now, those are rare. There's a rare, but when we say that person's cup is full, and when they act out, it's going to spill on whatever is around them, right? So, they're full of rage or anger or whatever it is.

And I also use that as the other side of the coin, is, you know, you don't know – you hold the door open for someone and say, "Hey, you know, good morning," or whatever. That might be the nicest thing that person's heard all week, and they were thinking about killing themselves that day. And because you were nice to them, they chose a different path. You know, so it's not just about, you know, "what they're – I'm to protect myself." It's actually kind of just being a good human being. I like doing it that way. Does that kind of make sense?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is one of my favorite topics, Brian. And the reason is that there's so much science and so much evidence behind it. So, generally, the folks that tune in might want to listen to a humorous anecdote or us tell about a story that we read. I actually like to deep dive a little bit into it so people understand the differences and why we respond in those ways when you know that person comes into you and you bump into that person. You never know where they are on the spectrum, Brian. And so understanding a little of why there's a spectrum, right? Where a person might be that it's like ragey.

It's like the visible spectrum, and what do we have? We have intra-ultraviolet and infrared. Those we can't see visually, but they're there. Once we understand that and how to look for them, maybe we can prevent a horrific—

No, and that's a great analogy, too, because like you said, like infrared, you can't see that with your naked eye, but you can with an optic, right? There's the same thing with UV light. Like, I can't see that with my naked eye, but I can see that with a with the right, you know, machine. I can see what that looks like.

So, scientifically, physiologically, [ __ ] gosh darn it, sorry about that. Almost dropped the F-bomb there. When we talk about physics, the property of physics, Brian, anything that moves generates energy. And anything that generates energy has the function of being able to move, right? So, when we talk about people scintillating and bubbling and percolating and moving around in their environment and giving off these signals, they're all there around us. It's just we have to tune in to that frequency, or we're going to miss those distant early warning signals.

No, and and there's a few examples of that, exactly of that, I want to jump into. And I always start, too, with my favorite one, actually from the movie Billy Madison. I don't know if you remember that, but when Adam Sandler calls up Steve Buscemi, right? And he's like, "Hey man, I just want to let you know, I was kind of a bad person to you a long time ago, and I didn't mean anything, but I was just a young thing." He apologizes and Steve says, "Oh, okay. Yeah, thanks." Like, acts like it's nothing, hangs up the phone, and then goes over. Who is on his wall? He has his "People to Kill" list, and he crosses off Billy Madison's name.

And that's so, so true. I use that at a basic level, right? I go, "All right, look, this is about self-preservation. You don't know what that person's going on." So, you being kind to that individual who's going in to shoot the place up, when he starts, he may look at you and go, "You know what, that guy bought me a coffee. Not today. Not today," and continue on with their life.

Well, that's an excuse. That's a bizarre way of looking at things. First, I've been told before about that. But I want you to think of this for a minute. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Bianchi and Bono. If you take a look, there was a time where they both said, "Hey, what about her?" And did the flip, and yeah, up in the rain and said, "Okay, hitchhiker, I'm going to have her head on a pike in an hour." And folks, I don't mean to be talking cold right now, that's how they process, that's how they thought. And for whatever reason, there was something right at that moment of connection at the eye contact, or a smell, or a sound, or a sight, or the way the person moved their hair, that it distracted the other person and that external stimuli wasn't there anymore. And so they said, "Ah, I'm not going to kill you today." And they drove on.

So, it could have been something you said, it could have been something you did, it could have been something in the environment, it could have been a car that happened to pull by that looked close enough to a police vehicle where they said, "You know what, no thanks." I mean, there's a million—

There's randomness, right? So, there's a million things it could have been, right?

But you have to understand that it's all in motion all the time. Yes. If you understand that, then you'll understand that you're such a small element to this swirling potential—

Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

My, I had a swim coach back in the day that said that is the word that he hated more about anything else is "potential." And then if you go into science and you look at "potential energy," it's the same way because it's such a free radical, it's such a thing that you can't— And that's what the show's about. This show is literally about going out to tell your neighbor to keep it down and never coming back home again. You see what I'm saying? Knocking on the wall because the domestic next door is going to spill over into your apartment, you know, and that results in rage or a homicide or whatever. We don't know what those triggers are going to be. We know what the triggers look like, Brian, that's the key. We know what they feel like, but we don't know unless we're looking for them in different environments, right?

And you're talking about different triggers, right? You don't know what someone else's trigger is going to be. You don't know what that is. What could be a completely innocuous statement from you—what you're thinking of something very simple, "This isn't a big deal, but I got to go say something to the neighbor." Well, to them, that's it. They're already finger on the trigger. You just pulled, you just pushed them over that ledge unwittingly, you know, without knowing you were going to do that. That was clearly not your intent.

Brian, you know, the killer in Canada, he and his girlfriend are going to a New Year's party or a Christmas party or whatever it was, and something happened at that party. Somebody made a smart aleck remark or something and that put in a chain of events that nobody could stop. Two and a half days of killing. You get what I'm trying to say? Over somebody's snide remark. Something, right?

Somebody said and that remark becomes the proximate cause, but it was not what was really responsible. Was not—

Exactly. I mean, it, it, there's years of trouble.

Yes, exactly. Built up to that. And there's, you know, there's a good, no, there was a great example over this past winter. Was it, I think, in Philadelphia or somewhere on the East Coast, I can't remember, where the couple's out shoveling snow and they got in that argument with their neighbor. And it's all caught on camera. And it's brutal. And the neighbor's pissed, and he's yelling and he's coming over with a gun. But even at that point, when he's coming out with a gun, the two people never saw it as, "This guy's going to do anything, or he's going to shoot," and he ends up executing them there right there in the street.

And that's the idea. Is they're arguing about, you know, snow shoveling and neighborly disputes, whatever it is, on a Sunday morning, at breakfast time. And it leads to them getting killed. And I, that's terrifying. But it doesn't have to be terrifying, right? Meaning that all that whole situation could have been completely avoided, right?

We always say this is what we mean when we say de-escalation, right? Is, is we, I got to de-escalate me in order to de-escalate you for one, but I—

I think that's, by the way, write that down folks. What Brian just said is brilliant.

I'm telling you.

But that's so true. So, yeah. So, but the idea is that whole situation was avoided. That they didn't know—

They knew, they knew, but it was so far from what they expected.

I think their reaction was. Meaning in that case, they were, they were angry and pissed off at him and wanted to get him all pissed off and say all that stuff. But I don't think they never expected it to get to the point where it was going to be a potential homicide.

Homicide. Never, never in a million years. And that guy for weeks was saying, "I swear to God, one more time, one more time, I'm going to kill both of them." So that's how— So that's a great place to start from. And let's talk about some of those spirals for a minute. So, here's the one thing, folks, unless you're driving, grab your yellow pad and set it longitudinally and make a line down the center from the top to the bottom. And on the left put "anger," and on the right put "rage."

I'm going to street this up for you, and that's what I love to do because science doesn't have to be scary. Anger is a natural emotional response to external stimuli. So, my favorite show is canceled tonight and I have to watch reruns of Andy Griffith; I'm angry. They've run out of the baked apple pie, and Diabeto can't get his fix at the restaurant; I'm angry. I come out and some jerk-off rammed their shopping cart into my car and, you know, scratched my paint; I'm angry.

Now, let's go off to rage. Rage is the defense mechanism. And we have a rage center in our brain that's always poised like a mousetrap for any potential environment that stimulates us, that "Oh, somebody's going to attack me. Oh, they're attacking my masculinity. Oh, they're challenging me in front of my family." Do you get what I'm trying to say? The difference there is, Brian. So, that rage circuitry, once it's turned on, it's a defense mechanism, and it'll run until the threat is gone.

And so now that's, you know, you see the guy bump into the cart in the parking lot, you know, they're bumping into your car and you walk up and you go, "Hey, smooth move, Ex-Lax," or whatever smart remark. You know, your brain is ready to go. The guy turns around and says, "[ __ ] you, old man, step off or I'll knock you out." Okay? And all of a sudden, now we're going from one side of the page to the other. Anger has now turned into rage, the defense mechanism, because you think you're being challenged, and you don't think that this is a 27-year-old kid and you're 60. You think, "That's my possession. I'm defending my possession. I have pride. I'm defending my pride." You see how that builds? And it builds electrochemically so fast that we can look—anger, you can count to 10. You can breathe, breathing exercises. You can calm down. You bring your blood pressure down, you bring your heart rate down. With rage though, with rage, not so much.

So, what you have to do is you have to understand rage by what types of situations could trigger rage. Now, if you do that, then it's much the same as anger. So you're talking about anger and you go, "I'm getting really pissed at this person. I'm going to say something because they cut in line at the Piggly Wiggly," or something, right? Then you can say to yourself, "Look, it's not worth it. I'm almost home. You know, [ __ ] this person."

No, no, yes. But that's the kind of thing and you can calm yourself back down.

With rage, you're in the moment and you have to understand that if you don't de-escalate—remember, we were talking to a very scientific person, and we loved him, and we were straightening up de-escalation. And we said, "Always be considering de-escalation." Reason is, that's catchy, and ABCs are how we do first aid, right? And that person said, "Well, you know, on this psychological level," and they said like, "Don't blind me with the science." The simple thing is that if you trip over the rage circuitry, you're going to have hell to pay. You're going to go out of that house—

Those folks look—think of this situation, Brian. So, the video, the context of the video: two people are shoveling snow and they're heckling the neighbor. And the neighbor is going like, "Leave me alone, go back in." You know, and the guy's saying, "Hey, you're a queer," and he's going, "No, you're a queer." You know, it's like third grade, it's like children, right? And but they're getting worse and more meat-mouthed, and the woman and the man are meat-mouthed. Nobody deserves to die over this, folks, nobody. But the guy said, "Okay, that's it." Went in, got his pistol. And when he came out with the pistol, he fired a number of times. And it still at that point, the people didn't know he was trying to kill them until the man is hit a number of times. And now the woman doesn't render first aid, she's yelling even more, "I can't believe you, you got a gun!" The guy goes in, gets a bigger gun, Brian. Now he comes out with a rifle and starts shooting.

So, here's what I want you to think: if you folks are following at home, I want you to think now, you hear Sunday morning yelling, screaming, you hear gunshots. Now you think there's an armed home invasion, and you have to defend your neighbor. So, you grab your own gun, Brian, you step out into the street, and now you see that guy coming out of the house with his gun, and you imagine, "Oh, it's my neighbor doing the same thing that I am. He's merely defending the neighborhood." Brian, he's the murder suspect. Yeah, I don't know that. We can't see that. And doesn't that happen all the time? And we warn people about that.

Well, that, that, that before you go to that, I think the idea is that you, you brought up a great example of the difference between anger and rage right there. So, the one neighbor, the ones who got killed, they were angry, right? And then this guy just got went into that rage. And a good explanation of that, of how it runs its course. He came out shooting with a pistol, and that wasn't enough. I mean, he literally, he had to, he had to go back and get more, get a different weapon system and come back out because he wasn't—

That's what I mean, it's like that's a great example that has to run its course when when when they're in that moment. Like you said, that rage in the moment, there's no coming out of that until until it runs its course, right? The electrochemical circuits—

Then the mental chemistry has to calm down.

Well, yeah. And usually because your brain can't produce those catecholamines anymore, really. It's just, it's run out of its supply of adrenaline and epinephrine and all that stuff. So now it's now it's on empty, and it goes, "Dude, we got to rest so I can restore." And then and then you crash.

But yeah, but that's the idea is that I, I think that's a great example. Well, and add these to that, too, Brian, because I want to make sure that we're broad enough a spectrum that no, no pun intended with Roy G. Biv, but we're broad enough of a spectrum that everybody can see it in themselves. So, for example, jealousy. I've been jealous of people, I'm jealous of Land, the neighbor down the road, right? But I don't grab a claw hammer and go and kill him because of my jealousy. But that does happen. The mom that kills the rival cheerleader so her daughter can be head cheerleader, that's born of jealousy. Frustration. I'm frustrated at work because I didn't get the promotion. Some people quit. Some people stay. Rarely does somebody come back and shoot up the place. Why? Because anger has many manifestations, but your defense circuitry—

You get what I'm trying to say, your danger, "Warning, Will Robinson!" has won. "I need to defend myself, my honor, my house, my possessions in this incident, and I have to do it now. I have to do it right now at this place." And you know, sometimes it's a lippy kid, sometimes it's the person that cuts in line, sometimes it's somebody behind you that honks and you get out of your car without even putting it in park, Brian, ready to yank him through the vent window.

So, if you understand anger and rage, you understand how they manifest. It's like weather prediction. You can look and go, "Huh, the situation's right for rage." And you can back off before you go down that rabbit—

No, and that's why I approach it with the, you know, "you never know," because if I'm that neighbor, I hear that commotion outside, right? And I live on that street where that shooting happened where they're shoveling snow, and I look out, when I pull my curtain to the side and I look out and I see that, even before there's a gun involved, even before anything, what do we typically do? "Ah, they're at it again. The Jets, the Joneses," whatever. Like, we, we don't ever think—a lot, most people don't ever go, "Well, this could escalate to homicide pretty quickly." I mean, we don't, we don't do that at that point, because a lot, you know, we just don't have the file folders for it. We don't see it. And even though we see it or see stuff like that in the news, since we've never, most people haven't experienced something like that or seen it in person, right? So, so they don't, they don't know what that smells like and looks like and sounds like. Someone screaming for their life, you know, I mean, so they don't realize it, "Literally, please don't kill me."

And Brian, think of that situation, too. So, you've got the storm. You can see the haboob coming on the horizon, right? That storm moving in. Two people out there just trying to pull their vehicle out, they just want to shovel their driveway, meat-mouthed, and the neighbor across the street. Unknown what happened. Read up on it. I really don't care. Okay? But yeah, they're all—that's a reason. It's a long-standing dispute. It's Sunday morning. Probably not going to work, okay? I'm probably going to breakfast with my family. It's snow. And it's going to be a great day. It's around the holiday. All of these potentials. And you know what? You just screwed it up by just being there. And now that look on your face, that smirk on your face, and you're going to stand there when this—you can feel it growing. Why? Because if it was Wednesday after work and you're bringing in your garbage and your neighbor says something sly, maybe it's not to bother you, but a Sunday morning—I got to go to work tomorrow. I protect my weekend. Do you see how to certain people certain things will become the catalyst? Something's more important to me. You know, I want to go fishing Tuesday, but you know what, it's raining Tuesday. That fish don't know it's raining, but I do. Right? And so that's not going to turn me catatonic in a rage fit, right? I did the worm, spilled over in my front seat, the heater was on, that smell. I pull over and somebody beeps when they go by me in the rain. Now, now I'm there, Brian.

No, and that can come up in a number of ways because I've experienced that just in myself too, just getting angry over stuff that I shouldn't because, you know, it's like, hey, we're busy, we're traveling all the time. I finally got this night out with my wife, and she's been, you know, this is something she deserves, and I want to take her out and show her. And then something goes wrong at the restaurant or this or that, and like, you're, this is the one night I had, and now I get to deal with this, and you're immediately just at that next level because, you know, you, because of all those external stressors, right? And now you're getting angry over something that shouldn't really bother you. So, it's easy to flip that switch over to rage and and take that out for for some people, you know what I'm saying? It gets that point and recognizing that.

And, you know, on the sort of the, the almost the flip side of that, and I forget where it was, and I forget the name, so I apologize, but it was in the South, it was at a high school where the kid came in with a shotgun. And the first person to see him was like one of the coaches. He was a teacher and coach there. And he took one look at the kid and he walked up and he didn't, you know, he didn't start doing some, you know, Jiu-Jitsu on the dude or or pull out his concealed pistol or anything. He walked up and he gave the kid a hug and was like, "You don't want to do this." And it was like, "Holy [ __ ]!" Excuse me. But but he, he went from seeing that as almost that you never know. Like, it didn't fit. It wasn't the rage, it wasn't the angry saw it, wasn't any of that. I'm going off of purely what I saw in the video and read an article, right? So, I'm, I'm inferring some of this. But what I didn't get to talk to the guy, meaning I didn't interview him or something, he saw something there that went, "I'm going to have this reaction," versus, "I'm going to have that reaction."

Exactly, exactly. And so, so I just thought that was interesting because, because his survival instincts were percolating, but they weren't the survival emotional response that comes with detecting danger to the level that rage goes. So, I'll give you an example: rarely does somebody come in shooting up a school and we go, "Ah, let's go get that guy." Usually it's, "Oh my God, flee, flee, hide!" Okay? So, there's rage circuitry that goes the opposite direction where now the sudden somebody spills the coffee on me and then they, the room starts clapping and laughing, now I'm embarrassed. You get what I'm trying to say? And I tell the guy, "Hey, you know, a nice move." And he goes, "Hey, step off before I smack you down," or whatever. So, it's a completely different when it builds to the one on the right, it triggers that self-defense mechanism where, "I'm going to show you."

But you, you've, you've got the what that guy in the hallway was feeling is, "Oh my God, self-preservation." I bet his legs felt like lead. I bet he was shaking inside. I bet his voice was quivering, but I bet he said, "I can do this." And time slowed down. He had the gift of time and distance, and he, you know, said emotional words to the kid, "Hey, hold on, Tom." You know what I'm saying? And and he was able to de-escalate it. So, where you are in that spectrum, you know, that, that, that rainbow, let's say, from left to right, is going to matter a ton.

You know, I, I give you a trigger that happens all the time. And I live in the smallest town in the world. There's a chucklehead in town, and you shouldn't call him a chucklehead because now I'll probably have to kill him. But there's a chucklehead in town that, motorcycle, and he drives around very aggressively with his motorcycle, okay? He's got open pipes, stack pipes, and so it's, and we're in Gunnison, we don't, we don't do that. You know, there's the Land of the Free, Home of the Brit. He also has tats everywhere, but they're aggressive tats. They aren't happy fun, "Hey, sending message" tats. And folks, if you know what I'm talking about, the aggressive tats, if not, we did a webinar on them. Combat boots, shorts, okay, open shirt showing his pipes, right? And on his belt, every single time I've seen him in town, he has about a six or an eight-inch long hunting knife that's fashioned like a dagger. You know what I'm trying to say? Now, for whatever reason in Colorado, anything goes.

And so I'm at City Market doing the, you know, self-checkout, and the guy's at the next self-checkout. So, all of a sudden, my brain starts doing the, the bongo drums, and I hear, "Should I stay or should I go?" That person, because for 38 years, 35 years, I've seen that person and had to shoot them or fight with them, or, yeah, or there was always a problem or whatever. Now, it's not this guy's fault, it's just that he keeps hitting on all those triggers, and my brain has been hyper-vigilant in certain situations where those triggers meant immediate death. Right, right. So, so I, I always, I tell Shelly about a dozen times, "I want to go up and I want to tell that guy, 'Hey, you might not know this, but you're giving off the signal.'" But that's the time that he's going to want to fight. You get what I'm trying to say? Because nobody wears all those signals to the public without wanting to have that chip on the shoulder and say something.

And if you're that person and you don't know that's the message you're sending at home right now, take a break because it is, you know, yeah. No, it's everyone, you know, we're all sending a message. We teach people how we want to be treated, right? And then that's the guy that complains about, "People were treating me unfairly." It's like, dude, what are you sending out to the world?

What I'm trying to say, "Hello to you in Gunnison, Colorado, a town of 6,000 people, and you've got a, you know, K-Bar fighting knife hanging open on your belt." That sends a message, Brian. I mean, if we're in, you know, what is that place, Barrow, Alaska, or something, where people still, you know, like they're shopping in City Market in a polar bear jumping, you know, I could see doing something like that. But that, that speaks directly again to carrying a weapon is one of those things that might heighten that trigger moment. Mentioning a weapon, you know, it immediately—

That I mean, that that's a great point right there, because now, you know, it's like, if you have a gun on you and you're in a fistfight, you're in a gunfight because you brought a gun. I mean, that, that's, that's the way you have to look at it, because if there's one present that, that you automatically raise the level of where this could possibly lead to. I mean, you, you just, you just do. But there's, it's just, it's a factual statement. Like, there's no, it's nothing pro or anti-gun. It's just saying, if it's present, you've now asked, the situation can now go to the level of of homicide faster than if it was just two people fistfighting in the street, right?

And that, that's, that's a good point. So, so let's do that. Let's get real quickly. So, two completely different people, but big old guy in the store and knife guy with the tats, they run into the carts and the old guy says, "Hey, why don't you watch where you're going there, Tats?" And Tats says, "Hey, kiss my ass." And so old man knocks him down, okay? And he's a concealed weapons carry, so he's got his gun on him, but he knocks the tattooed guy down, grabs his knife, and walks off and goes, "Hey, you should think about who you're messing with." Well, now we have felonious assault because even though I didn't use the gun, I was armed with the gun. And armed robbery because I took your knife from you. And but listen, when you say you never know, you think that person's thinking about that in the moment? They're thinking about, "Hey, you know, I'm just going to show, I'll show you," and then no.

No, that's a, that's a good point. Since we're on it about, you, you're talking about, you know, with a gun or carrying a concealed carry and stuff like that. I mean, I know there was a recent case of that as well where, you know, a supposed good Samaritan tried to jump in when when there was a shooting going on and then the police showed up and killed them. And you did, so this goes in, it's another example of, you never know. You never know you, you don't know where this situation can escalate to, right? Because, you know, you look at those police officers showing up, they get, they get a call that there's a shooting happening, and they pull up and there's a guy with a gun. Well, I don't need much more than that to go, "Here, here's what's going on, here's the guy shooting." And I think that's a, that's a great point because I, I do know a lot of people who, you know, we both know a lot of people who carry concealed and I'm not, I'm not for or against it. I just, I just think people need to realize what you're doing. Wait if you're, if you're going to carry a trick—

Well, the responsibility that comes along with it.

I think is, is important and and using it accordingly. Because you, you may get yourself into some very serious trouble. Because I see stuff like that all the time where people post stuff on social media of a video of like, you know, happens all the time when someone's filling up with gas and then someone steals their car, you know what I mean? Or or steals something in there and it's like, "Oh, someone's like, 'Oh yeah, well if that happened by me, I would just pull up my gun and start shooting.'" It's like, "Okay, and then you shoot that person and then they crash into the car next to them that kills the little kid, you know what I mean?" You, you understand you're a contributing factor in that situation once you get involved. Once you get involved in a situation, right? You now become partly responsible for what happens after your, you start your involvement. I mean, is that a good way to look at it? I mean, at least, I don't care what the laws are legally.

Again, being approximately, Brian, you just said it. You, you are, you are the catalyst for something that goes out into a spiral. Look, 25, 35 years ago as a copper on the street, we would get a call, and it's usually about Sterling Heights coppers. Somebody would say, "There's a man with a gun in Walmart," or whatever. And you'd have to go, you know what I'm saying? Yes, you're a cop, you go. And you'd see the person walking down the aisle, and so what I'd always do is I would always say from a great distance, "Officer!" And if the guy looked up and turned, I would say, "Somebody called about your gun. Come over here, let's talk." Now, if I said, "Hey, Officer!" and nobody looked, I go, "Wearing a [ __ ] sending somebody else." You get what I'm trying to say? So, I'm not going to tell you exactly what I did, but I try to fight it psychologically.

Well, what happens is now anybody can carry anywhere they want all the time, people. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm saying that laws are different now. And in Arvada, Officer Gordon gets set up for an ambush. So, Gordon goes and is gunned down by the ambusher, okay? A good Samaritan says, "Holy [ __ ]! That's not right!" Defends Officer Gordon by shooting the suspect a number of times. Like you said, the responding coppers see a man with a gun. The last thing on their mind is, "This is a good Samaritan," Brian, I will tell you that. In the early '80s, I was given classes at the Macomb Police Academy on showing undercovers how to make sure that they had their badge where their holster was when they side-carried. Because if you accidentally moved your shirt and somebody saw the gun, what are they going to see? Well, they're going to see the badge and they're going to put two and two together and go, "Hey, I'll mind my P's and Q's. It's likely a cop." This guy didn't do any of that. There's no such standard now to do something like that. And he's walking out. We know we have an officer down. What do you think?

Officer down. Yeah. Oh, in it, yeah.

So, think of it as a revolver. If anybody's ever opened the cylinder on a revolver, you have six spots generally where you put a bullet. So, what Brian just said, and I want you to make sure that you understand this. Brian said that what happened is when the person said, "We have a man with a gun," one of those spots, you only have five. Then the guy's still showing up and we got shots fired. Now, two of those cylinders are blocked on your brain. No, here we go, we get out, we got an officer down. Now, three. So, Brian, the available cylinders left, "Holy [ __ ]! There's another guy on the ground and I got somebody shooting!" Now, it's down to— That's why I came up with "Should I stay or should I go?" It's absolutely perfect. What happens is all of a sudden my brain starts going boom, boom, boom, and bracketing down to a logical choice. And it all started with a simple thing that now has spun so out of control that, that, you know, people are saying, "Oh, the good Samaritan, those damn cops again!" Hey, put yourself in the shoes of a cop or a soldier. Do you get what I'm saying? Or a guy that works at 7-Eleven or a gas station. Before you want to scream about these things, you, you just don't understand unless you look at it scientifically.

No, and and that's that. And again, it falls under that "you never know," right? "How am I supposed to approach this problem?" I, we always jump to something that, that's, you know, that makes sense. Is, is easy or, "This must be the problem," or, "This must be the issue," or, "This must be the threat." And it, it's often logical, too. It's not, you know, you, it's like the whole gay, I always go back to Dr. Nesbitt because the guys are brilliant about this stuff. But, you know, it's, it's logical to say, "Oh, that person was nice to me, they're a nice person. That person was mean to me, they're a mean person." Well, no, you know, you never know. And and that goes into, especially your talk about the workplace stuff too. I mean, how many times has someone been killed because they're getting their nails done?

Oh, yeah.

And the husband or ex-husband of the owner comes in and it's a domestic violence situation and they shoot the place up. And that happens so often that the actual, well, the leading cause of workplace death for women is homicide, which is completely insane. It's, it's homicide that's the leading cause of death for women in the workplace, you know? Not injury, not falling down and getting hurt, not not getting, you know, killed because of some accident in a factory with her leg got caught in some machine and, you know, they bled to death. No, it's, it's literally homicide, which, which I, I mean, yeah, is it, but but that goes to show is you're in there getting your hair done or your nails done, and in comes someone to settle a grievance and they've, that rage switch has flipped, and now they're taking it out on not just their the person that they feel is responsible for it, but everyone else in the vicinity. And I, I, I, that's one, insane to me that I found that, I found that statistic. But two, that those things happen all the time, Greg.

Yeah. So, think, think of this. I want to segue into that because that's a great point. But you made another great point. I don't want the folks to pass up on it. When you think spatially about your zone around you, you think from the perspective of you, not your wife, not your kids, but you, right? Certainly don't think about your neighbor or the person getting their nails done when you're getting your mani-pedi. You're thinking about you. You may look at that person and go, "Wow, I like them, while I don't like them. I'm attracted to them. Boy, they're being noisy." But everything is in context of how does it affect me at this moment or in the near future? We don't think generally, unless it's oxytocin, the love drug, about, "Oh, I wish I could marry that person. I wonder seven years from now we'll have a cottage on the lake."

So, what I'm telling you, folks, is you're the center of your universe. So, what's going to happen is you're going to miss a lot of cues because the guy didn't come to kill you, he came to kill that person that's in the chair next to you or the cashier or to rob the joint. So, you have to think like Harry Potter or Hermione Granger. You have to think outside of your own body and use the Wingardium Leviosa or whatever they say to take a look at that other person and what might be going on in this situation. Because if not, your brain's chemistry is going to go, "Well, this has nothing to do with me." So, you're not going to be surprised. You're not going to be titillated or interested in the little cues. And everything starts with little cues.

Person pulled up in front of the place, stopped, left the car running, okay? Now they left the door open. Now they're rushing in the place. And somebody that's watching you right now, Brian, is saying, "Yeah, okay, pizza delivery." And I'm going, "No, early signs of armed robbery or homicide." Right? So, the idea is that you have to be able to measure those things. So, you're in an emergency room because your daughter broke her leg. You're thinking, "Oh, my daughter's got to get her leg set. What about the insurance? What am I going to do?" You're ruminating about all these other things. Meanwhile, the guy comes in and the security guard was the person that they were dating and they cheated with somebody else, and they've already got the gun in their hand and they're set, they're going to do it. We miss all the cues. And then afterwards, people go, "Oh, oh, man, you know, Jim was quiet. I never heard it," or, "Didn't know that they had a situation at home." I would tell you this, Brian, if we were going to warn somebody, I would come into the nail salon, to the hair salon, to the place that I work at City Market, at the deli, and I would tell everybody, "Hey, I had a big fight with my husband or wife last night. This is what they look like. We drive a yellow LTD." Do you know what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, that's something you better better look out for.

You know, I, I would say that. I, I would be that guy.

Yeah. And and there's, there's those are always out there. And people though, and it, it never comes out because again, we, we never do the "where could this escalate to?" You never know. Well, could it, could it get to that point? Well, you know, what do we know about them so far? And you always say the yellow pattern. That's, I do the same thing, is write down everything you know that already about that person. If you're thinking that, hey, you know, someone's in a volatile relationship, or it's abusive, or it's this or it's that, or or you're unsure about it, as you write down everything you can think of from the time you first met that person and every interaction that you felt something wrong or something was off. And then all you got to do is look at it and go, "Is this escalating?" Right? Because because what you'll see is sometimes it's just, "Oh, this person's just awkward," or, "They have a problem here," you know what I mean? Like, it's consistent. And if it's consistent, then you know that's usually, okay, that might be something suffer, it's a good sign though, right? But when all those behaviors start escalating, "Well, first it just he said something here, but then he made a gesture here. And then remember, like, he grabbed her here and was like really aggressive." As those increase, it's, it, you're, it's showing you if that line is going up, you know it's showing you where it's going and it's, it's nowhere good, right? It's never anywhere—

Perspective is important. The perspective, I can't fix you, okay? I can only try to fix me. So, every time that we see that, that come to a juncture, we're going to look at it and we're going to say, "Well, how did I de-escalate that situation?" "We went to the water park and when we came back, I made love to that person." Okay. Then the next time they did this and threw that out, so we went out to eat and I ended up by, you know, doing something in the car before we got— We do this series of checks and balances. Adults that are listening, you know what I'm talking about, Brian. What are we doing? We're delaying the inevitable. Yes, because we're saying that listen, we were, "Well, it's only got a reward. Yes, they calmed right down." We missed the queue because we're looking at it from the skewed perspective of, "They're going to change." And that's that's not going to happen.

So, the, so the person that comes in, just because you're a good person and you've done everything right in your life and you pay out your bills on time, when that person comes in and they've got their head down and mission focus predatory looks and they're ready to kill, Brian, if you're in the way, you're going to, you're going to. If the cop shows up, they're going to, because, you know, they're not going to all of a sudden look and go, "Wow, this was a stupid plan." You know, does that happen? Yeah, it happens one in a quadrillion times where the person changes their mind in in the center of it and then you might get killed by proxy. The person might sit down on the floor, commit suicide and the bullets, you know, spins around inside that place and clips you anyway. You have to know before it happened.

Well, and that was that article that I just told you about where the guy goes out to tell the kid on the motorcycle to quit, you know, doing hole shots in the neighborhood. Neither of them came back. The driver of the car or the motorcycle didn't come back because the guy killed him. The guy came back and said, "Honey, call a lawyer. I just killed our our flipping neighbor." Brian, it's too late then.

Well, that thing is you don't get that perspective until that that rage subsides, and then the action from there might be, "Well, I'm done," and they'll kill themselves, they'll commit suicide or give up like you said. I mean, that's, that's what I mean. That's the big thing with with school shooters. What do they do? They either kill themselves or they give up. I mean, every single one of them, they don't fight it out with the police, right? They go, "Well, the killing's done," and they either kill themselves or they they they walk out and they're, they're done. "I'm going to go to McDonald's now," you know what I mean? Whatever it is. So, so that, that, that's a, that's a good explanation, I think, of how rage works and once it, it runs its course so to speak, once that part is done, then, um, you know, and I know what the school shooting can be different because there's some planning involved with that and there's other things, but—

Yeah, but I, I, I want to keep it general, too, because you actually brought up a great indicator that it's more specific, but I think it's a good one to talk about. And that's still leaving the car door open. Because when I see a car door open, I go, either A, someone just bailed and they just, they're running from it. Or, which means what if I'm, if I like it's a perfect example, you see all the police pursuits, guy crashes or whatever, ends, runs out of gas, and then now they're, and now it turns into a foot pursuit, right? They don't take the time to close the door on the car. They don't do that because they're never coming, there's never a plan, they're never coming back to that vehicle, right? They, they have to run and now this vehicle is useless. So, it's no different, right? When you see sometimes with some of these different shootings, too, where a person gets out of the car and they just literally leave the car door open and walk away, there's no, it's, it's, and you gave the pizza builder and, well, they usually close the car door, right? They're coming, either they're coming right back or they're, they're going to close that door. Even if you're running into 7-Eleven or whatever, I don't care, you're getting something out of the trunk, people will still close their car, their car door because, you know, they, they don't want anything to happen or whatever the issues, don't want anyone to get in there. But the idea is, if I've left that open and walked away from that vehicle, I'm never coming back. And that's psychologically I have made the choice to not come back to that vehicle. So, like you just said, the leaving the car door open and then walking into the nail salon. Like, that, that dude, they're not coming back. And I think that's an interesting indicator. I don't know if you have any other examples like that or the or the meaning or reason behind it from your experience.

Yeah, so, so remember that on the opposite side, on the person that says pizza delivery, you're always looking for the simplest conclusion because you don't want to waste mental calories in thinking that you have to fight to live. And it's usually correct, almost always benign, it's always almost always nothing. But when you start taking a look like, like, where would I see a person leave their car door open and leave the car running? A valet, a delivery person of some type, emergency room, the foyer, you know, to go into triage where, you know, you grab Tommy who's still choking and running inside. So, if it's in that environment, you're probably at homeostasis. But if it's all of a sudden in an environment where you wouldn't expect to see that, at least have your awareness heightened. Because when you heighten your awareness and you take a look at it, the client—look, I have to be able to apply situational awareness to another, not just me, not just, you know, given a battle load, you remember how those things were written by the day and a weapon with full complement of ammo conduct observation in public, you know, urban terrain? Okay, that's not what we're talking about doing, folks. We're talking about pay the F attention to the stuff that's happening around you.

Like, for example, you hear a big block V8 kick in, unless you're at a tractor pull, pay attention. That's a cop going, or that's a person fleeing. And you're saying, "Yeah, well, you're being pretty flippant about that." Yeah, because in my experience, that's what it was. And I don't think about me, I think about my orbit. So, if you're in my orbit, Brian, if you're near me, I have to consider you and what's happening to you, because somebody walking up to shoot you in the head might impact my day. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. With the orbit analogy, too, because we're I'm then in, you know, if I mean, that's a perfect example, too, we're at, we're at work, or I'm, I'm getting, you're doing my nails, right? Because you have a nail salon, and you have a, you know, an abusive ex-husband that is, is jealous because you've moved on and have a boyfriend now. And you're now in my orbit. I have no idea what's going on. I never know what's going on in your life, Greg. So, a guy walking in and saying, "Hey, Greg," you know, to me, it's just, it must be another customer of yours, right? They know each other. Right.

Yeah, that's actually what happened, folks.

And you're, you're, you're, I'm getting the manicure, right? And you're giving me the manicure. Now I'm in your orbit. I have no idea what's going on. I never know what's going on in your life, Greg. So, a guy walking in and saying, "Hey, Greg," you know, to me, it's just, it must be another customer of yours, right? They know each other. Right. Not your, not your jealous ex-husband or something that's, that's going to—

Yeah, he planned on killing you today.

I mean, and you know, we, we always talk about this, you know, you can't be hyper-vigilant. And that's why I always take that, "Yeah, you're right, you, you never know." And I like the orbit analogy, too, because you are in, I mean, you get, you started with physics at the beginning, um, and and and how that works and how that kind of we can get sucked in, so to speak, into that, right? And and now we now become a victim at the gas station, which I still like to remind people is like the most dangerous place on the face of the earth is a gas station. It how many times they get robbed or the gas station gets robbed, or people get robbed or abducted at one? And, and that's often the time that we're what, "Oh God, I got to stop. I'm so annoyed that I have to fill up with gas right now because I've got 10 things to do today." And I'm on my phone. I mean, it's absolutely incredible. But it's just another example of kind of bringing it into where everything around us is in constant flux.

Yes, exactly. There's randomness, and there's an infinite, there seems to be an infinite number of things that could happen or affect to change the situation, but it's a finite number of things that I need to focus on. Does that make sense? You're exactly right. So, so let me give you an example of what Brian just said, folks, because he's spot on again. It's a couple of days from the Fourth of July, Happy Independence Day, everybody, except for if you're British, probably. Yeah, you're probably glad to be, I forget what do they call it? I can't remember.

Yeah, it's like the day we got rid of, whatever, they celebrate something else.

The pariah. Yeah. But, so here's Gunnison, and again, I'd like to use where I am as an example. Lots of people are going to be out in the woods, okay? So, number one, if you're using fireworks, you're going to burn the whole Western states down. Stop. Don't think about it. If you're going to cook marshmallows, you're going to burn everything down. And people go, "Oh, it doesn't always happen." It happens every year, look at the stats. Now, next thing, Brian, is, is people lose fingers or die because fireworks aren't enough. They go, "Well, if that fireworks good, let's put nine of them in a Coke can," you know what I'm saying, "and wrap it with donuts." No way, you're an idiot. And Tannerite is more than going to tell whether your baby's going to be blue or pink.

Now, in addition to that, who else goes out into the woods? People that are fleeing because they have warrants. I have a mobile meth lab that's in a tent that's on public property so I don't have to pay taxes and I can sell my meth and cops never go there and people are undermanned and it's COVID so nobody's looking. You have to start thinking like that now. Now you're saying, "Well, that takes all the fun of it." No, that takes some of the spontaneity out of it, okay? But I feel much more comfortable knowing that Grizzly Adams in the tent next to me, why does it smell like cat piss and why is he up 24 hours a day and he uses a flare, you know what I'm saying, is his camping light? So, so you have to be responsible for you, but you have to look outside to those things that environmentally might impact you.

I saw a kid the other day almost get clipped at the main street. I have no idea what the main street and Gunnison is called, Main. And he was looking at his phone so intently, he just could not, yeah, intently, it's a great word. And he had his a, at his bicycle and he stepped off the curb. He walked in front and two cars swerved and locked up and he looked up and he then had the, you know, that panic response where, you know, and and started breathing heavy and stuff. What do you think he did? Went right back to the app and and walked off. And and it's like, man, if you're not paying attention, you're going to reap the whirlwind. If you're not planning what you're going to do in that day, Brian. How many, how many of us have a defect, a PFAC rather, different things? In fact, I'm thinking of eating again, food.

You're getting hungry. But dining facility. Yeah, yeah.

But a personal first aid kit or or a trauma kit or one of those type of things? You know, how many, how many people still have? And now all of a sudden, COVID's not as dangerous, Delta virus. COVID's not as dangerous, so I'm not doing as much hand washing. We're our own worst enemies. Yeah, in a situation where our own damn worst enemies because we don't think of the little things like that. You know, when they have a first aid kit than a gun.

Yeah, I agree. But um, the, the other thing is too is what you when you talk about different those things in the in the environment, you know, just reminded me that not long ago picking up the insurgent from school in the afternoon and meet Michaela in the car and I was like, I immediately start taking photos of these guys. Like, it's like, "Why are you taking photos of that with just a couple of bums?" Because they looked, they appeared to be homeless, right? They had a bag on their clothing disheveled, clearly dirty. I was like, "Okay, see the guy, one's riding a bike over there?"

Yeah, that one's riding a bike right there.

But but notice he also is, he's riding a bike and then he's also got his hand on an empty bike and he's carrying that along with him. He's basically—

Yeah.

I was like, "Who needs two bikes at the same time? I got he just stole it!" Like, right? And she's like, "Oh my God, I had no idea." I was like, "Yeah, that's why would you ever do that?" She's like, "Well, it just didn't, just a bunch of people with bikes." They go, "Yeah, that's the thing." It just blends right in your brain goes, "I don't even notice that." I go, "But why would you be riding a bike and bringing one with you unless it's a couple kids because they're bringing it to their friend or something like that?" Like that, that doesn't make sense the situation. And she's like, "Holy crap, like I never, you know, I never looked at it that way." And that's the idea. But it's all screaming at us right there. I mean, that we weren't in any type of danger from those people, but the idea is like you're just, you're you're witnessing a crime taking place right now in front of you. And how many people just missed it?

So, I, I have to teach loss prevention because nobody around here knows anything about it. They're, they're absolutely clueless. So, I'll stop them every once in a while, try to educate them. The first thing is their hackles will come up and they'll say, "Kiss my [  ] man, you know, go to another store." And it's like, no, that's not why I'm doing it. I'm not trying to call you out or get out of the women's changing room. Please do me a favor and go to all of the parental homicide, kidnapping, molestation capers. All this other stuff that you look at and look at how many times one company that has business when it's in a city, the parking lot or inside of that place, they'll always have the security video. And that's where those people go before they did something. There's always that company, and I don't want to say Walmart because I don't want to get sued, but take a look at the statistics on that. Next thing, if you're in the parking lot and all you're going in is for camping fuel, you get what I'm trying to say, you could become a victim because that armed robbery vehicle is leaving, or that person with the kidnapping is in the same aisle and you say, "Nice day," and they think that you're going, "Oh, [  ] I saw you on the news." You don't know.

So, so we're not, yeah, I didn't know.

Exactly. It's the car sitting there with the door open right at the entrance, not even a parking spot, in the loading area. Like that, but but nine out of ten times, that's cause Granny needs to get her walker and somebody's going to help her. But enhanced awareness. If you're looking for a shoplifter, you're going to be able to find them. A good clue on shoplifters, I come into your store with a full backpack, okay? So, you get what I'm trying to say? And people go, "Full backpack?" Yeah, I inflate a bunch of [ __ ] in my backpack so when I go out inflated, you don't notice it and I leave all that stuff behind. And I have a shoe box from the other place that I do and I put the, and you're going, "No way." The other thing is walking to find your car. I've lost my car before. You know, I travel so much, I have no idea what I don't know. Yeah.

What was the run again? No, no, no, it wasn't the drinking, no, it was because I can't to rental. Yeah, yeah.

But but you walk through the parking lot and it's a busy parking lot on the Fourth of July, and all of a sudden you see a person that's weaving in and out of the cars and they're looking around them and then looking in the cars. Are you about to get a stolen car or a theft from a car? It's not hard when you tune in to the right frequency. And we used to do that. I remember being at eight and gosh, it was between eight and Gratiot and whatever that other street, Shaner. And there was a place that sold shawarma, and so I'd go into the shawarma place and I'd go up the ladder and go on the roof and take my binos. I had my police car, I was in full uniform, but when I was up on the roof, nobody was looking. Nobody looked up on the road, right? So, I watched the people thieving and steal and I called one of my buddies in their car and I had a felony rate that was through the roof. And one of my bosses goes, "Are you in your car when you're doing this?" I go, "No, I'm on the roof of the shawarma place." "You got to be [ __ ] me." So, I actually did the, the study, you remember this study with the newspaper where I cut out a big rectangle, like, you know, a Barney Fife, and sat in the police car with the newspaper open and people would do crimes right in front of you thinking he's not paying attention. Why? Because you're led to believing once you're led to believe the theory, "close enough" kicks in and you know, and even bad guys tune out. And you go, "That never happens all the time in the world visually." And they kept going.

But now, let's flip that script and say you're not a copper, you get what I'm trying to say. And you're walking to, I don't know, Home Depot. And you're walking through the parking lot and that kid thinks you're looking at him and now he's going to say something like, "Who are you looking at?" And you don't think anything. It's, "I guess I'm looking at you." And now you just were making fun. You get what I'm trying to say? And it turns into a homicide. You have to see the storm clouds coming together. You have to conduct predictive analysis everywhere you go. You have to give yourself to get the time and distance because if you get to the point of rage, you're not going to be able to work that rheostat.

Right. And that's why, you know, without, you know, without getting into the specific kind of skill set, just even having that mindset of, "You never know," right? I mean that, that, because that allows you one, to, you know, hey, you know what, maybe you'll help someone out that day who really needed it. Maybe you'll deal with the situation better. Um, traveling and all this stuff and the holidays is stressful and, and everyone's got a lot going on. And the people working at that store, that's the busiest time of year. That's the busiest time for that gas station, right? It's the busiest time for crime. It's the, I mean, so if you have that ability to, like you said, kind of de-escalate yourself, right? And and have that that idea in your head of, "What, you never know what this person is going through, or what they're capable of, or what they're going to do," because it also allows you to take a little bit more of a critical approach versus just saying, "Oh, he's probably just some jackass," or, "Oh, it's probably just an idiot." Yeah. And and that's the thing is that by, by taking that, "You never know," is just, it's a, it's like a very, I just like it as a mindset for that everyday person just to just to look at the world and go, "You know, I never, I never know what that person's going through. I never know what they're capable of. I never know what they've been through today. I never know what's going on their mind right now." And and I think that way is a good way to kind of approach it.

I don't know. Add that yellow pad paper, flip it over. We talked about a lot today. I know you've got a lot to talk about. I hope you're not driving and writing on yellow pad. Brian, let's use the Fourth (of July) as a quick example. You never know, but this is what you do know. So, you can separate the two. So, there's not so much confusion and unknown. What are you likely to do on the Fourth? You're going to stay in the sun too long without sunblock. You're going to get a sunburn. You're going to have too many drinks and not enough water, so you're going to be dehydrated, and that's going to lead to a hangover, a headache. You're going to play around with fireworks even though that you know they're explosive devices and they're dangerous inherently so. By knowing those and yellow-padding those few things, I can predict what the outcomes would be and I can modify my future. On the other side, Brian, you got a blank slate because that's "you never know." That person that you laughed at or the person that you walked by or the thing that you did. So, try to live philosophically and physiologically and psychologically and socially. Try to live the right life and not get into those situations by avoidance. Avoiding is a cogent strategy. And like Billy Madison said, "Man, I'm glad I called that guy." Daddy comes back to help him out later in the movie. He actually shoots the other guy, "Shoots my wife the [ __ ]! That was that pretty a simple no would have been fine."

Great stuff, man. "At no point during your rambling, incoherent statement did you make any sense whatsoever." I hear that a lot actually.

Yeah, exactly. That was, that was taken from one of our AARs (After Action Reviews) of one of our courses. Hilarious.

Um, I would just want to remind everyone listening in, please, please share this with your friends if you enjoyed it and give us a little rating down at the bottom of the details in the episode. It helps out quite a bit. And we have a whole bunch more of extra content on our Patreon site, follow-ups to the different shows, different webinars we've done before in the past. So, there's a whole bunch more on there. It's only a couple bucks and we we try to keep it cheap and just let you guys have more. So, we do, we do appreciate that. We do have an upcoming course if you're in the Midwest, see the link in the episode details. It's it's obviously, it's law enforcement, first responders only for right now, but um, you can you can check that out and always reach out to us if you've if you've got anything, any any final final words from you, Greg?

Yeah, I'm learning about this cool new place called Killer Creamery, Creamery like cream, you know, Killer Creamery. I don't know enough about it yet, Brian, but I would encourage anybody to look it up and find out about it like I am, and then maybe on our next show, I'll tell you what I found out.

Okay. Is this like a scavenger hunt for our listeners? Like, "I want to find out what that is now." I have to go Google that.

No, it's just I have to go find out what the hell it is before we talk about.

Great fans there and I want to drive some business their way. Oh, okay, got it. Sounds good. All right, well, shout out to Killer Creamery then. I now have to go Google that too, Greg. Thank you for for bringing that up in the middle of the show. Um, all right. Thanks, thanks, thanks everyone for tuning in. Don't forget to like and subscribe us, follow us on social media and and reach out to your to your friends if you enjoy the podcast. And don't forget that training changes behavior.