Defender Disarms Handgun Wielding Home Invader (link to video of fight)

The San Francisco Police Department has posted a video of a victim disarming an attacking home invader.  The invader is armed with what appears to be a black, compact, semi-automatic handgun.  As the screen shots show, the video has good resolution. 

Link to Video  1:33

The attack is sudden and by surprise.  The attacker runs in, knocking over the blue trash receptacle on the lower right of the screen shot.  The suspect is wearing a grey and black hoodie with grey pants.  The defender is wearing a mostly white shirt and dark blue pants.  

As the defender turns to face the threat, the attacker has the pistol in his left hand.  

The two men immediately start grappling for the pistol.   Self defense instructors will tell you, when faced with a weapon, your focus should be on the weapon, and that is what happens.

Early in the fight, you can see the pistol in the Attacker's left hand.   The fight continues for a minute and 20 seconds.  That is a long time in a hand to hand fight.   I did not see any elbow or knee strikes used by either party in the fight for the pistol.  The pistol is never fired, even though the Attacker seems to have his finger on the trigger.  

I suspect that there was no round in the chamber, although a misfire is another possibility.   It is unlikely that the pistol is a realistic looking replica, because the police have it in their possession, and they refer to it as a handgun.

After over a minute of grappling, the Defender gains the upper hand, and is able to take control of the handgun.  The Defender appears to have better aerobic conditioning.  At the point of disarm, he is on top of the Attacker, who is face down on the floor.  The Defender chooses to disengage, and makes a run for the garage door and the street, where he turns and points the pistol back toward the attacker.  His finger is on the trigger, and he may be attempting to fire the handgun.

The limited views of the pistol remind me of a Sig Sauer P250. 

There are other candidates, such as the Taurus Millenium.

Criminals are notorious for having handguns that do not work,  handguns that are not loaded, or for having the wrong ammunition.  In the recent Chicago study of armed criminals, the authors note that the criminals interviewed were ignorant of the technical aspects of firearms, and uninterested in learning about them.  From the study:

Still, it is interesting to note that the majority of respondents demonstrated little knowledge of firearms. Many of the comments by Rs demonstrated ignorance of the manner in which firearms function, the ammunition requirements and the capabilities of their weapon of choice. Rs never discussed safe handling or storage practices, nor did they mention efforts to improve their knowledge of the firearms they possessed.9

Has the shift to semi-automatic pistols improved public safety?  Revolvers are more intuitive to load and use.  Many people believe that simply inserting a magazine into a semi-automatic is sufficient to load it.  Others do not understand safeties, magazine disconnectors or the importance of being fully in battery.  Many have noted that eliminating inexpensive and unreliable handguns from the market may have resulted in more reliable arms in the hands of criminals.

The classic consideration of a disarm attempt requires an evaluation of the risk/benefit ratio.  In this case, the defender found himself in the middle of a fight as soon as he turned to see what was happening.  The video records his success.

The police are asking for help in finding the attacker.  They had not yet released a description, other than saying that they believe he has dreadlocks.  The lack of description is puzzling, as they posted the video so that the public could aid in locating the suspect.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.     Link to Gun Watch