I was young, new to the job, went on this call—a domestic abuse thing. This real big dude was beating his wife—a regular thing. I just wanted to speak to her and try and sort this out, see if she wants him removed, if she’s been hit, etc. and this guy will not let me speak with her.

I decided to go past him, and he grabbed me. Now me, I’m just a little squib—that’s why I pay you to train me. I need an advantage, and in this case, with my scrawny ass up against the wall and this huge guy pinning me by [the shoulder sleeves of] my uniform, I about shit.

I did a double outward block, open handed, and shot in a short palm, half chop half slap—not a palm strike like we learn in karate, to the jaw—kind of right under the ear—and down he went. I couldn’t believe this shit. One moment I’m off my feet back to the wall, the next moment this big brute is on the floor pleading, “Please don’t hurt me, please officer.”

In retrospect, even though he was big and loud and aggressive—and drunk—he didn’t have that edge, that “look” that sets you back in your mind. No way was he a killer unless by accident, which can happen when you’re that big and beating your wife.

There you go—not a lot of glory out there when you’re in uniform. Now all of a sudden we’re the enemy.

Note, in my aggression survey this was not “resisting arrest” which is one of the fictional means by which law enforcement qualifies violence into something other than what it is. The officer charged it as resisting arrest to be nice, rather than claiming assault on a police officer, which, again, is a legal concept, not a combat action. In his mind he was going to arrest as soon as the wife beater told him he couldn’t speak with his wife, so the actions of the big man in attacking the officer were interpreted as part of an arrest process that was already in play in the cop mind. However, for purpose of studying aggression at the behavioral and biomechanical level, I slot this as an aggressor clinch and defender strike to KO via submission. In this way the encounter can be studied for the cause of training ordinary folks to defend themselves.

Likewise, when Randy the Crackhead, across the street, once again falls afoul of the law for buying a hit of ready rock down on Harford Road, and I see him, for the fourth time in the five year history of our neighborly disassociation, being tackled and cuffed by two police, that goes into the aggression matrix as a group aggression/abduction: two larger, older, armed males using simple grappling tactics to subdue, bind and transport the target.