Selco Survival Series | How to Survive Civil Unrest & Riots

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Selco Survival Series | How to Survive Civil Unrest & Riots

Daisy Luther 00:00

Hi everyone, this is Daisy Luther and I'm here with a Selco Begovic and Toby Cowern and we are going to discuss civil unrest and riots today. If you don't know Selco, he survived the Balkan War of the 1990s in a city under siege. He had no electricity, no running water, and no food distribution. In his online works he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn't, tells you the hard lessons he's learned and shares how he prepares today. He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war, and today you have a chance to learn from him as he shares the reality of surviving extreme civil unrest.

Daisy Luther 00:50

Our Co-Host Toby has an extensive background in the military, emergency services, risk management and business continuity, combined with applied wilderness and urban survival skills. Toby will help expand on personal safety insecurity and the crossover of military skills to the average citizen.

Daisy Luther 01:11

I'm Daisy, the founder and editor of the organic prepper website. I write about survival preparedness and the pursuit of Liberty. I'm author of 14 books, the mom of two daughters and I travel extensively. So let's just jump right in and discuss what causes civil unrest. The fact of the matter is the trigger for our current situation doesn't matter as much as some other common factors in times of civil unrest. This scenario has happened before and will happen again, the cast of characters change, but the pattern remains the same. Selco can you talk about the causes of civil unrest?

Selco 01:55

Thank you, Daisy. Yes, as you can see, here on these slides all of these blocks here are usually needed for riots to occur. So you can see that first you need a reason for rioting or outrage occurs. There's a reason why rioting happens. People protest that reason, people protest the outrage. Usually, actually, always you're going to have other people who dismiss the outrage and peaceful protests turn into the riots. Of course, always you're going to have people who will use the chance to loot and vandalize. Sooner or later depending on other factors, you will have law enforcement involved on some scale depending again of other factors.

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Selco 02:51

So all these blocks are kind of needed for Riots and it is easy to see understand these blocks now. You need to factor in this field in the middle: X Factor. X Factor can stand for a lot of things, and some of those things people usually do not pay attention to some of those things. Actually those things that goes under the X Factor can be the most important things that can actually develop future of riots and your future actually.

Selco 03:40

So, first you should monitor every and each of these blocks, because every change in each of these blocks will change whole situation or the solution of the rioting. So for example, you're going to have one of these blocks says there is a law enforcement gets heavily involved. A change in that block, for example, how law enforcement going to be involved will change whole situation. Law enforcement can be involved on peaceful way or it can be really heavily involved with violence and changing that block will change whole situation.

Selco 04:29

Now, to go back again to the X Factor, and these are few examples of X Factor. For example, X Factor can be unemployment rate in your region or your country where those riots happening. Why? Protests or riots happen not only because of that outrage, or immediate event or immediate reason. Protests can happen and can go in some direction because underlying things like unemployment rates. Or in other words, how people are satisfied with the overall situation and with their lives. So, that can affect how riots going to be. So, it's not only about outrage and about particular event it can be about in this case x factor or unemployment rate or general feeling in people about whole situation. That can affect, for example, how many people will go outside and how many people that go outside feel to be unsatisfied and willing to do violence, not only because of general feeling of unhappiness by also because of simple things like they want to eat.

Selco 06:10

Other example of X Factor is also very clear: the current political situation in your region or country can be that X factor that will determine the whole process of protests and riots. How situations already polarized in your region because of political situation and also do not forget things that are, let's call it kind of exotic, but they are always there. X Factor may be some forces that are foreign forces that want to steer the protest in some kind of direction by planting their groups that gonna do, for example, in some moments, some violence. And by that violence, they're going to change some of these blocks. For example block of how many people will choose violence after that and how much law enforcement going to be involved. So, foreign factor or foreign services even or terrorist group can use rioting to push things in a certain direction that work in their favor.

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Selco 07:38

Do not forget, there is always that factor of some kind of groups who want to use the rioting for some kind of their cause. And it doesn't have to be let's call it foreign factor. It can be domestic factor, that will want to use the protests for some of their agenda, Daisy.

Daisy Luther 08:05

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's a big self-perpetuating circle. It can just go on and on. So what are the signs that civil unrest may occur? Let's start with the early warnings.

Selco 08:22

Yes, early warnings are you can actually spot that signs and warnings long time before rioting erupt again. There are a few more most important one, for example, and I mentioned that already, if there is a sharp and polarized political situation in your country, that can be early signs. Sign that things are kind of boiling under the surface and eventually those things that are boiling going to erupt. Usual that eruption going to happen by some event like this event that you had over there.

Selco 09:21

So some events are immediate signs and immediate reasons for riots to happen. But early warnings and early signs happened a long time ago like maybe months ago. So as I said sharp and polarized political situation also is a sign that people simply losing hope in political representatives. Of course there's always going to be people that are kind of losing hope in their political representatives, but I'm talking about signs that happened more than usual. That It happened everywhere.

Selco 10:03

Then there is a bad political and economic situation, which we saw or see over there for months. For example, this whole Corona thing we could easily take that whole thing and put it into the early signs and early warnings that things are going to erupt in close future. Why? Because there's a whole bunch of people are worried. A whole bunch of people are losing hope in not only health system, but in system or the whole system. And of course, there is a huge number of people that lost their jobs, and they actually lost their economic stability. So, you just add that to the early warnings that situation is slowly boiling under the surface.

Selco 11:07

There is also one more sign. And those signs can go in immediate signs that unrest is imminent. Whenever you have that event that is so massively shared on all social networks like this event, by that you are getting people let's say emotionalized on a very huge, very huge numbers and on a very fast way. So that can be a sign that some eruption is imminent. Daisy...

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Daisy Luther 12:06

So let's talk a little bit about your personal survival philosophy as it relates to protests in your area.

Selco 12:19

Yes, there is a kind of thing in prepper movement or among survivalists that they tend to prep for a particular event on particular way. It can be good to some, it can be good when it comes to some details. But here's the point, preparing for wild protests or rioting in essence, and in concept should not be different than preparing for any other SHTF event. Basically it is event like any other event that you should be prepared for, unless we are talking about some particular details.

Selco 13:13

So think about it, but do not get mesmerized so much about some particular event and in order to prepare particularly for that event. Think about whole concept and prepare for concept of SHTF event. Why am I saying this? There's obviously a clear reason for this. If you are preparing only for a few events, particularly for those few events, you will usually forget the basics and the concept and you will forget something. Because for example, for whatever event you are preparing for, you should be ready to prepare for disruption of society and also if you are talking about details, you should be prepared to have some kind of protective breathing equipment. It is really a matter of what kind of event we are talking about.

Daisy Luther 14:14

One of the quotes that you guys talk about a lot is this one from Rory Miller's book, "Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected." The quote is, "It is better to avoid than to run, better to run than to de-escalate, better to de-escalate than to fight, and better to fight than to die." Can you go over those strategies just a little bit?

Selco 14:44

Yes, of course. That sentence and this strategy are there so you can make concept yourself working with any violence situation. And in reality, it goes like that. So how it works is very simple. You go by these steps, and these steps following a very logical, let's say pattern. So, you should always, always choose to avoid a violent situation or avoid problem. Why? Because it is easiest way. You don't risk anything you just avoid and that's it. If you cannot avoid, you should choose to run. There is a whole bunch of discussion about this "run" step, and at the end, in reality it always comes down to simple and very effective truth. It is always better to run than to be killed or harmed.

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Selco 15:59

Think about your pride or ego or whatever later. We are talking here now about survival, not about those things. To de-escalate of course, it is better to de-escalate situation or things than to fight. Why? Because by choosing to de-escalate, you are not taking chance to get injured or killed while fighting. Now there's the step to fight. When you choose this step of fighting, you have to fight to the definitive solution. For each of these steps there is no half solution, usually half solution will get you in trouble. So again, this step fight, you will you have to fight to the most definitive solution, because if you choose to fight, you cannot in the middle of fight choose to avoid. Because it's not working that way. If you choose to fight you will fight.

Selco 17:14

There is also one sentence and clear thought that you need to carry with you all the time. You should not run away from danger blindly. You should run to the safety because people usually make mistake by running away from the danger without clear plan or without anything. Then they are run to the next even greater danger. Keep in mind that you should run toward safety. It should be clear like that.

Daisy Luther 18:08

So let's talk about what turns a peaceful protest into a riot.

Selco 18:16

Yes, we have: event, response, duration, and x factors. We mentioned some of these of course. You need to understand first that all these factors are fluid. They will not be same all the time and the extent of each of these steps is not same all the time. So whole situation is fluid and you need to monitor that situation all the time.

Selco 18:50

EVENT: Event alone that that turns protests into the riot is important. For us it is important from the point of was that event a lone violent event? For example, in this case, in this riots that we are talking about particular event in US event alone was a very, very violent event. So, you can expect that whole process going to be actually rioting and violent event because in essence it is a response to that particular violent event.

Selco 19:38

RESPONSE: Response is also based on event alone, but also on response of the system to that event. So, for example, you have violent event, you have people outside of the streets and then it is a matter of how violent or what kind of response system going to give to that situation of people being outside on the streets. Is the system going to bring a police force out on the street just as a matter of containing the event to the to the particular region. Or is it going to be

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more active response to the people outside on the street that want to bring or take people out of the streets. So that complicated things more.

Selco 20:45

DURATION: Duration of event. There is something that you can call force of the people out on the streets. There is an immediate force of people being out on the streets. Let's say people are responding to the violent event or went immediately out on the street and started to riot and loot stores and do violence and everything similar. Then, for example, that event can go, that violence can go down. But still you're going to have people on street. Then a thing that I call cumulative force of people jumping. In other words, if you have a huge number of people out in the streets, they don't even have to be violent. Pure, sheer force of huge number of people out on the streets peacefully, visually demanding things to be changed can bring in that change. Now that change again can be violent at the end.

Selco 22:07

My point here is that you don't have to have unnecessary violent people on street. If you have huge number of people outside for a long enough time, that alone can change things, not necessarily in better direction, it can change things in worse direction.

Selco 22:33

X-FACTORS: As I already mentioned, X factors. We can point to here as also this, you can ask yourself, who want to escalate teams, for example, again? And why? Maybe you can spot that X-Factor that is not visible immediately. If you just think for a moment, who wants to escalate things, and why? By doing that, you can uncover some side or some factor or some even political option. You can realize those guys are actual X-Factor, and they have that reason to escalate things into the riots.

Daisy Luther 23:32

Excellent. Now you were talking before about the first step being running. So let's talk then about just that. So bugging out would be one form of running from danger. What are the signs that the situation is becoming one where you should leave?

Selco 23:57

Yes, so go back to the concepts, which are the easiest way for you to memorize things and also to implement that things in reality. So, what are the signs that you should leave? Clearly signs that you should leave is that things are getting into the direction when there is no system, when there is a system is not capable to take care about things anymore. And also when that mass of people outside rioting or realizing why this is important. I already mentioned that response from the system can be planned to go a certain way.

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Selco 25:00

If you are living in city and the rioting happening in your surroundings closer or not so close, our system can decide by law enforcement to just contain that rioting and not interfere. In reality that can mean that system is still there. Of course police force is still there, but they are not involved in particular situation close to you. They are involved in a way that they are containing the event. You may find yourself with your home for example, inside that let's call it containing zone. So, yes system is still there but system is temporary move out from that region, in order to contain that event only to that region.

Selco 26:02

What I trying to say here you can see the system is still there of course, but on the other side system is not there in your particular region. So, in this example you should leave before that because you should support the fact that system is still there, but it actually is not there in your region. You should leave when you still have time to leave and particular event is not get involved in your particular area. Now, on the other side, when that event is so close to you that there is a greater risk of moving then bugging in, that's the moment when you are too late to leave. At that moment you are choosing to stay at your place because obviously there is a greater risk of moving than not moving. So you choose not to move you choose to watch. Let's call it a bargain and take your chances. Does this make sense?

Daisy Luther 27:22

Yes, it definitely does. Now, Toby had something he wanted to add to the slide too.

Toby 27:37

Wonderful. So the point I just wanted to add here is a lot of the works Selco and I do is just to kind of clarify phraseology and understandings, because certain words are used throughout the prepper sphere. And sometimes they're kind of almost misused or misapplied. So at the very start of this slide Daisy you were basing it to the bug out scenario. And for most people, on an almost subconscious level the whole bug out is this very kind of permanent decision. Like, you know, I'm going basically never to come back again. And that's not what bugging out actually is. Bugging out is just that informed decision to leave an area, ideally with enough time to ensure your safety and you know, methodically be able to move out.

Toby 28:20

So, let's rethink the phrase bugging out in terms of that can be a very temporary decision. Literally, just for a few hours, an afternoon, an overnight or just for a weekend with the absolute intention of coming back again. So don't let these phrases kind of hang you up. If you think, "Oh we're making this decision to bug out, okay, like we're never coming back here," that's not what it's about at all. A bug out is just as I said that informed decision to acknowledge a risk is getting too close for comfort. And this would be exactly in a sort of

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hurricane or extreme weather event. Let's leave the area, wait for the danger to pass and then come back in again. That was just the point I wanted to raise.

Daisy Luther 28:58

Yeah, that's a very good point, definitely. Okay, Selco. Did you have anything to add to the slide about how to know when you've waited too long to leave? Or are we good?

Selco 29:12

I think we are good.

Daisy Luther 29:16

All right now let's talk about preparing for the potential of civil unrest. Selco, do you have some advice?

Selco 29:25

Yes. As already said, preparing for the potential of civil unrest should not be too different from preparing for any particular SHTF events as we see here. Stock extra supplies and have in your home a developed communication plan with your family and at the end don't forget your pets. Each of these steps are nothing different from basic survival or from basic prepping for any other event. Yes you can point out there are some differences, but those differences go to the details. So again do not get too mesmerized to the particular event, otherwise you are probably going to make some kind of mistake at each step. Toby, I would like you to add some extra things. Thank you.

Toby 30:53

Wonderful. So just to go through sequentially for the stock extra supplies. If we're looking specifically at civil unrest now as Selco said, you know if your general preparedness plan is good, is general, is broad, you shouldn't be doing anything specifically extra. But of course, there's always some small points we can look at.

Toby 31:11

So in the potential of Civil Unrest, the extra supplies you may want to focus on are the businesses most likely to be closed down, looted, or affected by the actual unrest that's happening. And we've followed the events now, throughout the world, and especially in the US to see what businesses are going to be targeted. So if you need to shop at those businesses, you know, it's recommended you stockpile in advance the things you need.

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Toby 31:40

Hardening your home needs to be done methodically and logically. But the one thing I will say and this could be an entire webinar of its own, if I'm honest with you, looking at the defense in depth principles, but don't harden your home to the extent you can't escape it. There is such a thing as over fortification. You know, you basically lock yourself in so comprehensively, if you need to escape, you basically can't. And given the risk of fire being used as a weapon in civil unrest scenarios, depending on the nature of the construction of your house, you know, boarding yourself in, there might be one of the most dangerous things that you actually do. So, harden your home by all means, but always ensure that you've got exit routes planned and available.

Toby 32:22

Developing a communication plan with your family is very often overlooked and a significant problem if you do so. Because what we're alleging here is if the communication networks get shut down, and we're aware since 2007, on the back of the London City bombings, when the entire city's wireless network got shut down by government level, that is a capability that is hardwired into the infrastructure throughout the entire world. So we must think on alternative communication plans and that's largely going to be preset rendezvous. Letting your family and loved ones know, if for some reason we don't have a communication method, we need to be here at this time in this manner.

Toby 33:05

And of course, then have alternate fallback plans, alternative rendezvous or whatever the case may be. Now, what's most important about that is less about the plan, more the fact that that plan has been clearly communicated well in advance, and is understood by all the people that are going to be affected by that plan, or by all the people that will be using that plan. So make sure everybody's incorporated into that. And if it needs to be done, even a dress rehearsal. We always actually recommend that, given the nature and the timescale of the event you're into, if you've got time to dress rehearse, or plan more than DO SO. Don't forget your pets. Daisy, We're going to put that one back to you because you've got some specific points you want to raise on that.

Daisy Luther 33:45

Yes, during the Ferguson riots, there were some home invasions and some of the ways that people got others to open the door was someone had let their dog out to go to the bathroom. And some people grabbed the dog and we're hurting the dog to get the people inside to open up and let them in so that they could save their pet. So if there is a really drastic situation going on in your area, you really want to maintain control of your pets. Don't just let the dog go run around the backyard. If he's got to do business, put him on his leash, do it as close to the house as possible and get back inside.

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Daisy Luther 34:28

Also, you're going to want to have a place to bug out to where your pets are going to be welcome. You do not want to leave them at home in a situation where your home could catch on fire potentially. So plan well in advance where you can go where you can take your pets with you. And at the end of this presentation, I've got an email address where you can drop us a line and we'll send you a copy of the Civil Unrest Chapter of one of my books and it's got some checklists, and some things to remember and some more specific information about the things you may want to stock. Okay, so talking about that communication plan, what if you're away from home when everything starts going crazy? Selco, can you give us some advice on that?

Selco 35:25

Of course, people do make mistakes usually here on these steps because they are again, thinking too much that they need to go home. I would rephrase that. And so what should you do if you are away from home and chaos erupts. You should go to safety. If your home in that moment is not a safety, you are not going there. You should not go there. Now again, we are going back to the point that if you should, if your home is safety, how should you go there? If you really have to go at home.

Selco 36:13

First step here is very obvious. You really need to know your surroundings in order to know how to get home safely. What does that mean? You need to know not only way home that you usually use of course, because that road or way home can be obstructed because of many reasons. So you need to know alternate way home. Actually, you need to know multiple ways home. And of course, I need to mention here that you need to know the ways home not only by using your electronic devices as help. You need to factor in that your electronic devices will not work from because of some reasons, You need to go back to the basics about orienting in your surroundings.

Selco 37:29

Now, you need to know ways home, but you also need to check the roads to your home before any kind of these events happen, because being in middle of violent events like rioting is not good. Good timing to check all the roads or ways would be in normal times, or in let's say peaceful times. Also important thing here even if you have checked and pre checked and memorize all of that ways home and everything, always keep in mind that rioting is very fluid situation. So if some place or intersection is safe now it doesn't mean that it is going to be safe for you in a half hour or in . It is very fluid minutes. Situations and things change a lot.


Selco 38:54

One more thing that you can do today is sit in your car and drive through all of that roads and ways or walk and memorize and check what kind of let's call it interesting or dangerous points are there. For example in the rioting, they are shopping malls, there are police stations, there are gas stations. So you can conclude what kind of places that are going to be interesting for protesters or interesting for police force, and in other words dangerous for you. One more thing, very important. You need to have clear communication plan with your family. So for example, if you find yourself at your job or workplace and your family member or spouse, for example, is at her workplace or at home ( doesn't really matter at this point) you need to have clear plan. What you are going to do in case of that particular event. Where you are going to meet each other or where are you going in that moment? You need to factor in the possibility that you cannot reach that person. So, you need to have a plan in place where you're going for example, to meet and of course, ultimate place of meeting. Keep in mind that there is possibility you will not be able to reach anyone on cell phone and the possibility of your first your meeting place or meeting point of first choice is going to be compromise for whatever reason. So there is need for alternate place. Do you have anything to add here at this place?

Daisy Luther 41:11

Yes, actually Toby does too. So I'm gonna let Toby go first, and then I will add a little bit of my information.

Toby 41:19

Yes, thank you so much. I just want to expand a little bit on the last point that Selco raised there about not only the communication plan, but potentially being able to unable to access sort of spouses or extended family. Now that might be you know, the the civil disorder is between you and them, you just can't talk with their location. But we also have to acknowledge that workplaces and especially schools, and education centers will have their own policies on how they're going to deal with things as well. And very often, a lot of those policies are going to look at lockdown. So they're just basically going to advise everybody to shelter in place, to get themselves into locations as secure as possible on the campus.

Toby 41:59

And if they are private security or similar, they'll basically sort of stand to, and ensure no one can get in, but equally, no one's going to go out. So depending on the nature of the workplace, that your family members were in or the education establishment, you need to know that and you need to know that in advance. Imagine you've put in all of that effort to actually get to your son or daughter's school, and then when you get there is a guard on the gate saying, "Well, you know, there's just no way we're letting you in, or letting them out, regardless. " So this is definitely something to research and know in advance. We'd like to think if you're already into preparedness that you've done that but it's just a timely reminder to look, not just in terms of siblings, or children, but also in the workplace policy.


Toby 42:47

I know certainly my wife's workplace they have a number of justifications for lockdown, and it's an automated system. They have an electronic tag card to scan through in and out of automatic locks, and those will just get shut down. So even if you've got that card, we've got authorization, all those authorizations are temporarily suspended by the administrator of the system. And this is a sort of reinforced building with quadruple glazing. So don't just think you're opening a window and jumping out. If they've locked down in there, you're staying in there. And it's pretty much that simple, unfortunately. So, just again, what we do is use the phrase interrogate the system, like ask those relevant questions to those establishments so you understand what the situation actually is. Thank you so much.

Daisy Luther 43:36

And I just wanted to talk for a minute about where to get local information that might be valuable in planning your routes in seeing how close the crowd is getting to you. And and seeing if whether or not you're actually going to be able to go home. I have three different sources that I use. First, I use Google News. I know everybody hates Google, but if you go on to Google News and type your city or neighborhood into the search bar at the top of Google News, you're going to get the most up to date reports in your local media. Now, that can be a really good source, you can see that, oh, at this courthouse, there's there's a protest plan.So I want to make my route well around the area of that courthouse, or there are protesters at such and such mall, and they've had to close down Walmart and the main entrance to the mall. So that's a great place to get some news.

Daisy Luther 44:36

Another good place to get local information is Twitter. Now you have to be careful with Twitter because there's also a lot of misinformation on there. But you can often get a good idea by again in the search bar typing in the name of your city or neighborhood or general location and see what people are tweeting when you go on their clicks. Latest, once it starts pulling up your search, then click latest and see what everybody is talking about right now. If you see 20 different tweets from 20 different people saying, you know, all heck is breaking loose at Walmart, you can probably count on the fact that all heck is breaking loose at Walmart. And that's an area you want to avoid.

Daisy Luther 45:21

And then the third place I want to mention is online. There's a website called broadcastify, and you can type in to your search engine, whatever you use, broadcastify the name of your city police scanner. So you can do that. And then you can be listening in on police scanners. And that's a third way to get some local information about what's going on. Okay, so now we've covered that. Now what If you are trying to get home or you're you know trying to leave work and you just so happen to get yourself into a situation where an angry mob surround your car?

https://www.broadcastify.com/


Selco 46:19

Yes, I can put my perspective here on this but my perspective on this is bit different because I went through different events and use this, "How can I go through angry mob with my car?" So Toby, can you please start with this and I can at the end, I can add my perspective about this.

Toby 46:54

There are effectively three critical factors to consider when making your decision that you're going to want to be aware of or be mindful for. And that is going to be your vehicle and its specifications, the environment you find yourself in, and quite simply, who's in the vehicle with you, you're your passenger. So let's just break those down a little bit more detail.

Toby 47:19

VEHICLE: What's its capabilities? Have you got a raised four wheel drive, kind of SUV that can handle changes in terrain quite easily, then you've got yourself a lot of different options in what you can drive in, around through and over. Whereas if you've got a very small, very light, very low sitting car, that might not even be able to mount the curb without bottoming out and getting you stuck there. Also, factor in your ability as the driver, you know, don't think in the middle of a violent rioting situation, your driving abilities suddenly going to miraculously improve. If anything it is going to deteriorate massively.

Toby 48:00

So depending on your level of experience, your level of exposure, your level of training is always going to influence how well you're going to be able to maneuver that vehicle. If you're used to just jumping in the car, coffee in one hand, stick it in drive, put on the stereo, and that's the limit of challenging you're driving, you're not suddenly going to get the ability to tactically exfiltrate in reverse at high speed whilst firing on a crowd pursuing you. You're gonna have to put in serious amounts of training for that. So the vehicle, its actual type and your ability to control it is the first thing for us to consider.

Toby 48:36

ENVIRONMENT: Quite simply, what we're addressing here is how much room do you have to maneuver. We need to be a little bit unconventional in our thinking when we say room. Obviously, there's a huge amount of laws and governance around roadways, you know, signs, lanes, barriers, and that's for use for good traffic order and good sensibility in normal times. What I need to think in an emergency is what can I drive on? Can I mount the curb? Can I get on the sidewalk? Is there a green space directly in front of me that I can drive over and escape through? I don't want to confine myself or constrain myself to kind of the regular way of driving and following traffic laws that at the end of the day has the potential to escalate up to a life threatening situation. And therefore you should be using all means necessary to extricate yourself and your passengers from that situation.


Toby 49:27

So think very unconventionally. And that's something you can put into practice today. I'm not endorsing you go crazy when you're driving, but you can as you drive around your regular neighborhood cityscape, just start to look and think, "Okay, if I got stuck here, what are my actual options to escape in terms of driving?" Think a little bit unconventionally. Could I cross across the center reservation onto the opposite side of the road and drive safely there? Could I mount that curb? Is there a different way? Now of course, the narrower the streets, the closer the buildings are to the street will also influence your ability to maneuver. You're not going to try and tire up and turn a car around, if it's going to be like, you know, a 27 point maneuver to do that effectively now you choose in between forward reverse. Obviously, if it's like a six lane freeway, you've got the option to kind of just do a big U turn and, you know, avoid whatever problems emerging in front of you.

Toby 50:24

PASSENGERS: If it's you, your spouse, and three small children in the car, you should really not want to be advancing into any bad situation anyway. In fact, across the board, you shouldn't want to advance into a bad situation anyway. But of course, if it's just you on your own, or if it's you, and a capable friend, you know, your risk appetite is going to change depending. Now, one of the other things I'll highlight is in these times, especially looking connected to the pandemic now, you may have ill people or infirm or elderly relatives staying with you, or you're transporting them around more than normal.

Toby 51:04

So this isn't now a case of, you know, mom, dad, jump out the car and grab a kid each and run off. If you've got elderly, infirm sick people with you that they're not going to have to move if the vehicle gets compromised. You obviously should be far, far less willing to increase your level of risk and exposure by those means alone. And also their ability to react and or help the situation. I'll give you one example my daughter, she's coming up to 15 now, and for the last four years, she has been trained highly on where to sit in the vehicle, and she's got her own set of mirrors so she can actually give me reference points and information. So if my eyes are always forward whilst driving, she will actually know to look right, left, and rear a vehicle and let me know what's happening. And we rehearse that very often, just sitting at traffic lights or just generally driving and I'll ask her, something about what's happening at the rear of the vehicle, and I'll expect it to be very quickly communicated information effectively to me.

Toby 52:01

Same with my wife as well. We've been in situations where my wife's actually carrying as the passenger the primary armament, and she will react to any perceived threat. For instance, when we're down in South Africa for some time, and I will just focus on driving the vehicle. I'm not going to try to react and respond to the threat and drive the vehicle at the same time unless I'm using the vehicle as a weapon. That takes us through to next point how to get through a group of people, your primary tool, your primary weapon in this situation is the fact you're


actually in a vehicle and you have a car, and even the smallest lightest of vehicles is you know, it's going to outmuscle a number of people.

Toby 52:37

But of course, there comes a point when the vehicle itself can get overwhelmed. Actually, typically what happens you find is the mentality of the driver will be overwhelmed way before the capability of the vehicle is. So of course we see footage out there of people slamming things in reverse. I'm not a particular fan of that unless you're pretty confident your driving ability because if you don't drive well forward you are definitely not going to drive well backwards. But if you've got a clear way to back out, obviously back out the first instance. If I'm going to keep going forward, I'm going to keep it at a slow sensible speed. I'm not going to accelerate to 120 miles an hour and try and blast through that crowd because I just quite simply don't know what's on the other side of them. I need to give myself that reaction time. So as the crowd starts to clear, or basically as the body's kind of bounce off the front of the vehicle, I can still react to anything that's occurring in front of me as I move through those people.

Toby 53:27

Also, in a legal perspective, you know, you're going to be answerable for whatever you do in your situation at some point. I think if the footage shows you accelerating aggressively towards the crowd, it's going to play out very differently in court then if you you just maintain a faster than walking speed or low speed consistently, you know, flashing lights beeping horn, just trying to push through that crowd. Taking evasive maneuvers where you can but giving them the time to move out the way is going to be far more able to articulate in a court of law as to your intentions what you do with your actions. Which was basically to preserve your own safety and escape from the situation.

Toby 54:03

And in extremists you know, you do whatever you need to get out of there. As I said, previously, you are looking at this escalating into certainly fearing for your life or a threat to your life situation. Now, that's a lot to consider. And you're going to need to, if nothing else, mentally rehearse this, ideally dress rehearse this in advance. Now we're back to what Ive already quoted that it's better to avoid in the first instance. So if you think there's trouble out there, just avoid it. Don't out of curiosity, drive downtown and kick around and see, you know what you can see, just don't be there. If you are in those troublesome areas, keep your speed at a drive at a speed where you basically have good observation on the road ahead. And if you're unsure of what's happening, stop and observe.

Toby 54:59

If you find yourself surrounded by a crowd, you've actually done quite a lot of the work to get yourself in that situation at that point, okay? So you need to do as much work to get out of it.


When to abandon your vehicle? Basically, in my mind is there's only two reasons when you're out forced. So somebody's literally putting a gun to your head and saying, "Get out of the vehicle," then just comply and get out. Unless you feel that you can disarm that person and drive off, I think you're kind of caught on that one. But that's an individual judgment call. The other thing is if the vehicle becomes disabled as in completely undriveable, you've bottomed it out, it's stalled, you know, some mechanical failure.

Toby 55:44

And then we're back to that point of, you need to get out of there and don't run away from danger, but to run towards safety. So you need to think about how you're extricating your vehicle and where you're moving immediately to and how you're guiding your passengers in that process, as well. That's quite a lot to think about. The advantage with this recording is, of course, you've got the ability to pause, go back and relisten to any parts you want to. So, its probably going to bear listening to a couple of times and getting the notepads out and just really putting yourself, in your own min, in your own context of how and when you might use this information. Selco I'm going to hand back to you now.

Selco 56:27

Thank you very much, Toby. There is a reason why Toby, took this part, my experiences about this are quite different than the knowledge that you should have for this particular event. For example, my experience with this was that we simply, in my time would use anything to shield a car for it was usually sewage covers. Steel covers to shield the car from the direction where fire shots were coming and we were armed and actually yes, our vehicle was our weapon. But you need to keep in mind fact that we are talking here a lot about complete absence of the system, you cannot solve situation over there with a solution that is much worse than the problem. It is not a situation with complete absence of law and system. So you cannot go with that clear way of violence immediately. Daisy...

Daisy Luther 57:47

Yeah, this is a situation you definitely want to avoid getting into at all costs. And just a reminder of that Rory Miller quote, "It is better to avoid then to run, better to run than to de-escalate, better to de-escalate than to fight, and better to fight than to die." And that applies to every single scenario that we're discussing today. Okay, so next scenario: What if you're on foot Selco, how do you get from A to B?

Selco 58:22

First step that you need to adopt is what kind and how much actually information you are giving up by your stand, by your look to that people or crowd on the other side. What I'm trying to say here is if you have a huge number of people in particular emotional state and violent state, also violent situation, even by some small thing you can get yourself into a position of great danger. For example, what kind of jacket or hat you are wearing or how do you look?


You can in a split second become a target to that violent group of people. So that's first step: think about what kind of information you are giving up by your look and your acting to that group of people who are rioting.

Selco 59:39

Second, if you cannot avoid that crowd , most stupid thing is just to run blindly, like usually in that situation. If you blindly just run, you are putting a target on yourself. And this goes much into the topic of mentality of mob. That mob or violent group of people, that whole situation is very fluid. If you are acting, looking and in this case acting different than them, if you are running away from them blindly, clearly you are giving a reason to them to chase you. To do violence on you, and that's it. So do not take that blind step. It is not avoiding. Avoiding is not blindly running from them clearly and so visible.

Selco 1:00:58

Next step, if you cannot avoid them, obviously you need to join them. What's that mean? If you cannot avoid them, you need to join them in order not to become a target or not to become different from them. Actually that will make target of you. So you need to join them. That doesn't mean that you need to join them and do violence like them to look like them and stuff like that. You'll need to join that mass in order let's say to become invisible to them or in order to become like them. So, you are avoiding being target.

Selco 1:01:39

How are you going to do that? First never go into the center of that mass because by doing that, you are usually going to lose your mobility. And not only that, but it is also dangerous to be in central to mass because that whole mass can move rapidly based on events that are happening to that mass. Second do not go on the face of event. If that group or mass of people, for example is looting stores or clashing with the police do not go in front of that mass. When that event or events are happening, always try to circle the mass or to be in that mass by being on the outside circle of the mass. Use that mass and that circle to go around them and then simply go away from the mass or lose the mass. Usually that's going to be in the time when something is happening in front of the mass. When whole mass is attracted with that events again, looting, clashing with police or doing something that take their whole attention to the other side, you are going to circle them and simply lose the mass, and that's it. So never go in center to the mass, never go in front of the mass when when things are happening, circle them, circle them slowly or go with the flow. Otherwise do not go in other direction if whole mass is going in one direction do not go blindly in other direction. You are not going to make it. Daisy...

Daisy Luther 1:03:49

Those are some really good points. Here in the US right now, it's almost tribal, the way you dress, or the bumper stickers you might have, or the T shirt you might be wearing, or the


baseball cap you might have on. So just be really careful when the scenario is tense not to wear anything that gives out too much information about you. And really that's regardless of which side of the argument your apparel might be on. So now let's talk about how to protect your home and family. Let's say that you know the protests and riots are nearby what should you do then Selco?

Selco 1:04:41

Well first step here is to understand that point of survival is to survive. To stay alive. Your first step should not be taking care about your things or taking care about your, your house for example, you need to put your own survival and survival of your family at the first place. I saw many people getting injured and killed because they are put on the first place their stuff, their things, house, cars, money, jewelry, whatever. If you're staying alive, you can get things again. If you are dead and gone, things are not important anymore. So try to adopt a philosophy of just deleting things if situation gets so bad.

Selco 1:05:56

That's the first and obvious mistake why people get injured, because there is that philosophy of, "I will protect my home, whatever happens." You shouldn't do that. If you judge that things are so bad that your life is in danger, just leave. Leave on time. And that's it. Again, how to judge or whether you miss your opportunity to leave. I already mentioned that there should be a clear decision and clear judgment when there is more risk of leaving than to staying. Let's say if these riots are already outside in front of your house, outside on the streets, on your street, there are people there and you simply cannot, cannot safely run. You cannot go to that mass of people or any safe way. On that moment you are choosing to take your chances and to stay at home. But you are choosing that not based on things that you have at home. You're choosing that not based on philosophy that you want to save your things, to save your furniture, your appliances, whatever. No, you are choosing that based on the fact that it is safer to stay home than to go out and try to get away from that mass of people. Be sure based on what you are making that decision.

Selco 1:08:00

Fighting fires, I will ask Toby to tell you a bit about this topic of fighting fires.

Toby 1:08:09

Thank you Selco. Just for you listeners to understand why Selco asked me on this is one of my jobs is I actually work as an on-call firefighter. I’ve done so for the last 10 years now. So firefighting is something I was specifically well trained in, shall we say. So, a number of things to consider here. First thing I would say is going to be the construction of your residence. So what's your home actually made of? And what's the layout like? Are you in standalone building or an apartment in a larger block, or whatever the case may be? Here in Sweden, many, many houses are constructed from wood and older houses actually insulated with sawdust. So we're


all about fire prevention because if a fire catches in a house here, really in less than 10 minutes a three story large holding house will burn complete to the ground because it's tinder dry and is made of the perfect tools to burn. You may be in a similar situation, or you may be different. So first of all look at the actual construction and the impact fire risk is going to have. And again, if you're into preparedness, we'd like to think you've already looked at these things and conducted a fire safety plan.

Toby 1:09:18

Second thing, if you're worried about fires, you're going to need the means to fight the initial fire. So you think in terms of the small fire extinguishers or fire blankets that are very easily available nowadays, and particularly well priced, in most western countries. But again, you must have not only the equipment, but the means and the knowledge to use it. So take a minute to you know, look at the instructions or look at the online demonstration videos. They're not that expensive, I'd buy a couple $10-$12 extinguishers. I'd just let one off, allow the whole family to have a go releasing it, just to know how it actually works.

Toby 1:09:54

Now, if a fire does actually occur, of course early identification and early action is essential, but this is a really serious risk. So what I would say is, you know, if you're not feeling confident about fighting this fire, then don't. Your priority at this stage is evacuation, timely evacuation and communication and getting everybody out. But let's just say you're going to go forward and fight the fire. A cardinal rule you're going to want to follow is not letting the fire come between you and your exit. So you're always going to want to make sure that your situationally aware and you are positionally aware, within your residence that you've always got the means to exit.

Toby 1:10:32

Now, ventilation is going to be one of those key problems to deal with. So if doors and windows are open, that's just gonna exacerbate the fire. The more oxygen supply going to it, the quicker the fire is going to spread or catch. So you're going to want to shut down those causes of ventilation as quickly and as safely as you can. But then we're leading to our problem that the vast majority of fatalities with fire is actually through smoke inhalation than it is to actual damage by the fire. You know, what I would say is when people are getting burned, they are normally dead already. So that ventilation is a very fine balance between being able to deny the oxygen to the fireballs to extinguish it. But then also making sure you don't get yourself in a compromising situation.

Toby 1:11:12

So really, we should be looking at the domestic scene that you're going to be fighting very small fires at the outset. But once it’s taken to a certain size, and you know, if it's too hot for you to stand close enough to extinguish it, then you're just not going to even try. What you're going to do as you leave is close the doors and windows to the best of your ability to hopefully


contain that fire. Because most buildings nowadays, modern constructions work on what's called a fire cell principle. So it contains the fire, so you have 30 minutes to two hours, without allowing it to burn through to the next area of the residence. So you're buying your cells and potentially other people time by enclosing that fire as you leave.

Toby 1:11:50

Now, in all this, regardless of the situation, I would always recommend you call the emergency services even if you're "sure" they're not going to come. That might be the case. But it's going to be a heck of a lot easier to deal with the insurers on the back of this, when you can articulate you did try to communicate with the Fire Department your need of services and that didn't come. More than, you know, you basically let your house burn down and you didn't even call 911 or 112, or 999, or whatever the appropriate service number is where you live. So and that's all of course, discoverable in the court, as claims goes through and different things like that. So you're going to want to call on emergency services absolutely as early as possible as you can. And you know, fingers crossed, we would hope that the emergency services, especially the fire department, should always make a strenuous effort to get to a location and assist in this challenging situation.

Toby 1:12:43

So, having the means to fight the fire, being aware of the fires location, denying as much oxygen to the fire as possible, while still ensuring your personal safety, and then enclosing the fire. So even if you think you've put the fire out, you're going to want to close all the doors and windows going into that room. Now here's the kicker in the specifics that we're looking at in terms of civil disorder. If fire is present in your residences its probably because you're being actively targeted. And if that's the case, you know, you literally might put out one fire and more fires are just going to get started. It depends very much on the nature of the threat.

Toby 1:13:16

But don't just think it's like a one-time thing. Oh, you know, the petrol bomb got thrown up the window and I put it out. If, you know, you got one petrol bomb thrown up against your property, there's probably more coming. And then you've got to assess the overall situation. And as Selco said previously, if it's more dangerous to stay then to leave, then your option is to leave, you know, get towards safety. And your premise quite simply, at that point in time isn't necessarily safe, unless you've got exceptional amounts of fire proofing and fire suppression in place already. I will hand it back to Selco now.


Actually, I'm going to jump in here for one second. A lot of people right now are discovering that their homeowner's insurance does not cover damage caused by riots and civil unrest. So it's a really good idea, now before anything else happens, to check with your insurance company to see if your home is covered during events of civil unrest. And if it's not how much it


would cost to get a terrorism writer on your insurance policy. I believe that is what they are classifying damage to homes and businesses during riots. They're calling it terrorism. So just take a minute, call your insurance company, and see what your coverage is. You want to make sure that you're going to be covered.

Selco 1:14:54

SAFE ROOMS: It is very hard or almost impossible to talk about safe rooms without putting it into the concept. So, let me put like this: safe rooms? Yes of course, why not? They are great, but then again, you need to put those safe rooms into the concept of event and your particular situation that is unfolding around you like that. Let me put it like this, what kind of event is happening around you? Is system still available around you? And for how long that event is probably going to happen around you to unfold around you?

Selco 1:15:47

Why? There is a very good reason for this very simply based on the amount of time needed for help to come based on that there is a difference between is it safe room or trap? And it is simple again, if you need to take your chances in safe room for 20 minutes until help arrives it can be that safe room. If you need to wait for three days until help arrives because system is completely out of the scene in your particular region. And there is a there is a violent mob attacking your house or overwhelming your house. Obviously that safe room is becoming your trap, because in essence you are going to be there in your safe room together with a whole bunch of angry people around let's say for now.

Selco 1:16:58

Probably 99% of situation, that safe home is not safe enough for three days without system with a whole bunch of angry and violent people around you. So please think in these terms when you are deciding, are you going to take your chances in that safe room and what that safe room is actually for you. Is that some kind of hidden place, very well secured or let's call it not visible or something like that? Or is it simply some kind of have part of your house that is hard to breach? There's a very important difference between hard to breach and impossible to breach. There are very few things that are impossible to breach. Almost everything is possible to breach if you give it enough of time and force. Time and force are very important here. Is there enough time and force for the people to implement it because system is not there for that in enough time? So think about safe rooms think in these terms.

Selco 1:18:19

DEFENDING: Defending if your property is breached, this is huge topic. And this topic goes in many fields. I can address some sub points here that people usually will make mistakes there. If you're thinking about your property, most of the people think in terms of like this: There is my house, and my house is this big and I need to defend it. No, actually size of your property that you need to defend is big only as much as you want it to be big or large. If I can say so, in


reality, what this means, if you have house with seven bedrooms and you are alone there, it is impossible to defend it. It is impossible to defend it without implementing, let's say a huge amount of money before event. It is impossible. So you need to think in terms of shrinking. Think in these terms with the amount of force, manpower and firepower that I have with me what amount of my property I can defend. So if that mean you can address defending one quarter of your house, a few bedrooms or just hallway, you will defend that size of your house. How? Again it is huge topics, but I can say only one example here. If you want to defend a particular part of the house, in simple terms if your house has 10 windows and you are alone there it is impossible to defend it. So you will funnel the attackers to the place in your house where it is possible for you to defend. A place where you're going to have what's called a clear shot by boarding all other windows except windows that you can defend and where you can be able to have the attacker on your clear shot.

Selco 1:20:53

What are you able to defend and think in terms of funneling because both of those things help you in adding you extra power of defending your home. You are not going to be able to defend your home and yard and everything if you are one man alone. So choose wisely what you are going to defend and where you want to have your attacker by funneling get by, by some obstacles, for example.


Great advice and let's just look at that quote one more time.

"It's better to avoid than to run, better to run than to de-escalate, better to de-escalate than to fight, and better to fight than to die."

And that is a quote by our friend Rory Miller in his book "Facing Violence" which we all strongly recommend. Do you guys have anything you'd like to add?

Toby 1:22:07

Thank you very much for listening to what we've said today. It's a lot of information and has taken up a little bit of time. As I mentioned previously, do take the opportunity to make notes, play back and listen to things again. And all of these subjects could be gone into much, much greater depth. We just tried to cover the key things, and to point you in the right direction here and help you.

Toby 1:22:39

We're leaving that quote up and holding it because the key thing is: Just Don't Be There. That's the advice we'll give 90% of the time, for almost 100% of the problems that we see in preparedness for people is just do your best to avoid the problems. Thank you.


Selco 1:22:57

Yes. There's a reason why we use this sentence a lot. AGAIN, it is always better to avoid. Just to not be there. From my experiences most of the people who have been there a lot of them are being there not from human stupidity but out of their wish to see things. Their wish to see what's happening. Just ignore that and just don't be there. That's it. Thank you.


As you always like to tell me curiosity killed the cat. (Selco: Oh, yes.) You said that to me a lot. Okay, so to get your free copy of the "Be Ready for Anything" chapter from my book, "How to Survive Civil Unrest," please drop us an email at: [email protected]. Make sure to put "webinar book" in the subject line and you'll get your PDF download from us within 48 hours. It contains prepping information and a handy checklist. We just like to thank you for attending the webinar, and we hope that this has helped you out. Thanks a lot and we'll talk to you again soon.

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Selco Survival Series | How to Survive Civil Unrest & Riots