Articulation Wars Part II

Anonymous writes:

First, sorry for the anonymous, just don't have any of the id's that would allow me to leave my name and for what is likely a one off question, can't be bothered taking the time to create one.

Now,

"I pounce on that, talking back in Russian, introducing M, who speaks more than I do. The principal backs up. I close and reach out. He y-strikes me in the throat, starts to run,"

Okay, this may be one of those situations where the written word leaves open too much room for interpretation. Because when I read the above, all I thought was, 'A freaking throat strike as a preemptive when there has been no explicit threat you could prove?! So the guy goes down barely able to breath (won't always happen, just Devils advocate), the medics are called...Hell yeah you will need Art. You will need it coming out of your ass to justify what you just did!'

But, as I said, that was how I interpreted your description of the scenario, and I might be way, way off. Could you elaborate?

This is how I would articulate it from his point of view:"I'd got held over at work on a really big project and almost missed the train, so it was really late and I was waiting all alone for the very last train. Three guys came down to the platform. They were laughing and talking. It looked like they'd been drinking but I couldn't tell until they got closer, then I could smell it.
They saw me and they started moving closer. That wasn't normal, there was a lot of room on the platform and I didn't know them. I wasn't too worried because of the security cameras. Then they got closer and started asking questions, like what I was doing there. I didn't want to talk, didn't want to engage in a conversation so I held up my hands and told them to leave me alone. Sometimes I say it in a foreign accent, cause it makes the panhandlers leave you alone, right?But these guys acted all excited. They thought I was Russian and one of the guys said his friend was Polish and they really don't like Russians.
I still had my hands up and they got real close. I thought I might be able to talk my way out or run, but the other two spread out to each side. Then I realized the one in the middle had his face covered by his headwear and he wasn't afraid of the cameras. The guy in the middle who was doing all the talking and had his face hidden reached for me.
I stiff-armed him away and turned to run, but they'd backed me up right to the edge of the platform. I almost ran off right onto the rails. So I turned to run the other way which meant I had to run between them. The guy who said he was Polish got in my way and the one I stiff-armed jumped on my back. I tore away and got one kick in on the ring leader, but he just wrapped it up and took me down like some kind of UFC guy."
Question: Did you strike my client in the throat?"I may have. It was three on one and I was scared and I had no place to run. I just tried to stiff-arm him away. I didn't mean to hit him in the throat and I don't think I did because he got back in the fight too quickly. He's the one that jumped on my back and took me down."
This is why articulation is critical.One side says, "We were having a good time and trying to be nice to a stranger." If that is all that is said, it sounds pretty reasonable. Someone has to point out why it was unusual. As the bad guy, I pounced on the Russian-- it was a hook, a verbal mistake that could give me the justification to do what I had already decided to do.
The bad guys aren't going to say, "We spread out to make it hard for him to get to the exits without exposing his back." The good guys need to articulate it, explain why he couldn't safely get to the exits.
Generally, you justify a pre-emptive strike by explaining how using force early meant you would use less force. i can almost always solve problems at the pain-compliance or take-down level if I get a little surprise and move first. If I wait until the bad guy swings, someone is going to get injured. A pre-emptive move that prevents a likely injury or death is something that makes sense.
In this case, rather than minimizing the y-strike as a stiff-arm, you have to justify the deadly force: three guys, closing in, finding or manufacturing personal reasons to dislike you, not taking hints or instructions to back off... could you explain to a jury how that all added up to a likely mass stomping? And how the result of that stomping would have been deadly force in any case. Your death or serious physical injury, probably. By some miracle if you could fight off three, how many of them would be badly injured? Can you argue that one lethal pre-emptive strike prevented more deaths? That's the gold standard.
Part of this class, part of any Force class, has to include this concept:
"You will make these decisions in a fraction of a second on partial information. Some of these decisions will leave widows and orphans. You will make these decisions to fast for conscious thought and then you will be required to explain them as if they were the result of deliberate, conscious, rational judgement.
"You are good people, and if you are good people you will make a moral decision even subconsciously. If you have a will to survive, you will make a survival decision. If you are both, you will make a good decision.
The skill comes in explaining that good decision. Trust your ethics. Trust your will to survive. Trust your intuition. But practice explaining them."
There are exercises for training intuition and for bridging the gap between the conscious and subconscious mind and I really encourage everyone who makes force decisions to practice them.
One more note: I'm sorry if it seems manipulative or if this is more storytelling than reporting facts. You articulate your decision so that someone who wasn't there can understand and judge your decision. There will be an emotional element to someone trying to kill you, and the emotion will affect your decision and by rights it should be part of the story. There are little behavioral and communication clues that trigger your instincts and drive many fast critical decisions. They need to be moved up from subconscious to conscious in the explanation.