He said, "I'm going to kill you! Die! Die!

“AAAAAAAH, I’m going to kill you! Die….! Die….!”

These are the words yelled out by a crazed maniac this past Saturday afternoon at around 4:00 p.m. when he pulled out a large knife and ran at my daughter, who was sitting on her porch in a Salt Lake neighborhood. 

Just prior to the incident she had gone out to sit on the porch for a few minutes before going to pick up her little girl from daycare. A friend was inside the house. She heard a man coming down the street yelling out random gibberish, an occurrence not particularly uncommon in some areas. However, the tone of this man’s voice literally sent chills down her spine and she had the thought to get up and go immediately into the house.

Instead, she resisted the feeling and remained on the porch, figuring that if she did not look at him or pay any attention to him, he would go on by and not notice her as her porch is about 30 feet or more from the sidewalk.

He passed the intersection of the sidewalk he was walking on and the cement walkway leading up to the elevated, covered porch she was sitting on. She kept looking down as he passed the walkway, intent on not making eye contact. However, after he was about 10-15 feet past the walkway, she glanced up at him and he was looking back, right at her. 

He immediately stopped, pulled a large knife out of his waistband, turn toward her, raised the knife up to a striking position and ran at her, yelling “I’m going to kill you. Die….! Die….!”

She jumped up and ran inside the house, closing and locking the door and yelling to her friend, “He’s trying to kill me!” They could see through the glass on the door that he picked up something off the porch and left. They called the police, who came and took a report. They informed her they had received another call from another person just down the street.

Whether the person was on some crazy drug, otherwise mentally ill or possessed by demons, we do not know. That is another story and a serious issue facing people all over the world, but the most important issue in this particular scenario is not the extent to which the individual was responsible for his actions, but whether or not my daughter and millions of other innocent individuals in similar situations, are harmed or killed. 

My daughter explained to us on the phone, right after the incident, that she was so glad she did not have her daughter with her on the porch at that time, as she frequently does, because she does not believe she would have had time to get her and make it inside the house before he reached them.

Of course, my daughter has a D.A.D.® 2, the defense alert device that her dad manufactures and sells, but in this case, she made the mistake of not taking it with her onto her own porch. I asked her about that and she said she always has it with her, especially when her daughter is with her, out on the porch. She said she had actually went to get it before going out onto the porch, but it was not where she normally puts it, up high on a shelf out of reach of her daughter. 

Misplacing things is her modus operandi and this is her third D.A.D.® 2 non-lethal self defense device in the last couple years, but this time she just decided that rather than take the time to look for it, she would be OK for a few minutes out on the porch without it. After all, she goes out there nearly every day, weather permitting and had never been attacked by a knife wielding maniac.

The question is, what if he would have been faster, or she had been a little slower. Would he have killed her with that knife? We do not know the answer to that question and hope that the police are able to find him and get him off the street before he does harm someone. Nevertheless, a very important lesson was learned, once again. Attacks are unpredictable and the reason for them, often unfathomable. 

Rarely does someone who is attacked ever expect it to happen. In most cases, that person has lived for decades without ever having been attacked. He or she has been in that place at that same time of day, doing that same thing hundreds or thousands of times and nothing has ever happened……..until it does. 

We all have a 70% or greater chance of being attacked at some time, when we are not expecting it. The question is, will we be able to stop it if it does? Self defensepreparedness is a real need that many ignore until it is too late. 

I did not expect to be writing this blog post this morning. I’m just extremely grateful that I’m not making funeral arrangements.

If you do not have a D.A.D.® 2, please know that it is the best personal defense device available, for a variety of very specific reasons. You should really consider one for every member of your family old enough to use one. There is nothing else its equal. This fact has been declared by many experts on the subject, so please do your research. You will find that you agree. Visit tigerlight.net or call 4350671-3331.