Dirty reload

This one's for all my friends at my favorite hang-out, the best hockey bar in town with the best people.  Stick with me on this, it's a long one.  When you're done, please forward this to anyone you know and love who's in the food service profession,  especially wait and bar staff.

So, there you are of a cool autumn evening, tossing back a few cold ones ~ defined here ~ at your favorite pub, bantering with someone who calls himself... Doc.   Next thing you know, some knucklehead shuffles past you on the way to a stool 'round the corner of the bar.  Through your mild but growing buzz, you realize that the shuffler is the same guy you saw shuffling in exactly the same time last week.  Except, last time he had a scruffy little beard and almost no mustache ~ significance discussed here ~ and this time he's clean-shaven and smells like a freakin' bacha bazi.

The eternal question: when is happy hour?  

A few weeks ago some Religion of Peacers put the FUBAR on happy hour for revellers in a Nigerian bar ~ story here.  I tell ya; there's a well-deserved payback come judgment day for the party foul those Boko Haram half-wits committed.  Continuing that theological theme, on 12 July '10, some 74 unlucked Ugandans got bombed while innocently watching soccer.  So, the Muslim skinnnies who pulled this double-bombing caper were not only under the influence of Islam  but probably also fucked up on khat and had had more than their share of Somali domestic beer, alaq.  So, who're the apostates now, boy-lovers?  Anyway, if you're given over to wanderlust and simply must sample the local micro-brew, I'd suggest a chaser for alaq.  A nice ethanol drip should do the trick.

Lucky we're here where it's safe, eh? I mean, that kind of mayhem is only committed in dusty, dry west Asian a/o north African hell-holes, right.  Well, yea; except when they try it... here. 

Evidence of how Muslims look at bombing restaurants full of innocent people.  These are the poor, woe-begotten Palestinians who are so put upon by those mean Jooooos.  Now can you understand a little bit why Israel does not trust them?

So, if they'll bomb a little pizza joint in Jerusalem where just about every Israeli carries an automatic weapon at all times, what makes you think they won't give it a shot where you live?  By the way, where exactly do you live?  Since they're going to try it sooner or later, let's review some important... importantcies.

There are two kinds of bombers of dining and drinking establishments:

1. A duck walks into a bar... and goes boom. 
2. A duck walks into a bar, drops off a bomb, walks out of the bar... bomb goes boom.

Recon done by either duck will probably go like this: the duck will show up on various days and times to see when the place is the busiest.  He will probably ask for a table toward the back of the house so he can have at least a Dum-dee-dum; I'm walking innocently back to my table now view of the layout.  He'll take his sweet time ordering and eating, and maybe get up at least once to go tinkle.  He will probably leave an average tip when he goes.  Not a little tip to piss off the servers so they remember him as soon as he walks back in.  For the same reason, he will not leave a huge tip.  Following are things I'd think are suspicious of any customer.  Remember, it's not just one red flag, but a few taken together as a whole:

• Wandering around outside the building, ostensibly looking for the main entrance but actually checking to see if doors can be secured from the outside, locking customers inside, which suggests a shooter, not a bomber.  If he's carrying chains or metal or wood wedges when you spot him, call the cops immediately.
• Wandering around inside the building, ostensibly looking to take a leak, but obviously looking for/at exit doors.
• Says to wait staff:  I heard you guys have security.  That's kind of unusual for a restaurant ~ trying to probe you for intel.  I'd lie and say, Yea, we have at least one plain-clothes, armed officer on duty all the time. And they're all hardcore samurai.
  
• Taking notes on paper or a small recorder, see here for more detail.  Notes can be saved on a smart phone and one would have to wonder if he's texting back or forth or making notes.  I guess the best indicator of whether someone is texting or noting is if you hear his phone beep when someone texts him.  That's a really tough one to call.
• Taking pictures a/o video of friends and family there at the table/booth but it appears he's more interested in getting exits and other significant tactical points of the building into the picture. 
• Taking wide-angle shots of pictures and artsy-fartsy memorabilia/junk hung on the walls near doors, saying he wants one just like that for his hootch.  Sure.
• Might come in with a bag or backpack of some sort and leave it under the table or on a chair when he's walking out ~ a probe to see if the staff is alert/trained.

Let's talk about floor plans.  If you have a big open dining room, you're a better target than one with separate booths.

Where a Shari's  bomber would get max death and destruction.   If the bomber is the guy zipping his coat, he only has to take two steps backwards to reach the best spot to detonate.  Shari's is a soft but survivable target because:

• Area behind the waitress in the red shirt is the kitchen, so some of the blast wave will blow through the service window and up/out the kitchen ceiling vents taking stacks and stacks of pancakes with it.
• Ceiling is baffled and suspended, which will absorb some of the blast wave. 
• There's a coffee service island there just right of  center, to the rear of the photo.  It will absorb some blast and shrapnel.
• All booths have high, padded seat backs, which will catch some shrapnel.
• Windows around the circumference of the building will break with blast pressures, sending glass out of the building, not keeping it in.
• There's another smaller dining area to the left of all those pies and sticky buns.  It is all booths down the length of that aisle so the blast effect will be much less severe... but some of the customers will get a ton of flying pie-shrapnel.   Yummy.  Coconut  cream, please.

A disaster waiting to be detonated.

• Heavy wood tables and chairs packed close together makes lots of shrapnel.
• Ditto metal and glass light fixtures.
• Low booth seat backs leave heads and upper bodies exposed, to get hit with that shrapnel.
• Sturdy walls and low ceiling to keep the blast pressures inside the room, maximizing injury and death.

On a crowded Sunday afternoon or Mother's Day, this is the place I'd pick to go boom, if I was a jihadist.  So, why am I mentioning this? To suggest targets for terrorists and do their recon for them?  Nope.  Like I said: this is easy stuff to figure out, even for brains screwed up by centuries of cousin-marrying.  I'm painting this picture so you will know what to look for and avoid.  Lots of restaurants and bars close to military installations have special deals/free meals for active duty and retired military personnel on Veteran's Day, 11 November. Were I the manager of such a store, I'd have at least one of the aforementioned hardcore samurai on the premises all day long.

Y'all still with me?

Once Duck 1 has completed recon, you can expect an attack within a couple weeks of that event, on the same day and at the same time he or she was doing the recon.  But on attack day, he or she won't wait for the hostess to take him to a table.  It will look like this:

• He or she will walk into the restaurant through the main entrance.
• He or she will be wearing a bulky outer garment a/o a backpack, probably.  You might spot one or two wires running from the pack, into the outer garment.
• He or she will may smell strongly of cologne or perfume. Explanation here.
• He or she will perhaps seem to be mumbling something softly. Death prayer?
• He or she will walk past the hostess ~ even if the hostess asks him or her to wait to be seated ~ and head for the middle of the most crowded area. 
• If his or her hands were not in his or her outer garment pockets when he or she came in, he or she will probably put his or her hands in his or her outer garment pockets in order to punch the detonator.
• He or she will shout Allahu Akbar...
• He or she will then self-detonate.
• BOOM!

He or she.  Remember that.  Bomb dynamics and what bombers might look like... here.

Within a week or two of wrapping up recon, a Duck 2 bombing will look like this:

• He will ask for a table near the center of the largest dining area.
• He will have a bag of some sort with him, like a back-pack or brief-case.
• He will take a seat so he can see the front door, in case the deputy comes in for some hush-puppies and sweet tea.
• After he's been given the menu, he will leave his bag on one of the chairs at his table, then get up and head for the restroom. 
• Bag ~ with bomb, of course ~ will be placed on a chair, not on the floor and not on the table top.  Chair-seat height lets the blast wave move out higher so it's not all absorbed by chair and table legs. But, on the chair, it's low enough so it isn't in plain view.  Of course, the bomb bag could be on the floor instead.  Keep your eyes open.
•  If the bomb is set to detonate on a timer, he armed the bomb before he left his table.  You probably have less than five minutes before things get loud and messy.
• Since he doesn't appear to be "forgetting" the bag ~ he's just going to use the restroom and come right back ~ no one will say, Hey, buster, you forgot your bomb.
• If there's an exit door by the restroom he will scoot out and be gone. If not, he will act as though he's looking at the decorations on/in the dining area, and then just slip out the front door when he gets there.
• He will probably go to his vehicle or get picked up by an accomplice.
• Before he leaves the parking lot, he'll remote det, probably with a cell phone.

The deputy.

Sometimes the foyer/lobby/front of the house is the most tightly packed area in the building as people are jammed into that usually small area waiting for tables.  It may happen that that spot is the best place for a bomb to be detonated, so hostesses and managers have to stay alert.  Too.

So, what do you do if the deputy ain't in the house?  I am quite aware that no corporate security weasel will come all the way to where you are to train you in the tactics suggested below.  It ain't gonna happen.  They're more worried about what might happen in court if you do do something than about what might happen to you if you don't.  I am also aware that if you tell your manager about the training here and he or she looks at it, his or her response will be something like this: If you even think of doing any of that, you'll be fired if you don't die. And if it does kill you, the corporate security weasel kill you again.

So, you have to decide what risk to take.  What I write here and at other links at this site are merely options, which you may act upon or not according to what you feel is your moral obligation.  If you do any of the tactics suggested here, it's because you decide to, not because I told you to do anything.  Got it?

That being settled, what you might do if the deputy ain't in the AO is simple.  For Duck 1, Plan A is that you shut off his computer... stop his brain.  Two ways to do that: see here for method one, which you most likely won't be able to pull off because you didn't bring a gun, did you?  On to method two.  If you've got one of those heavy, cast-iron skillets, clang that off his noggin as hard as you can.  You're only going to get one stroke so you have to hit hard and follow through.  If you can hit him in the face, that's a bonus because you might break his nose and drive the nasal cartilage back into his brain, which will help end the threat.  But, of course, you don't have a heavy, cast-iron skillet with you either, do you?

Then, do you have one of these? Then I'll bring mine.

Plan B: if you're close enough to him when the Allahu akbars start, punch or karate chop him in the Adam's Apple.  Hard.  Even if he's a girl.  Even if he's wearing glasses.  The bomb will probably have two switches: one to arm it and one to detonate it.  The bomber will most likely have armed it before he came in the building.  That leaves one hand on the detonation switch, probably a push-button.  When you crush his windpipe with your punch, his natural instinct might be strong enough for him to let go of the detonator and reach for his throat.  When he does, keep hacking at his throat with both of your hands while shouting for help in controlling his hands.  Once he stops struggling, tie up his hands with something because he just might be like those crazed killers in all the horror movies you ever watched and need to be killed again.  And again.

Plan C: If you have a knife, drive it with full force into the top/side of his or her head into the area of the brain which controls movement. It will need to be a knife with a sharp point, though not necessarily not a sharp edge.

In the red circle is the general area where the knife/pointed object needs to be forcefully plunged.  Since most people are right-handed, this strike will probably disable his right hand, making it impossible for him to detonate with that hand.  Once the knife is in his skull, don't take it out but crank it from side to side rapidly and with force in order to destroy that part of his brain.  I know it's gross and icky but it might be the only way to save your life.  And, you need to be really sure this guy's about to detonate a bomb before you try this, if you do.  I can't make this clear enough: if you decide to do this, it should only be done when the the totality of circumstances indicate all of the below almost simultanesously:

• Ability ~ the person has what appears to be a bomb
• Opportunity ~ he's at a time and place where he can hurt you and others 
• Manifest intent ~ he's shouting Allahu akbar, a phrase commonly used by terrorists just before they attack 
• Preclusion ~ you had no other reasonable choice but to defend yourself. 

Excellent essay on that... here.

A word for those who may be armed in this situation and decide to shoot the computer out: your best point of aim is just above the left ear.  I'd try to shoot from a kneeling position, sending the bullet rising from the entry point into the area depicted in the red circle above, and on such an angle that it will most likely not hit bystanders once it passes through the bad-guy's brain.  But that's just me.  It's entirely your call, not mine.

If you're a captive therapist, also known as a bartender, guess what... you get to be on the lookout, too.  During your shift, a guy might come in looking depressed, walking slowly with head down, muttering to himself.  Well, as you know, lots of people come into bars looking quiet, as though the weight of the world is on their shoulders.  But men and women with innocent things on their minds usually just want to be alone, so they'll find a seat away from as many people as possible and then start chugging Irish Car Bombs.  Or something.  Someone who's about to go boom will be quiet, too, but try to get as close as he can to as many people as possible and, lest he be detected and the attack thwarted, detonate ASAP.  So, what you'll perhaps see is this:

• Some guy or girl you saw come in exactly a week ago, at about the same time as it is right... now.  Or some guy or girl you've never seen before.
• Wearing a backpack or carrying something like a gym bag.
• Walking slowly because he may be doped up.
• Walk in as if he's highly motivated to be there and then, and be froggy ~ you know, jumping all over the joint ~ because he's about to blow your infidel shit away.
• Allahu akbar.  Buhm!

Yea, I know: people you've never seen before and people you have seen before walking slowly or purposefully; that's just about everybody, except for the ones who come in dancin'.  Hey, you gotta stay alert, hero.  You're not just a bartender or a cocktailer.  You're one STRAC ~ Strong Tough Ready Around the Clock ~ hombre.  Suggestions for your survival are at Duck 1 and Duck 2 above.

What about the customers, especially the regulars?  Well, lucky you; that's simple as well.

If you have probable cause to believe someone in your restaurant/bar is Duck 1, about to detonate himself, and you can't or decide to not take out his or her Adam's Apple, then all you can do is this:

• Shout: BOMB!!! GET DOWN as loudly as you can as many times as you can while you yourself are actually getting down.
• Getting down means you drop or dive to the floor and try to get your feet pointed toward the about-to-be blast so the shrapnel goes into your shoes and not your head.
• If you can dive behind something affixed to said floor, such as a stone fireplace, that will help but you can't know when the bomber will detonate.  So, it's up to you.

If you believe the Nike bag left on that chair over there by the nervous woman who couldn't wait to run for the ladies room after getting her table and then oddly started meandering toward the front door ~ Duck 2 ~ is about to turn everyone into pink mist, these things might work whether you're a manager, hostess, busser, server, waitress, bartender, cocktailer... customer:

• You might not have time so the best thing to do might be what's listed at the bullet points for Duck 1 above.
• You might have just enough time to loudly tell everyone to get on the floor with their feet toward where the bomb sits ticking or waiting for an incoming det signal.
• You might have a little more time and be able to tell them to get on floor and crawl for the nearest exit.
• Tell them that going out through the kitchen is okay as is going out through doors marked Push to Open.  Alarm Will Sound.
• You might have enough time to pick the bomb bag up ~ it's not going to be motion-detonated ~ and rush it out the back door to a dumpster, into which you might have time to place it.  Or, chuck it in the woods over there, as long as you're pretty sure there's no kindergarten class over there on a field trip.
• Once people are out, if that's what you caused to happen, call the cops on a land-line if possible and have the K9 guys a/o bomb techs come take a look. Hey, you're going to be on the news. I can't wait to hear your answer when you're asked, What did you feel like when...?

Guns are illegal in bars in most states.  If you carry illegally in a bar,  most staff won't call the cops as far as I know.  Not that I know from experience;  I'm just sayin'.  Personally, I'd not risk it.  If it's legal, then go ahead and knock yourself out, carry concealed, not in the open.  If it's illegal and you decide to carry in a bar, be prepared to have the cops drop by and get in your grill if the wrong person sees your weapon.  If a situation arises when you might respond with your weapon, remember you may be charged with violation of the carry laws and you'll have to convince a prosecutor a/o jury that the doctrine of competing harms ~ here ~ is your explanation and defense.

What if someone comes in and starts shooting?  Returning fire from a covered position seems like a good idea to me, but you decide.  If you can't do that, then you need to get the hell out of there immediately.  Know where the closest exit door is and head for it as low as you can crouch as quickly as you can.  Don't sit in your booth or at your table and wonder WTF was that?  Get up and move.  If you're on staff when/where some shooter(s) pop in, get low and tell people to follow you to the nearest exit door.  Understand that the exits might have been locked shut from the outside somehow with either wedges or chains and when you get there you might not be able to get out.  So, on busy nights, maybe someone needs to check those doors every hour or so from the outside to be sure somebody isn't setting you up for failure.  As an alternate, know where the windows are and that you can try getting out that way if doors are blocked.  More importantcies on that issue here.

The entire staff needs to be trained generally in some sort of response to danger close.  You can't just stand there and get killed.  Some thoughts:

• Have duress codes for different danger situations. These words or phrases can be spoken over hand-held radios, or a PA system or just shouted to others who need to know.
• If a robbery or terrorist tries to take you from that building, make him fight you there.  If you go, whether force is used against you or not, you will be killed once he has you wherever the hell he's going to take you... and it will be hell.  It will take days or weeks before your body is found and if you're a woman you will probably have been raped and sodomized repeatedly before you were killed.  Fight him there in the restaurant or bar.  To my friends at the place where everybody knows my name; promise me that. Promise yourself that you will fight there.
• If you're taken hostage, remember these things here.
• Even if corporate won't train you in anything even remotely like these tactical suggestions, you still need to have an awareness that horrible things are done to people by other people every hour of every day. You should decide now what you will or won't do and prepare yourself for that eventuality.

Anyhow, just about last call for alcohol, isn't it?  So, let's say you're a regular at a rustic little pub just over yonder and they've been hustlin' with all the busy-nesses to which they are assigned as it's a hectic night, which has had them working even harder as they keep in mind all that's written above.   May I recommend that you, if you're having multiple Strong Beer Premuim Alcoholic Cold Ones, don't insist on a new glass for each new beer.  Just have them refill the glass you just drank your last one from... what we like to call a dirty reload. 

Cheers, unershrocken.