It’s that time again… riot season, sorry – election season. Regardless of who wins the presidency in a few weeks, we can hope everyone behaves themselves a little better than four years ago. However, if they don’t, here are some action steps to take to heart to help you prepare and make it home safe, just in case.
The good news is, we have a lot of data and case studies to draw upon from the dumpster fire that was 2020. We learned a lot about realistic possibilities and how to prepare for them.
I also spent an extensive amount of time training for riot control on this past deployment. Thankfully our time in Kosovo was peaceful so we never had to use it, but the last rotation wasn’t so lucky. I’m not at liberty to speak in detail about what happened, but the riots in North Kosovo were a lot uglier than what was covered on the news. Because of that, we spent a lot of time preparing for that possibility training in Crowd Riot Control (CRC), and now I get to pass that knowledge on to you.
So here are some common-sense do’s and don’ts for you to keep in your back pocket in case the need arises. If you live or work in rural America, this probably isn’t super relevant to you. Riots are really only an urban phenomenon for a variety of reasons, especially in the United States. But if you commute into a major city for work or have the bad fortune of living in one, pay attention and stay safe.
DO stay away from the riot. This sort of goes without saying, but if you can avoid the situation entirely, you’re ahead of the game. Riots are ugly, violent, events where no one really wins. If the closest you get is watching it on video, you’re doing great.
DON’T go in to work. If you commute from the suburbs and there are known protests that have a possibility of turning bad, work from home. If there’s a police presence, a National Guard presence, or if major roadways are blocked, you have a very plausible reason to not go there. Your safety and security are more important than extra time in the office, and a responsible employer should recognize that.
DO shelter in place and wait it out. What if you absolutely, positively, have to go into work? Or protests crop up and turn violent after you clock in? Or worst of all, you live in an area that’s about to be consumed by a riot? If at all possible, stay put. You should already have a 24-hr bag and additional supplies in your vehicle, and it’s prudent to keep some additional necessities at your workplace as well. If you have some blankets or a sleeping bag, some shelf-stable food, and some hygiene supplies, you can bunker down on the break room couch and ride it out.
Riots don’t last forever, and they have a natural ebb and flow. It usually looks like this: Peaceful demonstrators gather → A few ringleaders rile up the crowd and a small minority starts to get violent → Police step in and start cracking skulls → Tension rises in response and reaches a breaking point → Riot control starts, and riot police/national guard arrest ringleaders and disperse the crowd —> Repeat. Which leads to the next tip:
DO be smart about moving if you have to. Sheltering in place is usually the way to go. But there are two exceptions. One is if where you’re sheltering becomes unsafe. If the tone of the riot involves rioters entering buildings, causing property damage, and getting violent, and it’s headed your way – it’s time to go. The other is if you absolutely, positively, have to go home. Maybe you’re a single parent with no one else to take care of your kid. Or the sole caregiver for an elderly parent. Or maybe your home is also in an area of unrest, and you need to be home to protect your family. Move when the riot is at a lull, if you can. Monitor the news, social media, and your own observations about when the riot is rising or ebbing. If protestors have been dispersed and are in the process of regrouping for another round, that’s a great time to leave.
DO try to move out in your vehicle if possible, and stay with your car. You can cover more ground faster in a vehicle than on foot, you can carry more with you, and it’s far safer to be in a multi-ton mobile glass and steel cage with door locks than it is to try it on foot. But if all roads are blocked and you really do have to leave on foot, there are a few things to keep in mind.
DO try to avoid the bulk of the crowds. There comes a point in a riot where it reaches critical mass and you can’t get out of it – you’re like a salmon in a stream, swept along with the current. If you can dive into a side street or alleyway, or simply outpace the crowd and escape it, do so. But if you can’t get out…
DO try to avoid the sides or rear of the crowd closest to the riot line if you can’t escape. This is where the violence typically happens. Riot police advancing the line forward will be firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, but in a dense group of people those things typically don’t reach the middle. The line is also where the ballsiest protestors who want to try their luck challenging the cops hang out, and you can get caught in the middle.
DON’T try to rush the line. If you see a line of riot police or soldiers with clear lexan shields and batons, stay away. This seems like common sense but people in large groups do crazy things. Protocol for problem protestors who try to rush the line is to give them a few verbal warnings, a shove back if they keep at it, and then step aside and let them behind the line. I promise you don’t want that.
What you can’t see behind the line is the snatch team – AKA the A-team, Apprehension team, or Assbeating team. It’s a team of 4-6 burly pissed-off dudes in riot armor with no shields whose sole job is to grab rioters who break the line, tase/beat them, put them in cuffs, and stuff them into a police van. From there you can be detained 24-48hrs, and may be charged with incitement. So even if the crowd is pushing you towards the police line, do everything you can to avoid it. It’s not somewhere you want to be.
DO consider protective gear. Ballistic eyewear, long sleeves/long pants, and gloves at a minimum. If you really want to go all out, consider a gas mask. CS gas sucks if you’ve ever had to experience it. But if you do that, spend the extra money and buy one from a first world country that was made recently. Resist the siren call of the cheap Yugoslav surplus mask that probably doesn’t seal and has filters that expired last century. The current issue Army AVON M50/M51 (Promask) is very hard to come by and expensive, but there are many other military/police rated masks out there of similar quality.
If you’re poor like me, the budget option is to get some fitted swim goggles that seal tight to your face. CS gas sucks to breathe, but it’s a lot easier to push through the coughing, wheezing, puking, and copious amounts of snot than it is to try and see after it’s in your eyes. The temporary blindness is what will take you out of the fight, and as long as you can still retain your vision, you can move to safety, even if you’re hacking up a lung.
The other item of gear you may consider is a bump helmet. Much more affordable than a ballistic helmet, it’ll protect your noggin from police batons and rubber bullets, or rocks/bricks and other debris thrown by rioters. Bonus points if it has an option for a face shield – rioters love throwing piss bottles. If you’re trying to escape a riot, you’re probably going to take at least a few body shots, get hit by thrown items, or get knocked down. But while those may hurt, as long as you don’t sustain an injury to the head or face, you can keep moving to safety.
DON’T draw attention to yourself. A good bicycle or motorcycle helmet can double as a bump helmet, and your 24-hr bag can be a school bookbag or laptop bag. The devil’s advocate argument is that military and tactical wear has gone mainstream and it doesn’t really matter anymore, which is kind of true. A MOLLE backpack and tactical-ish pants don’t draw nearly the same kind of attention they would have a decade ago. But I believe that the idea of trying to fit a certain type of “Grey Man” profile is stupid.
Rather than stressing over your clothes and gear, it’s your body language and interactions with other humans that will do more to help or hinder your movement than anything. Move quickly and confidently, with assertive body language (head up, shoulders back, toes pointed outward, etc.) while keeping interactions with other humans to a bare minimum. Act like you’re supposed to be there. Do your best to stay calm and polite. The situation is already tense, don’t escalate it. And don’t pick a fight, whether it’s with the rioters or the cops. You’re outnumbered, and you’ll get your ass beat. Also, if you start a fight and it escalates to you shooting someone, your self-defense argument goes out the window. Which leads me to…
DO arm yourself – with caveats. This one is controversial, because if you get caught in the thick of a real riot, police can’t tell the difference between a hostile rioter who’s about to open fire and an armed citizen who’s just trying to make it out safely. So the caveat to this is while it’s prudent to carry a weapon, it needs to be concealed (so you don’t become a target) and secured (so it doesn’t get snatched and used against you). A concealed handgun in a retention holster with at least two spare mags is the baseline.
If you want to carry a compact long gun like a carbine or a braced AR pistol, it needs to be broken down and carried in your 24hr bag, so that it’s hidden until you really, truly need it. Also consider less-lethal weapon options like pepper spray, taser sticks, and batons in addition to your firearm so you have the option of escalating force to make someone GTFO without killing them. Getting pepper sprayed or ending up with a few busted knuckles is something most people will get over. Which brings up…
DON’T do anything stupid you’ll be held liable for later. Even though the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin were a bed of lawlessness and mayhem in the summer of 2020 and Kyle Rittenhouse nearly got his brains bashed in with a skateboard by three Antifa rioters, he still came within a razor’s edge of doing hard time. Even though there were multiple videos of him being attacked, and clearly shooting one of the individuals in self-defense.
While it may seem in the moment that society is totally falling apart and there are no consequences, that is not the case. The self-defense laws of your state still apply. One day when the dust settles, and all the loose ends are tied up, you will be held accountable for your actions. I would strongly recommend taking a concealed carry class, especially one that focuses on what rights to lethal force you do and don’t have. Educate yourself, and don’t resort to lethal force unless you truly have no other choice. Even showing and brandishing a weapon can have life-altering consequences in some places.
DO document everything. Whether you had to do something violent, or something violent was done to you, do your best to get video, pictures, notes, recordings, anything to add some validity to your claims. It’s the nature of traumatic events that some frames of it are burned into your memory for the rest of your life, but other parts of it are forgotten immediately. This is part of why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Collect as much documentary evidence as you can in the moment, so that when things go back to normal, the justice system will do the right thing.
DO have backup plans for your important priorities. Whether you get caught in the riot or dodge it, where are you going to go after you escape the area? If cell towers are jammed, how are you going to communicate with your people? If you’re on foot and don’t have your car’s GPS, how will you know where you’re going? If you can’t go straight home, do you have another place to stay short-term? Something I’ve taken from the military that I really like is the idea of a PACE plan.
PACE =
- Primary
- Alternate
- Contingency
- Emergency
Meaning, for any mission-critical task, you have at least four layers of redundancies to overcome any obstacle. Do you need to plan four layers deep for every aspect of how to navigate civil unrest? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s still a great exercise that gets you planning ahead so you don’t have to figure out these details on the fly.
If the worst happens and the streets become as insane as they were in 2020 once more, these simple do’s and don’ts will greatly increase your odds of making it home safe. We can all hope they’re not necessary – that this election, regardless of how it goes, gets met with the time-honored American tradition of accepting the outcome and going about our lives. We can all hope.
Alex
