THE MOB MENTALITY IF THE COUNTRY BREAKS DOWN

From another group

-http://www.survivalblog.com/

Riots and Civil Unrest in America, by B.B. in California

I am writing this article not to glorify what I have seen, but perhaps to make
some of you think about some unknowns. I am a U.S. Army veteran who served in
the 1980s, and when I honorably discharged I was recruited into law enforcement
at a termination of service briefing at Fort Irwin, California. From there I
went into law enforcement in Los Angeles for over 20 years and never looked
back. I am writing this article because many people are writing about living
through and how to survive civil unrest (I am sorry, a riot is a riot no matter
what you call it), but I don't think many of the readers can comprehend what it
is like.

The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were some of the craziest times I have ever lived
through, and even my military background didn't prepare me for what we saw. I
am not here to talk politics or why the riots kicked off; I am only here to
write about what I witnessed and give the readers of SurvivalBlog.com a glimpse
of what happened from the eyes of a young man.

Mob Mentality. When dealing with people during the riots in Los Angeles, many
of the people we were dealing with had no idea why they were rioting. They were
merely opportunists who were taking advantage of free stuff that was being
looted from any store that was not guarded. And when I say guarded, I mean
seriously guarded (more on this later). The mob mentality meant that if someone
was looting a store, everyone with the mentality had to loot the same store
before the shelves were empty and they didn't get their share. It was almost
like a shark feeding frenzy with no real purpose. But, in the middle of this,
there were people pointing to different buildings saying, "Burn that one" or
other orders. Those people had a purpose, and loot wasn't it.

I mention this because whenever if and when civil unrest hits again for whatever
purpose, you can bet that this will probably be the case again. During civil
unrest, if you try to analyze the event with rational thought, you will not be
able to figure out the smallest detail let alone the big picture. There is no
order or sense of order, and for most Americans that is a place that no one
really thinks about. Crime was happening all around us, but there really wasn't
a crime trend or purpose for it other than violence itself. If you are reading
this and are saying to yourself, "This idiot doesn't know how to write and he is
not making sense!", then you are grasping what I am saying. The most dangerous
people in the riots were the opportunists. They saw an opportunity and went for
it. Whether that opportunity was revenge on an enemy that could be blamed on
some random act of violence, or that big screen TV that he had been wanting for
a while down at the local electronics store.

The opportunists seized the initiative for whatever their purpose was, and then
blamed everything that followed suit on the violence of the day. The thugs knew
how to survive and knew what they wanted and how to get it through violence and
crime. The unfortunate good people really suffered from this as they turned out
to be victims in many cases. This is very short sighted thinking by the thugs,
because over the next few weeks, there was nowhere to shop for necessities after
the neighborhood was burned to the ground. And yes, there were food lines
shortly thereafter. In a total collapse, this means these same thugs are coming
to a neighborhood near you.

Looting. When the looting began in 1992, there were several places and things
that went first. Booze, cigarettes, and diapers (yes diapers). All three items
are not available for purchase with food stamps, and other than the diapers,
were for partying and having a good time. As the violence spread pharmacies
were raided and burned, not for diabetic or asthma medication, but for pain
killers and other drugs that could be used for pharmaceutical recreation. In
the aftermath of the initial looting, if someone was caught in a pharmacy
getting the necessary meds for asthma or diabetes, they were probably left alone
since they were just trying to survive (I am not saying I witnessed this, but I
heard rumors of such).

I mention this because food stayed on the shelves for a fairly long time all
things considered. Eventually food began to get looted, but that was really
only after the new pair of "hip shoes" or big screen televisions were already
off the shelves. Its like when a hurricane is coming and people are rushing out
of their homes carrying the television. The television has no real purpose for
survival, but people cling to those possessions, and in the riots were the first
things looted. I have read many articles here on Survivalblog.com that
continues to tell people to stock up on meds, and I cannot agree more. It was
my experience though that the initial meds that were looted from the pharmacies
were for recreation, not health. If that holds true again, the meds you need
might still be there after the initial looting begins. I am not advocating
looting, hopefully there will be a worker that braved rioting to come and be a
cashier at a store so you can buy what you failed to stock up on, but I doubt
it.

Communications and 9-1-1. During the riots, my squad of 12 people was issued
only two radios because it soon became apparent that there was not enough
equipment to go around. Only the squad leader and assistant squad leader had
any forms of communications with dispatch. These problems have been addressed
since then, but they were major concerns at the time. As they continued to
split us up on foot at first in order to "show a command presence" with two
officers at a street corner. It was then that I made a stupid call against
better judgment and called out 50+ looters in a moment of anger. They accepted
and the next thing I knew I was being chased down the street by a large crowd.
Just before we began to run, since neither me nor my partner had a police radio,
we called 9-1-1 on a pay phone on the corner for help as we started running.
There was no help to be had for us, and we were on our own. In hindsight, I was
a stupid 24-year-old kid opening his big mouth in anger and getting his mouth's
debt called in.

Luckily for me some lieutenant who's name I never knew, was gathering a strike
force to handle the looting in the strip mall I had been watching, was coming
down the street with enough manpower that we were able to clear the mall after
it was only half looted. The point is, during civil unrest, 9-1-1 couldn't even
help us officers, let alone someone else on the street. Communications and
9-1-1 were up and running, but they were paralyzed due to the sheer scope of the
violence that was raging in the city. If mass civil unrest happens in a total
collapse, even the safeguards that have been thought of and put in place since
those riots will not work as manpower dwindles. Do not make your plans with any
sort of help regarding 9-1-1. If some comes, consider it a bonus. I have small
hand held radios that have a very short range and a CB radio or two to handle my
comms in the event of civil unrest here. Everyone in the group has one, and we
will deal with whatever we need too if the unfortunate time comes.

Defensible Positions. If your plan is to stand and fight or go to a retreat and
stand and fight, there are things I saw in the riots that worked short term but
might not make it long term. As we patrolled different neighborhoods on foot,
we came across several non-burned out buildings in the midst of charred ruins
that were once their neighbor's businesses. Most of these buildings were built
in the slums that had barbed wire and bars on the buildings. Now, let me
continue by saying that I watched as crowds ripped security doors off the tracks
and bent bars with sheer strength in numbers to get into a business that had
what they wanted, so these security features alone did not stop the crowds. On
the surviving buildings, there had been [armed] men on top of them and I
observed several fired shell casings around the buildings. We chatted with
those brave men and women inside their little fortresses and they were
determined to keep their businesses and property from being looted and burned.
As the violence spread, we were pulled from two man teams standing on street
corners to full squads and strike forces being sent in to stop the violence and
looting.

When the fire departments (and I say departments plural because mutual aid was
called in and we had fire departments from everywhere trying to help us) were
putting the fires out around the city some of the rioters, I will be kind in my
language here, began shooting at the fire trucks and injuring the firemen as
they tried to prevent the city from burning. This was a further drain on our
resources as we now had to provide escorts for fire brigades in the city as the
fire departments drove from fire to fire. An interesting note is that on
several locations the fire captain would pull up to a strip mall and make an on
spot decision whether or not the buildings could be saved with the manpower that
he had available right then--a sort of fire department triage if you will. If
he didn't think he could save the building with what he had, they let the
building burn and moved on. Welcome to the realities of civil unrest.

Now I bring this all together for a reason. If you remember the news clips of
Korean business owners guarding the fire trucks and fire fighters as they risked
their lives in the fires and rioters shooting at them, then you are probably as
old as me. Those brave business owners came out to help us as we tried to save
their businesses and livelihoods, and restored my faith in humanity at the same
time. What the news reels didn't show was that probably half of those former
Republic of Korea soldiers were guarding the firemen with toy guns that they had
pulled off the shelves and took the orange tips out of the barrels. The other
half were using real weapons. And with the amount of fired brass and blood that
I saw around some of those buildings, they meant business. Like I said earlier,
for a short term solution where we were able to restore order in a few days this
bluff worked great. For a long term solution, this is suicide. But if there is
a softer nut to crack down the street, and they are not as determined to defend
(as the brave Korean business men had been), then the looters will probably go
elsewhere as long as order is restored quickly. For a total collapse, if you
are going to stand and defend, good luck and make sure you are well-stocked and
don't bluff.

Weapons and Ammo. There are plenty of articles on this sight about weapons, so
I will make this one fairly brief. As I was shipped off to the hot zones in a
transit bus (we had run out of police cars and yes, I went to combat as the
passenger in a transit bus), I loaded a spare box of 9mm and some 12 gauge
rounds wrapped in a rubber band in my radio holder since I wasn't issued a
radio. My squad mates laughed at me until people who were already running
around in the middle of the riot were begging for spare ammo. I didn't even
have a shotgun when I went down there, but I knew there would be plenty lying
around with no ammo if things went south, which it did.

Now, I am not going to get into what round is better or which firearm you need
to buy for your retreat. That is a personal choice and one that you have to
make for yourself. I personally have a .45 for myself and 9mms for the rest of
my family. I have two small girls and my wife is only five feet tall on a good
day and they cannot handle the .45 with any great accuracy, but there is another
reason for the 9mms. That is the round that the local Sheriff's Dept uses where
we live. This means that they should, and I stress should, have extra rounds
stockpiled in case of emergency. Unless you want to wait out everything in a
hole or retreat, and by the way that is not a bad idea, if you come out and
support the local law enforcement officers be sure that you have weapons that
are compatible with what they are carrying. The best .45 in the world is
nothing but an expensive club if you have nothing to run through it. If order
can be restored and you helped, you will have made friends for life (any vet
will tell you that friends made in combat are friends for life, no matter what
their political, religious or personal backgrounds are). If things go to total
feces storm, then that may be one last chance to resupply before heading to the
hills, retreat or hole that you are planning to defend. I know weapons and ammo
are nothing new to the readers on this site, but maybe the last statement could
be the deciding factor for a new reader on which weapon to buy. Always keep
your options open.

Another interesting note on weapons and ammo was that when the National Guard
was first called out the responded with empty weapons. That's right, no ammo!
We were giving guardsmen what we could spare from our own dwindling supplies,
but we couldn't believe the State sent them in with no cartridges (in hindsight
and much more experience under my belt in dealing with the many idiots in
government, I totally believe it now), but once again not many people would
choose to charge a National Guard position to see if their rifles are empty.

First Aid Supplies. Most small car first aid kits were gone in a day due to
minor injuries from rocks, bottles and other small projectiles and fights.
Since then, every officer is issued a trauma kit to keep in his/her war bag (a
police bug out bag that we carry in the trunk of the car). Again, I am only
talking civil unrest, not long term survival, but whatever first aid supplies
that you think you will need, triple it. Band-Aids and supplies for small cuts
have to be changed frequently to prevent infection, and let me tell you, you
will run out quickly.

Hospitals. Hospitals were not really affected other than the number of people
that had to be treated due to the violence in the riot. I figured the looters
were try and storm hospitals for pain meds and other supplies, but that was not
the case. But like I said, this was a short term riot, and for long term riots
or total collapse, I fear these places will be looted quickly.

We learned many lessons in the riots in 1992, but the best lesson that was
learned was humility. We were humbled into facing that we could not handle any
and everything that was thrown at us. In civil unrest, you will have to rely on
everything that you have and I am telling you now that it is not enough. You
will have to come together with people, and not just your close friends, but
maybe that neighbor you hate just to survive. Once the fires start, it will
quickly get out of control. In Los Angeles, we have one of the best if not the
best fire dept in the world, and they were simply overwhelmed by the sheer
number of fires that were set. The whole city was burning and I can only
imagine the hell that the people of Dresden and Tokyo went through in WWII. If
you are in an area with brush or fire hazards, just know that there probably
won't be much help coming your way.

Have a plan, make sure everyone in your house has a bug-out bag, be sure you are
supplied, have a weapon and be prepared to defend yourself and your family. You
need understand that when the mob mentality kicks in, the person who was singing
in church last week may not be the same person in front of you this week. I saw
the worst brought out in good people, and while the Los Angeles riots were huge,
they are nothing in contrast to a total collapse. Look at what happened in
Haiti when they were hit with a major earthquake or New Orleans when Katrina
hit. In combat, you know your enemy. In civil unrest, everyone could be your
enemy. And not just for simple profit, but for survival unless order is
restored.

Hopefully some of your readers will gain from this article a glimpse of what
will hopefully never come again, but I fear is brewing. Nothing is set in
stone. Be prepared to be fluid with anything that is thrown your way.