No One Saw It Coming

Ben was a successful wealth manager who could afford a nice home with a high-end security system in a trendy Manhattan neighborhood. But he never considered himself high-profile enough that he or his family could become the target of professional criminals, and he never noticed the surveillance operation prior to the attack.

The operation catalogued the routines of Ben and his wife Lauren and their infant daughter, along with the housekeepers and landscaping crews that had access to the home. The plan was to kidnap Lauren and her daughter when Ben would be at work and the house would be empty. Ultimately, the Bad Guys weren’t after Ben’s money; they were after one of his clients, a prominent NYC billionaire.

On an otherwise typical Monday morning, Ben left for work, and that was when the Bad Guys struck. Their surveillance location had allowed them to see the security panel through a window, including its easy-to-spot indicator light—green for disarmed, red for armed. So they knew that Ben and Lauren weren’t in the habit of setting their alarm during the day, and that they would be free to enter the house through the front door. Their plan was reasonably well-crafted, timed, and executed, except that they failed to account for a babysitter who had stayed over the night before.

The babysitter was the first to spot the intruders. She screamed and ran out the back door, retreating to a neighboring house to call the police. One of the two Bad Guys panicked immediately and fled the scene. The other continued with the plan. The scream, however, alerted Lauren, who otherwise might have been taken totally unaware. Now, when the remaining Bad Guy found her in the first-floor laundry room, she was ready to act.

A year prior, Ben had attended a one-hour self-defense presentation. One of the lessons—how to use improvised weapons to strike an attacker’s nervous system to cause an immediate equilibrium disruption—he thought was so cool that he went home and showed it to Lauren. In the heat of the moment, Lauren recalled this brief lesson. She grabbed a nearby clothes iron and smashed it into the side and back of her attacker’s neck. This stunned him sufficiently to give Lauren just enough time to grab her daughter and get out of the house. After the Bad Guy recovered, he fled the scene.

If this incident had been discussed on the eleven o’clock news, you can bet that at some point we would have heard catch phrases like, “In another act of random violence…” or “No one saw it coming.” Had this incident included the undertones of workplace violence, we would have heard the old saw, “The perpetrator simply snapped…” The implication is, always, that violence is random. Unpredictable.

The police investigation eventually led to a successful arrest, but the forensic analysis afterward caused Ben a number of sleepless nights.

“The police told me the kidnappers had been watching the house from an unmarked van across the street,” he explained. “And I remember seeing that van and thinking, Why has that van been here all week?”

At the time, Ben had brushed the van off as coincidence. He’d figured it was probably nothing, and besides, it was none of his business. After all, this was a safe neighborhood.  And why should he have been on the lookout for violence? Isn’t that the cops’ job? Plus, bad things just happen, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, right?

The belief that violence is random is as pervasive as it is compelling.

If we label violence “random,” it is therefore unpredictable. And if it is unpredictable, then what possible responsibility could we have to prevent it or be able to respond to it? The myth is powerfully seductive primarily because, in our core, we want to believe it. It’s a scary concept to accept that there are people out there who actively and methodically choose to prey on their fellow human beings; that there are people who perceive kindness as weakness; that there are people who don’t victimize others as often as they would like, only because the opportunity wasn’t quite right; that there are those who would enter your home, or your life, and take from you all that you hold dear, for nothing more than a little profit, pleasure, or feeling of power. 

This is the Myth of Randomness.

In reality, violence is a process as observable and predictable as the changing seasons, if you know what to look for, and are in a position to see the signs.

When you couple the Myth of Randomness with the Myth of Helplessness—that pervasive belief that you lack the ability to respond—the true and genuine danger to our safety emerges: denial. Just as we tell a restless child that there is nothing to worry about so they can sleep at night, we tell ourselves a similar story. But this story is as effective at warding off danger as pulling the covers over your head when you hear a bump in the night.

Ignoring these realities—embracing the myths the way so many people and organizations do—does not make you safer. It, in fact, makes you far more vulnerable.

You see, even the most senseless acts of violence make sense to the perpetrator. By accepting this reality, you can begin to understand how Bad Guys select their targets and why. Where they are strong, and where they are weak. Their process for planning, testing, and executing their attacks. And ultimately, how you can recognize, avoid, or disrupt their processes before we find ourselves under attack.

The intent of this four-part series is to shine a light on how the Myth of Randomness can hinder your ability to take responsibility for your own safety and security; and how overcoming the myth can help you reclaim a key (and too often unrecognized) part of leading a more fulfilling and rewarding life.