It started when a male Lyft passenger began saying things that made her uncomfortable while she was taking him to Meijer.

It started when the driver reached for her gun, but the man saw what she was doing and reached for it too. The driver and the man fought, and the gun went off once, but no one got hit.

Cynthia James is the public information officer for Kettering Police. She said, “She (the driver) claimed the male made some sort of statement to her, saying that he didn’t want to hurt her and that he just wanted to be given a ride.”

The man got ahold of her gun, which was a Glock 17, and fled the scene when they got to the Meijer. The Kettering police attempted to use a K9 to track and locate the suspect, but he had already fled the scene.

He had on a green hoodie, blue jeans, and a dark-colored cap with a short grayish beard.

“It sounds like it could have been a lot worse if she didn’t have a means to protect herself,” James said.

Despite company policy prohibiting ride-share drivers from carrying firearms while working, there has been a noticeable increase in incidents over the past year where ride-share drivers have had to defend themselves. There was a case in September where a police officer pulled up behind the vehicle as the passenger was attempting to rob the ride-share driver at gunpoint. The entire incident was caught on dash cam.

Lyft Driver Firearm Policy

“Lyft has a strict “No Weapons” policy for all of its properties. This includes Lyft Hubs and service centers.

Our “No Weapons” policy applies when you are doing business as a representative of Lyft, which includes times that you are driving for Lyft, as well as times that you are visiting a Lyft Hub.

This means that even in places where it is legal to carry a weapon, we ask that you do not carry a weapon on any Lyft property.

We approach this from a community perspective. It’s hard to know what someone else is or isn’t comfortable with. The mere presence of a weapon might make another community member distressed and fear for his or her own personal safety.

At a minimum, a “weapon” includes any form of firearm. There are many items that could be considered weapons besides firearms, such as handguns, stun guns, explosives, knives, sling shots and tasers. Lyft reserves sole judgment on what else may constitute a “weapon.”  If you have any questions about whether various items could be considered a “weapon” under this policy, please contact Lyft Support before bringing any questionable items onto Lyft property.”

It may be time for Lyft and Uber to reconsider their policies.

A huge part of self-defense is avoiding conflict. Contrary to the media hype over mass shootings, most defensive gun use is due to more personal conflicts such as assaults and robberies. There are no exact figures on this, just statistical analysis. I’ve saved the most important part for last.

Jim Mattis is a retired Marine Corps general and former Secretary of Defense who once said, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” Although originally intended for Marines interacting with civilians in a war zone, we can still draw valuable lessons from it and apply them to our daily lives. Remember, our goal in defending ourselves is not to “kill” someone but to “stop the threat,” but his guidance still applies.

Situational Awareness Prevents You from Being an Easy Target

The first point is easy. People who look like they are aware of their surroundings are less likely to become victims. If you’re walking through an urban area or even a shopping mall with your earbuds in and your head down, you’re not making yourself invisible; you’re making yourself an easy target. Keep your head up. Look around. Make brief, but definite, eye contact. Walk with purpose. Do not look like a victim. Predators prey on the weak, so don’t look weak.

Avoid Walking Through Unknown Groups

Avoid walking directly past or through groups of young men. I don’t care where you are in the world or what color someone’s skin is. Groups of idle young men have a lot of potential to be a threat. The more economically depressed the area is, the more likely that is to be true. Avoid such groups, but never make it obvious you’re doing so. If you can’t avoid it, follow the advice from the previous paragraph about not looking like an easy target.

Sitting Down in Public

Sitting down in a public place requires some careful consideration. Whenever possible, sit so you can see the door or the most open parts of the location you are in. If you sit in a booth, sit on the outside, not the inside. When you enjoy a good meal with good company, it’s easy to get lost in conversation, but being aware of your surroundings doesn’t require much effort.

Groups of Unknown People

Look at the people in groups, see who is coming and going, and be sure to notice if someone is approaching you well before they get there. If you’re in a coffee shop working on your laptop and otherwise have your head buried in something, just look up once in a while. Some of us do this naturally, and for some, it takes extra effort, but you can train yourself to do it with a little practice. Eventually, you won’t even notice you’re doing it. Oh, and don’t wear earbuds there either. In fact, never wear earbuds or headphones in public, ever.

Road Rage and Carjackings

You need to be more aware of what’s going on when you’re driving. Road rage and carjackings are always on the menu these days. When I strap on a seatbelt, I’ve gotten into the habit of lightly tucking my shirt in between my sidearm and my hip so that it’s accessible.

If someone jams on their brakes in front of you and gets out of their car to come toward you, they may or may not be a physical threat. It takes some training to know when and when not to pull your firearm, but the key to that decision-making process is, you guessed it, situational awareness. Don’t forget, your first option should always be to drive out of the attack.

There are plenty of videos that show angry people assaulting people in their cars. There are even more videos that show angry people just being angry without being an actual threat.

Stay Calm

The greatest lesson of all, when it comes to situational awareness, is to STAY CALM. If things get tense, if a potential threat starts to present itself, or even if an actual threat quickly emerges, you must remain calm. If you don’t, you’ll get tunnel vision and miss everything else going on around you. Freaking out has never solved anything. If you’re carrying a firearm and you panic, innocent people, including yourself, could get hurt.

I don’t usually let myself go down rabbit holes in my personal life. I try to stay on track with my main focus, real estate, mortgages, and development, with a little crypto for fun.

But I don’t think it would be fair to write my regular blogs without at least sharing a little “insider information” for my loyal followers on my “situation” that happened last week. It was February on the way to REVN (Real Estate Vancouver Investment) in my hometown of Vancouver, WA.

I just got gas and noticed my left front tire was a little low. I was in a rush and needed to get across town, so I was only going to add air to the front left. When I was getting out, I noticed my briefcase was sitting on the passenger seat with a couple of new homebuyers’ applications I had just signed that morning, along with some financial information from my clients that I needed to scan. I thought to myself, DO NOT GO IN THE STORE AND LEAVE YOUR CAR UNATTENDED.

So, as I was getting air in my tire, a vehicle drove by and dropped off the assailant around the corner. The assailant quickly ran up as I bent down by the rear tire, jumped in the car, and started the engine.

I heard the door close, and I remembered MY BRIEFCASE!

It Was 30 Seconds

I opened the door; he put it in reverse and floored it as I lunged at him, and as the car flew backward, I kind of crumpled up on the dash/window. When I came down, I was able to shove it into park. He took one swing and knocked off my glasses, and that’s when I knew I had one chance, and this was a life or death situation.

I went straight into a headlock with my left arm while taking a couple of punches. I reached down to grab my gun that I usually carry only to realize I left it at home but came back with my finger in his temple, yelling, “I have a gun, and I’m going to blow your F#&$in brains out.” I kept throwing swings while ripping off his face cover and hat to get a good look at his face.

He had a change of thought, and his last words were, “Let me go, let me go.”

I Refused to Be a Victim

I am fortunate this ended the way it did, and I realize I took “a risk,” but I have no regrets and refuse to be called the “victim.” Like most men, I’m approaching this with a “fix it” mindset and using this negative experience to make a positive impact in Washington State instead of leaving. I’M STANDING MY GROUND.

Why Take the Risk?

Being robbed and having someone try to carjack you is a terrible feeling that is hard to explain to anyone who’s never been in that position. It can wreak havoc on your sense of security and create fear that can linger forever. I empathize with anyone who has been in this position, and the fight today goes out to those who were stolen from in the night.

I appreciate those who have reached out to join in on a calvary to go clean house, but vengeance will not fix the problem.

The State of Washington Went Too Far

The state went too far with changing laws to protect the bad guys. They allowed the media attention and pressure from George Floyd, BLM, and the WOKE to push to defund the police, restrict them from pursuing bad guys, and enable the thieves to prosper by stealing cars to use for transportation and not being able to pursue them when they drive by. (See HB-1054, and we are working on HB-1363 to at least allow a police officer to pursue without getting a superior to approve.)

Stolen Vehicles are Used to Commit Other Crimes

These stolen cars are driven to rob stores and residences. They usually dump the vehicles when they sell the goods to purchase drugs. As drug use increases, so does mental illness, homelessness, and crime.

The state and local governments want to increase taxes to pay for the homeless issues, but they could be upstream if they focused on stopping crime before it ruins the state or more people get killed.

The mainstream media, as usual, cut out my “opinions” on the crime. With news stations in the northwest, freedom of speech is not a thing.

By Bill Black

Bill Black is a Senior Mortgage Broker at NW Funding Group Inc. He has 16 years of experience in the mortgage industry and provides tailored mortgage planning solutions in Washington.

What Is Carjacking?

Carjackings are the ones that often make headlines. They occur when a person forcefully takes a vehicle directly from its driver or occupants through intimidation, threats, or violence. Imagine someone approaching your car at a red light with a gun and using physical force to remove you from the driver’s seat. That’s a carjacking.

The goal can vary, from robbing people of their belongings to using the vehicle to commit other crimes. This difference is important because carjacking is more than just taking someone’s property. It is also about threatening or hurting the people who have the car.

What Are the elements of carjacking?

Force is involved: Carjackings are forceful. Criminals might use weapons, physical violence, or the fear of harm to get the driver to give up their vehicle.

Victim is there: A defining characteristic of carjacking is that the victim is present during the crime. This places the occupants and the carjacker in a high-stress situation, often ending in violence.

Immediate Threat: Carjackings directly threaten a person’s safety, making it a dangerous and traumatic experience.

Legal Consequences: Criminals face harsher penalties for carjacking because of the violence.

What Is Auto Theft?

On the other hand, auto theft often occurs without the owner’s knowledge. Auto theft is the unlawful act of taking a vehicle with the intent to deprive the owner of its use permanently. Unlike carjacking, auto theft doesn’t involve a face-to-face confrontation with the victim.

What Are the Elements of Auto Theft?

No Victim Presence: The critical distinction in auto theft is that the owner or driver is typically absent when the crime occurs. The theft usually takes place when the vehicle is unattended.

Property Crime: Auto theft is property theft, and it focuses on the vehicle rather than the people involved. It may be traumatic, but the law doesn’t consider it as severe.

Legal Consequences: it carries lighter legal penalties than carjacking because there is no violence.

Auto theft can happen in many ways, including taking the car when it is left running at the gas pump or parked. Even if you didn’t leave the keys in it, a criminal can back up with a wrecker and drive off. Recently, people in Chicago have had their vehicles taken by tow truck drivers who showed up at auto accidents.

The major difference between carjacking and auto theft is the level of threat involved. Criminals forcefully take the vehicle in carjacking, making it a violent crime. At the same time, the driver or occupants are present, involving threats or physical force. Auto theft, however, doesn’t include violence, typically focusing on the theft of the vehicle itself.

Many people get confused and do not realize when they read news reports of carjacking that the difference between carjacking and auto theft is in the circumstances of the theft and the criminal’s intentions. Keep this in mind when you look at the statistics for carjackings because if you went inside the gas station and someone drove off with it, that was probably listed as auto theft, not a carjacking.

Attacker number one is out of the vehicle instantly, pointing a firearm at the driver of the car they are stealing. The victim went to pull forward but hesitated, and the gunman was on top of him at his window.

The carjackers were surprisingly well coordinated and had this scenario planned out well ahead of time. The strike was fast, and the attacker’s two vehicles boxed him in. They outnumbered him six to one, and even though there was no audio, I’m sure they were shouting at him, confusing him even more. It’s an understatement to say that the victim was caught off guard.

What were his options?

First, let me say they are all terrible options except for the first one. I am not endorsing any of them because this ambush has many moving pieces. Training and skill will make a gigantic difference in what you might do. The victim had at most a couple of seconds to respond, and even then, his options were not good.

Option 1: Don’t stop there in the first place. Knowing what I know about the rise in crime in that area, I wouldn’t have stopped in that spot.

Option 2: When he hit the gas, he should have immediately gunned it and driven through the first car. He had a brief moment where he probably could have made it but I’m guessing he wasn’t mentally prepared to ram the front of the vehicle that was about to block him in. Get off the damn X and out of the kill zone whenever possible. If you are going to fight back, your primary goal is always to get away.

Option 3: Maybe, just maybe, if he had his firearm next to him, he could have gotten a couple of shots off to buy himself some additional time to escape.

Option 4: There was a brief window of opportunity to fight back or get away at around the 45-second mark while he was lying in the street.

Option 5: Fully cooperate and pray it’s not your day to die, which is what he did, and he got lucky.

Option 6: Get into a gunfight, but your odds of survival are slim against multiple armed individuals who have you boxed in.

This guy’s chances of survival were a roll of the dice, and it could have gone either way. The days of robbing someone and the thugs taking off are over. It seems to be happening more frequently where the criminals still beat or even kill someone even after the victim has given up their belongings.

Some people will say to always fully cooperate, and that’s a personal choice you have to make. Compliance, though, could also get you killed.

Survival is a mindset. It’s better to train and think of your options in advance than to wait until the day SHTF to try and figure it out.

The bad guys are learning, and the more they get away with this, the braver they get. Considering the current political climate, you’re fooling yourself if you think things will improve anytime soon. Now that no cash bail started in Illinois last week, it’s anybody’s guess what will happen next.

What would you have done?

Thanks, @CPD1617Scanner, for not one but two excellent videos this weekend.

Several suspects approached the 44-year-old victim, attempting to steal his car at gunpoint, at around 4 a.m. in the 100 block of West Van Buren Avenue, according to a statement by Chicago police.

During the gunfight with the suspects, the man suffered a gunshot wound to the right leg. After attacking him, they drove off in a black Dodge SUV, and no one has been arrested.

They brought the victim to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and the last report had him listed in critical condition.

This is one of a long list of self-defense shootings in the past couple of weeks in the Chicago area, including a rideshare driver yesterday and two more Illinois CCL related incidents earlier in the week.

Illinois gun owners lost another court case against the assault weapon ban in court on Thursday; nevertheless, there was another carjacking involving a firearm that WAS NOT an assault weapon.

They did not say if the victim had a concealed carry license (CCL) or FOID, which is mandatory in Illinois.