Ben Mangels died in 2015. Age 78. I lost touch with him about 2013. His wife got sick and he kind of dropped off the grid, so to speak. If you’ve been to some of my seminars his name comes up periodically as important to me. He left South Africa decades ago for several reasons and wound up, oddly, in north Texas. He started training police (mid-to-late 80s and early 90s) when the McKinney, TX police department stumbled upon him, and that was when I first met him. They initiated a series if seminars with him.
The seminars were great but when I enrolled in his regular Dallas area classes, they were were, more or less classical Jujitsu in a gi (and not this new, BJJ, Brazilian wrestling Jujitsu, they were old school). But, I got a lot of Jitz up where I lived already and in my martial arts associations, minus the truly horrendous Dallas, rush hours-long traffic to get down there and see him, and the drive back on week nights. I did a three-month contract and me and my family-kids, and police hours, couldn’t stand the rush hour schedule.
So instead, I stuck with the frequent seminars, which was a mix of so-called military and police combatives that was his blend of karate, boxing and jujitsu (and knife fighting). The seminars were great! (The mix. 1980s! And young people today think they are inventing stuff. HA!) I have to say, his approach was very inspirational.
For several reasons I won’t publicly detail here, he eventually left Dallas for the northwest USA. Had too. (But in a very quick summary I think you will enjoy, his 70-year-old self then, bare-handed, beat up a way younger idiot attacker pretty badly, in a few seconds, in a road rage incident caused by the young idiot. How many angry idiots think that they can beat up any “old man”…who happened to be…a freakin’ Rhodesian and South African killer-commando? Oh-oops!)
He moved to the northwest. Had to! Later, his daughter married a gun range guy ( – in… Michigan? – I can’t remember where) and the son-in-law smartly tried to get him to teach there sometimes. But that attempt burned out when his wife got sick. So he stayed home with her.
His experiences in Africa would fill books. But, his public martial arts instructor persona would not allow for these violent experiences. But in the police survival, combatives training he let it all out. Wow. We would hear the stories. This guy did a lot. And you won’t read about it in the “proper” web bios. You won’t read about his Rhodesian times on the last, vanishing, remaining webpage comments about him.
Some of it is very bad. Yes. He told me once he was very troubled with very bad memories and nightmares (his Rhodesian experiences and the South African “rebel,” “bush wars” are all missing from his politically correct bios.) He told us that in those, what was deemed race wars, they were also fighting the Communist Cuban Army too and they were in fear that S.A. would become communist. In the end, he ended up in the South African Military Police. Mängels became an officer in the South African Police. He was at times the chief Close Quarters Combat (CQB) instructor to elite special forces units, including the South African Army Commandos, South African Naval Marines, and British Special Air Service (SAS).
The last time we talked on the phone….2010? 2011?…he asked me if I would produce a series of videos with him. Of course I would. He complained-worried that he was old. But I said in such films, he would coordinate-teach and younger guys would actually fight on film. Then in our discussion, he asked me “could I be sued?” You know, if he showed something on film and somebody misused it. I said, “welllll…I guess it’s possible…but….” And that was all he needed to hear and he didn’t want to make any video series. That would have been a great series.
Ben warned us that “unarmed combat does not make someone unbeatable. If thrown overboard, you might not be a strong swimmer capable of swimming to shore, but if you have had some basic swimming training you might be able to hold out until rescued, With some training, your odds of surviving are better than if you had no training at all.”
I was essentially a regular Mangels seminar attendee other than those 3 month, few nights a week, stint at his classical jujitsu class. His biggest influence on me was his seminar “rough and tumble attitude” and his knife material, as I tell people in seminars. It made me cut out a bunch of unnecessary martial arts knife material cluttering up my mind.
There was no one quite like Ben Mangels. When he moved, I was able to “send/introduce” two of “our guys” who lived up northwest to train locally with him. One actually got a jujitsu black belt from him.
Years ago. And here in Dallas, our regular student Kelly Redfive lived near him and attended those Dallas classes. Kelly has great memories of him. We had to swap notes as he was in that regular jujitsu class but Kelly, not being a cop, could not attend those police seminars. It was a rough, simple jujitsu.
Adios Captain. Totsiens. You left your mark!
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Hock’s email is HockHochheim@SurvivalCentrix.com
Footwork and Maneuvering book for the citizen, cop and soldier, standing to ground, hand, stick, knife, gun. Click here
The Equal Opportunity Stabber. Saber or Reverse Grip?
I am an “equal opportunity stabber.” Sound weird? Hear me out. I’ve heard the knife whisper. Have you? About the secret “best grip tip.” You know the one, “If you see a guy hold a knife like this (reverse grip) watch out! He really knows what he is doing.”
Now for the novice reading this, real quick, the saber grip is the most popular nickname for holding the knife like a sword with the blade sticking out the top of the hand. The reverse of that, the reverse grip has the knife blade sticking out the bottom of the hand. Both are quite natural grabs. New or experienced, young, old, whatever, the knife is a great equalizer and both can deliver bloody devastation.
Ahhh, but “the reverse grip is best,” so whisper the tipsters who know nothing, learned from yet another tipster who knew nothing. I have heard that “insider reverse grip tip” numerous times through the years. One example-
“I was at a seminar once where an “expert” told us that if we see a man using a knife in that grip to “Run! That man is a professional!” – Carl Flume (So you don’t run if the robber has a saber grip?)
I have nothing against the reverse grip. I teach it too. But, how many times have you heard or been told, or taught the reverse grip is the only grip to use? Because there were and are some popular courses out there preaching this idea. Mindless followers will whisper and argue that:
“Well, the reverse grip is the Filipino way.”
“The reverse grip is the Pekiti Tirsia way.”
“Ex-super-copper Pete Smith says the reverse grip is the best.”
The Marine whisperer claim.
People! People….people. FMA does BOTH grips. Pekiti Tirsia also teaches tons of saber grip material. And Pete Smith? He is just, flat-out, wrong-headed about this. He is not as smart as you think. He’s not as smart as he thinks. The whisperer? Let’s explore that now.
Knife Confusion. I am often both depressed and fascinated by the paths, choices and ideas of various knife courses. Some obsess about dueling. Some appear to me like death cults, others have what seems to be oddball, incomplete conclusions. Most never cover legal issues and just cut and stab away. No knife ground fighting. No knife versus unarmed or mixed weapons. Some way over-emphasize Filipino Sumbrada patterns. Some have only three or four stabs with zero concerns about the before during and after, the old “just sticking the “pointy end” in. How about those little rounded-handle knives that can turn easily in your hand? I could go on. Another, probably big dichotomy is this grip thing and the various obsessions with the one, bestus’, mandatory, knife grip.
In the 1980s, I was at a Dan Inosanto seminar and Dan said. “there is no one perfect knife grip, just the best one for the moment.”Wow! That little phrase stuck with me forever as a baseline. With my Force Necessary: Knife course, I insist that a practitioner learn and experience BOTH the saber and reverse grips standing through ground, right and left handed. Then after much COMPLETE study, they choose what their favorite grip is, based on the “who, what, where, when and how and why” of situations and their lives. I never tell them to automatically favor any one grip. Make it an EDUCATED choice (and not follow a whisper tip).
How Favoritism Gets Started? Here’s one example. The first time I received any training with a knife was in a Parker Kenpo class in about 1972 when that day they received a package of Kenpo knives and dull trainers from Gil Hibben. The knife was designed to be held in a reverse grip and used in a kickboxing format. There, me as a yellow belt rookie, we were allowed to fool around with the newly arrived tools. This initiation, this design I think caused decades of Kenpo-ists to hold their knives in a reverse grip as though Moses, not Gil Hibbens, had handed them knives from the mountaintop.
Did Ed Parker demand the knife and all subsequent training be in a reverse grip? I don’t know. It is widely reported that in 1968 Gil designed the Kenpo Knife (sometimes called the Ed Parker Fighting Knife) for his black belt thesis on knife fighting using Kenpo tactics. These tactics are conducive to karate-kickboxing. Maybe some historian reading this will know and tell us. But the reverse grip stuck.
In the late 1990s I was teaching in a multi-instructor camp and a old Parker Kenpo black belt was there with his imported group. I was covering saber grip material and he would horde his people over into a corner after each demo and show them the “proper, reverse grip way” to fix what I was doing saber style. Which by the way his was more complicated and somewhat awkward than the simple saber applications I was covering.
Finally he just had to approach me and said, “you know, the reverse grip is the superior grip.” I said, “No it isn’t.” He glared at me. I added, “You can do just as much or even more with a saber grip, often simpler, with more reach.”
Well, he stormed off – his 7th dan “master” self, all upset that someone younger in blue jeans and a polo shirt told him flat-out, no. (Oh, did I mention that he also makes and sells reverse-grip-only knives?) My next session by the way, I covered some reverse grip material, as I am…as I said…an equal opportunity stabber.
People pick grips for odd reasons too. I read from a guy writing about his grip choice. He said he once saw someone with a training knife, saber grip, stab a mitt and the guy’s hand slipped up on the blade. This made him pick the reverse grip. Really? That? Because if you don’t have a good guard, saber or reverse your hand can slip onto the blade. As a detective who has investigated knife crime for decades, I can tell you such slippage happens with BOTH saber AND reverse grips without a guard. I have solved attempted murders and murders when the attacker’s hand slipped up on the blade and he himself bled on the weapon, the victim and, or surroundings. We “ran” the blood, and in today’s world, the DNA of today works greater wonders.
Let’s talk Marine whispering. Once I was told this reverse-grip-only tip by a civilian who had never been in the Marines, but heard this tip from the ubiquitous “Marine friend.” The irony was at the time, 1990s, I was in a Triangle, VA. hotel restaurant next to the Marine base Quantico, where I was teaching Marines in their Hand to Hand combatives, “Train the trainers” school, teaching “knife,” among other topics. Some of it was saber grip knife, some reverse grip. They didn’t care what grip we did. They were fully open to both. (Quick note: old school military holds that “hand-to-hand” training does not fully mean unarmed, it refers to close-up fighting, with or without weapons.)
And saber grips survived. Take it from the Sandboxx article by Marine Travis Pike in 2021, “…your blade is always pointing at the bad guy…”
While in the Middle East or “Southwest Asia” as they like to call it, while in several PXs (military stores), I saw walls of all kinds of fixed blade or folder knives for sale. It seems everyone smartly has all kinds of issued or purchased knives, carried all over their bodies and who knows how they hold them. Fortunately about 99.9% of the time they are used for chores. A rare, rare few get any knife training. Some a small bit.
Some military units around the world like to watch-spy and imitate each other, and sometimes this jump innocently does replicate faults. In the mid-to-late 2010s and 2020s, some worldly units started copying other units by spending copious amounts of money buying vests, sheaths for knife carry in or near the center of the chest, along with a knife that has a ring atop it to run one’s pointy finger through and draw. The double-edged knife and sheath come in different sizes. This set-up forces troops into a reverse grip, whether they like it or not. The center staging does allow for right or left handed access. (If the knife hung upside down with a solid sheath and minus the ring, one could draw right or left handed to a saber grip. Just saying. But too late now! $$$$)
The Inside Edge Only Miasma. And on this subject, I will go you one more crazy level with a reverse grip oddity that’s worse. There is a small, knife sub-culture out there that wants you to fight reverse grip, with a single edge knife, and with the one sharp side, “inside,” as in facing back into your body. Not edge out to the outside world where the enemy is attacking you. The edge is aimed back at you, Dull side, flat edge out facing the enemy. This is its own unique thinking disorder. The world you are fighting is OUT there, not in your armpit. This is essentially a one-trick pony.
The reverse grip, edge-OUT offers a slashing possibility, an ADVANTAGE that might diminish or end the opponent alone. And a double-edged, or 1/4 or 1/2 or 3/4s or full sharp edge on the outer side is ALWAYS going to be a doctrine advantage. Maximize your survival with the most versatile knife. Reverse grip, edge-in? This is like only putting 2 rounds in a six gun.
Reverse grip tip in accidents. When the Samurai commit suicide – seppuku – they do it with a reverse grip. There’s a reason for this. It’s easier. The tip is already aimed inward at you. (Incidentally, the helper that will kill him if he fails? Holds a saber grip.) This “easy-tip-inward” is one more point no one seems to consider when raving about reverse grips. The tip is often aimed back at you. About once every 4 weeks on the nightly reruns of the “Cops” TV show you can see a reverse grip knifer get tackled by cops. When they turn the suspect over? He or she was – “self-stabbed” in the grapple. One of our main lesson plans with the reverse grip is self-awareness of these maneuvering and grappling realities.
I cover dropping to the ground and we see people stab their thighs, and when tackled or shoved against the wall, we see the same “Cops” incident of the accidental self-stabbing. Tell people to practice falling-rolling while holding a reverse grip knife and watch the accidents. If people are running and holding a reverse grip knife, and they trip and fall? Watch out! There are more reverse grip “selfie” accidents than saber grip ones. Just be aware of this.
“Years ago I was grappling with my training partner and had a wooden training knife in the reverse grip. Long story short, we went to the ground and I fell on the training knife and caught the tip in the ribs. That definitely made my eyes water. Since then I’m very iffy whether I’d ever use that grip with a live blade in a real situation. I still train both grips but I much prefer the saber grip due to the added reach, maneuverability, and the sharp end isn’t pointing back at me most of the time.” – Neil Ferguson, USA
A Summary. I think by now we might have dispelled the caustic “Reverse Grip Marine Whisperer.” Still, there are many pros and cons for each grip. I HAVE MUCH TO SAY FOR THE REVERSE GRIP. I teach it also and I believe better and more comprehensive and thoughtful than most others…or I wouldn’t bother. I just don’t like the blind acceptance, the secret whisper about which grip is the best and which is to be mandated and or ignored. And It bothers me that people thoughtlessly accept courses about these main things. Question everything. Get educated with both. Then pick a knife and a grip you need in situations. I even hate to tell you my favorites because I don’t want to influence yours.
The knife is a very forgiving weapon, in that you can do a whole lot of screwed-up, stupid shit with a knife and it will work. This is not an excuse to stay stupid. You have to think beyond that to create a comprehensive program and promote real knowledge.
I can’t shake the fact that people essentially eat with a saber grip and most may well reflexively grab and use any knife in this manner. Look, I really don’t care what grip you use as long as it is an EDUCATED, informed choice, and not some mindless, mandate from some thinking disorder and, or brainwashed person, or from that ignorant knife whisperer who knows somebody, who knew somebody else, who…
Having written my extensive and popular knife book, which took years, studying crime, war and forensic medicine, working cases and the streets, I am an equal opportunity stabber. And I will only leave you with what Dan Inosanto said decades ago, –“there is no one perfect knife grip, just the best one for the moment.”
Interview or ambush? You walk up to trouble, or trouble walks up to you! So, if it’s not a stone-cold, surprise, physical ambush, you are in a developing encounter-interview with someone who-
is picking a fight with you for whatever the reason, yelling and arguing with you.
is probably about to commit some sort of a crime upon you, other than simple assault.
The world is rage-full these days it seems. Even family, friends,acquaintances and strangers can twist off or…be criminals. You might still say the standoff-showdown is an “interview” of sorts. Just an interview? For professionals like police, guards, soldiers, etc. even if someone is screaming at your face, this is still an “interview,” and you have to somehow remain cool, calm and collect. This is professionalism at the best level. It’s hard. I know. It’s physically and mentally hard and situational.
Stay-Leave. When police, prosecutors and defense attorneys, virtually worldwide investigate a case, one major question they ask is – Why were you there? This is a two-parter, why did you go there and why are you still there? Were you stuck there for some reason?
If stuck there, how will you stand in front of, and-or around this cornering and-or aggressive person? We tackle this problem (pun intended) extensively in Stop 1 of the Stop 6 program – the 6 common “crash-collisions” of a fight. And Stop 1 of the 6 is nicknamed “Showdown,” or “Stand-Off,” a time just before contact…yet. In the hand, stick, knife and gun world, this zone is anything between sniper range on down to nearly nose-to-nose.
Since most of the population is not dealing with snipers, this brings us to the common “interview.” Thus, the “interview stance” must be some sort of a ready position. But not too, too “ready-looking” because that alone might psychologically escalate the situation, or cause any possible witnesses to think YOU were escalating the situation into law-breaking violence.
New Police interview Distance Advice. Of late, officers are advised to remain “two giant steps and a lunge” from a suspicious person. Of course, citizens are not required to stay and interview-talk, but some situations may cause them to remain. This sounds like a reasonable distance but an attacker can fly-spring right through that space. Keep that in mind.
A Quick Note on Verbal De-Escalators While on this initial confrontation topic, a quick “side step” here over to verbal skills. With all the verbal, de-escalator experts out there, there are many courses available on de-escalation. You will hear advice from all sorts of people.They are often run by lots of intellectual folks who have never had such attacks and confrontations forced on them, and they imagine, concoct, over-value their ideas that their great, practiced orations will interrupt a fight.
Remember that de-escalation for cops is different than for guards, different for door men, for soldiers, for citizens on a parking lot, family members in a domestic, angry customers, or road rage encounters, etc. Process their suggested advice through your Who, What, Where, When, How and Why Questions filter.
Not all advice helps you all the time. Never forget this guy drawn below who is just there to fight, All your non-aggressive, micro-expressions and rehearsed, non-aggressive wordings and steps won’t stop the guy who likes to fight on Friday night. And it’s getting late. He has his own negative script. He follows an antithesis to your script.
How Might You Stand? In this regard, I would like to say that in all my 3 decades of police work I had a trick in this pre-fight instance. If a situation was percolating into physical trouble, my body/feet would be bladed somewhat from that person, but not too far! Not like a sideways karate-kick stance! We’ll call it just somewhat “bladed.” Somewhat, which could be one foot an inch off the straight line. Simple walking creates bladed hip positions. It’s situational and positional. Just be athletic. Be football. Be rugby. Be basketball. And remember the phrase – a fighting stance is about balance and power in motion, not a still photograph.
In a potentially dangerous moment, I would, inside my pant’s legs, unbeknownst to anyone, bend slightly at the knees. This creates a more springboard, athletic position. It acted like a “switch” for me, turning on the “juices” in my body that trouble was brewing. I am sure by now you have heard the many experiments where body chemicals were sort of, inspired or reverse engineered in this manner. The same is true for other physical responses and body chemicals.
On the flip side of your concealed knee bend is his knee bend. If it’s visible? If you have a person confronting/standing before you, and he suddenly crouches down to some degree? This crouch is a natural athletic move and he might not realize he’s doing it. This is NOT good for you as it is a positive indication that he is about to get physical. A crouch and or they might start twisting their torso which is a high percentage, common precursor for a sucker punch, you must act according and prepare for trouble. (Inside my book Fightin’ Words and Training Mission One and my Stop 6program, you will find all those pre-fight tips I’ve been collecting since 1973.) Remember all these cues when you must later articulate why you did what you did.
Pre-fight cues are different than pre-crime cues.
The Troubles with Pre-Emptive Stances and Strikes. But, if you jump into a fighting stance, “before” the actual fight, which might be a terrific idea, be aware that your “action-guy” pose could be perceived as an escalation to violence. This may spur on the other guy, or make YOU look like the actual fight-starter to ignorant witnesses –
“Two guys were just arguing, Officer. And then, the guy in the suit squared off like he was going to fight. Then the other guy did too. Then the fight started.”
You inadvertently “started” the fight by just getting ready to fight. What if you struck first to protect yourself from an inevitable assault? Part of many self defense repertoires is the “re-emptive” strike, taught void of legal traps and complications. I mean, such strikes are smart and great in many ways. You know this physical fight is going to happen, so you strike first. This is your own little ambush to thwart his plan. Best are usually delivered from a non-fighting, “sucker punch stance, huh? Could be a strike or a kick. This is why all unarmed, self defense systems must practice all their strikes and kicks from the typical, neutral, non-fight stances. But, this same witnessing of a pre-emptive strike can make you look like the law-breaking, “fight-starter.” Nearby witnesses may tattle:
“Two guys were just arguing, officer, and then the guy on the left hauled off and smacked the other guy in the head!”
Like so much in life, anything within a certain spectrum of events, good or bad, can happen. May work. May not work. In this particular “stand-off, heated interview” moment, here are some common, even natural responses in the script of life.
Leaving, fast or slowly in an “orderly retreat.”
Cowering, “collapsing” of some facial and physical sort.
Automatic anger.
Ignoring the confronter, in some way.
Command presence of some sort.
Fighting ready pose.
Maneuver a distance from the problem person or persons (see below on distances).
Sometimes you can just keep walking.
Get something between you. Car? Table? Whatever? Be aware of the “stuff” all around you.
Maneuver near an exit, for a sudden escape.
Maneuver over into the sight of witnesses.
Maneuver to something that can be grabbed as a weapon or a shield.
Realize a person or persons may be maneuvering YOU by crowding you, distracting you and getting you into a inescapable position, a no-witness situation. (A pre-meditated ambush is full of these factors.)
It was afternoon in August in the early ’80s. Egg-frying, Texas hot. That is to say that if you plopped a raw egg down on the street, it would sizzle in less than a minute or so. CID Sgt. Howard Kelly and I were cruising back into our city from a long day of looking around the countryside on the north side of our county. Looking over open, condemned land. Howard had caught a tip that a ring of car and truck thieves were stealing vehicles, stripping them down and discarding the remnants out on the vast fields and farmland very soon to be covered over by a major lake project. If we didn’t find the stripped vehicles soon, they’d all be under about a hundred feet of water. Howard had an idea about this location, and we hoped we might catch the ring at work. Who in the world would be working out in this laser heat, though? Still, we had to try. We were in my assigned Chevy, but Howard was driving because he knew where he wanted to go. I had my hands up on dashboard to collect the air conditioning shooting it up the short sleeves of my damp dress shirt. No matter the heat, we usually had to wear a tie and a sport coat or a classic suit. Had to cover the gun back then. Kelly almost never wore a tie, or a jacket for that matter, and “they” (admin) were kind of afraid to tell him otherwise. He was the NCIS, Jethro Gibbs of the detective division, if you get my drift with this modern analogy. We hit town, turned down Chester Ave and into the busy downtown area, talking about who knows what all, when a screaming man yelled over the police radio, “Jailbreak! Jailbreak! A whole floor is loose!” It was the county dispatcher. He was desperate. “All available units report to the SO, ASAP.” This news quickly went out over the city radio airwaves too. This did not sound like the usual “suspect bounding out of the first-floor, book-in room” and off to the city park north of the Sheriff’s Office. Howard and I looked at each other. We were about 100 feet from the County Sheriff’s Office! He pulled onto the lot. We bailed, pulled our guns and ran into the building. We could see some city police cars zipping in, and some officers running across the field from the neighboring city PD. We got inside and three county investigators were standing by the doors, guns up and at the ready, as the one main elevator descended from the cell floors above. What was this? Were escapees coming down? Howard Kelly and I pointed our guns at the doors too. The elevator descended. Descended. The doors opened. On the elevator floor laid a jailer. Johnny Yale. He was howling and quaking. There was blood all over his torn shirt. “He stabbed me!” he yelled. “They stabbed me. The whole third floor is loose!” SO investigator Jim Wilson hit the kill switch on the elevator wall and knelt beside Yale. Lt Jim Neel also knelt. “Who stabbed you?” Lt Neel asked over and over. “Who?” “Crebbs! Crebbs did this. It’s a jailbreak up there. He turned everybody loose.” Yale yelped, almost crying. “Everybody” on the third floor of the county jail was about 75 inmates. “Block off the stairwells!” Jim Wilson ordered. Some deputies near there with shotguns and pistols, took positions. Crebbs. I looked up at the ceiling, my .357 Magnum revolver in my hand. Crebbs. I’d put that raping, stabbing, psycho Martin Crebbs in this jail. I caught him. I put em in here. And now? Now I’m gonna go upstairs…and I’m gonna kill him.
<<<>>>
Who is this Crebbs? How did I catch him? Why did I think he needed killing? He was Martin J. Crebbs. Years ago, back in the ’70s as a patrolman in Texas, I’d heard of a rape case from station-house gossip and crime updates. A woman had been awakened in her bed by an intruder. The intruder controlled her with one of her own kitchen knives he’d collected from her counter on the way to her bedroom. She was raped at knife point in her bed. Then she was abducted to another house and tied up and raped again. Held for hours, she escaped. Our detective squad caught this teenager, also a known burglar. He was convicted and sent to the Texas Pen. Somehow, don’t ask me how, perhaps his age? Perhaps the trying times of overcrowded penitentiaries? He was released on parole. The man’s name was Martin J. Crebbs. Then, there was another home intrusion rape in the neighborhood, and a series of aggravated robberies and burglaries throughout our city and in North Texas, and by this time, I was a detective.
May 19 Paroled June 12 Aggravated robbery June 12 House burglary June 20 Aggravated robbery June 20 House burglary June 20 House burglary June 20 Attempted rape June 23 Attempted rape/home invasion June 24 House burglary June 26 Aggravated robbery June 26 Aggravated robbery June 30 House burglary June 30 House burglary July 1 House burglary July 4 House burglary July 5 House burglary July 5 Aggravated rape July 8 Aggravated robbery July 12 House burglary July 12 House burglary July 14 Aggravated rape Other crimes too…
Also, I might mention that not all of these crimes listed were within our city limits. Some occurred outside the city, in the county and in the counties north of us. In the 1980s we were not in “lightening” touch with each other as we are today. It would take days, even weeks, maybe even a month or two before regional crime patterns over multiple jurisdictions could be recognized and organized.
Where did I come in? July 14. The a.m. hours of. There was a pool of detectives in our squad, all taking general assignments and some of these crimes were routinely spread out among us.
I happened to be the “detective on call” so I was summoned to an old house on the northeast side of the city in zero-dark-30 hours of the 14th of July. A home invasion, rape case. Crime scene specialist, Russell Lewis was also dispatched. In route to the house, I was informed that the victim was rushed to the hospital and with the crime scene in Russell’s expert hands, I turned off my path to speak with the victim and oversee the rape kit process. At the hospital, I learned what I could from this poor exhausted, bruised woman, I’ll just call her “Judy” here, before she was rolled into an examination room. I left Judy with a patrolman to gather info for the basic, crime report. Judy had a good friend who quickly met her at the hospital, as well as the ever-handy “Friends of the Family,” a group of female counselors we used to help rape victims. Judy, the friend and the counselor promised they would all be at the police station by about 11 a.m. for a detailed statement. By 6 a. m., I was at the house. Russell and I had to swap stories to really know how to scour the residence, yard and area again. The open kitchen window of the older, wood framed house, the big kitchen knife (from the victim’s kitchen drawer) and the bed left in total disarray, and the strips of cloth used to tie her spread hands and feet to the bed frame…well…they all told much of the overall story. The three-hour ordeal. We stepped through the yard and with the help of the rising, welcome, dawn light and with our giant flash lights, we saw four, dry, Marlboro cigarette butts by the doghouse (there was no dog) in the yard. We collected them. I found another cigarette butt by a big tree in the yard. Another place to hide and watch from? Russell photographed and printed. We carefully folded up the sheets and pillows hoping for fluid stains and head and pubic hair and so forth. Was anything stolen or missing? I wouldn’t know until the victim could return to her house and take stock. You never know how fast you might need this info, and the first few days are a thirsty rush for intelligence. By mid-afternoon, I knew a few things. The suspect was young, white male, 20s maybe, long blond hair. He surprised Judy when she was in bed. He had one of her big kitchen knives. He treated her “like a candy store,” as she described it. He brandished the knife until she was tied up and even after, at times, while she was tied. The tip was at her neck. He told her as he left, “Don’t bother calling the police. They’ll never find me.” Forty something years later as I type his last here, his words still burn my stomach and piss me off, not unlike when I heard them the first time. Well, guess again, dipshit.
Judy, nor anyone she knew, smoked cigarettes, least of all Marlboro cigarettes. The presence of such butts in the yard was mysterious to her. Perhaps we could run some successful saliva tests on them? She said she’d looked over her house and thought she’d lost one piece of jewelry. It was a customized piece. I learned she was an art student, and I asked her to draw the suspect and draw that customized piece of jewelry. She did, and man! Did that come in handy later.
I started a neighborhood canvass around dinnertime on the 14th, looking for any and all information about people, cars and suspicious things. That began an amassment of suspects. One of Judy’s next door neighbors was a parolee, who had killed is wife in the ’60s, and was a known “window-peeper.” Another “weird” guy lived a block away, the neighbors told me. Plus, we had an occasional “butcher-knife” rapist working that side of the city for years, but he was a little older and always brought his own butcher knife. Neighbors reported their usual, suspicious “hippies.” One of these “weird hippies” was wanted for assault. I wasted a day running him down and arrested him inside a college night club. I quickly cleared him of this crime. Russell Lewis checked in with me to report the fingerprints were smudges and not comparable. He sent other evidence off for testing. Meanwhile, I’d also caught “talk” of this Martin Crebbs’ parole, once again from general “cop gossip.” I cannot tell you how important just gossip and talk was and is with fellow, area investigators, especially back in those non-tech, days. When on day shift, after the morning crime briefings, a bunch of us would go eat breakfast at a series of restaurants. We, the county and the state investigators would congregate, talk smack, hunting, sports and oh yes…crime! Some of us on evening shift would still drive in and eat breakfast for this. Ignorant police supervisors and bean counters who’d never served as investigators, would oft times complain about this “laziness.” But, they were just plain ignorant and frankly, pains-in-the ass. At one breakfast, someone from the state, warned us to watch out for, “Hey, a crazy somabitch, Martin Crebbs was paroled and he is a little psycho, crime machine. A robber and a rapist. He’s got relatives in this county and up north in Crisco.” So, I looked into Crebbs and contacted his state parole officer in Crisco County. After this phone conversation, I could see it deserved a drive north to look at his file, which the officer said was thick, and always a pain to fax back then. Faxes were a bit foggy to read especially if you received copies of copies. Better and quicker to make the 90 minute drive. Once in the state building in Crisco county, I sat down with the Crebbs’ file. The parole officer said that in just the few short weeks Crebbs had been on parole, he was already a growing problem. He lived with his parents in a rural area in Crisco county. His picture matched the suspect description and Judy’s drawing. Some of his prior rape conviction details did match those of Judy’s crime, but still, many rapists share common denominators. Had robberies increased since his release? Yeah. Burglaries? Well, yeah. But they come and go. Maybe up here in Crisco too? I took one Polaroid photo of Crebbs from the file, and collected some copies of ID data. My next stop was the Crisco County Sheriff’s Office where I met CID Captain David Bone. Bone and I had worked together a bit in the past. Bone was about 6’5”, a power-lifter, former Texas Tech lineman, ex-rough-necker/oil field worker and smart as a whip on fire. What little we had and knew about computers back then, was already Bone’s new interest and his specialty. If I ever build a Dirty Dozen, police force, Bone will take up two slots. He had a very simple business card that had two things on it – the word “BONE” in the center in capital letters, and his phone number in the lower right. Not Captain, not Sheriff’s Office, just “Bone.” If you got one of those stuck in your front door, that Bone had been there looking for you? And you’re a shady character? You’d better just pack up and head on out to Mexico.
“Martin Crebbs!” Bone said to me. “I am right this instant, looking at him for an armed robbery of a convenience store.” South part of the county. I need to talk to the clerk. Let’s go.” Go we did. I climbed into his sedan and took the front seat, passenger side. I felt like a small child there. Bone was such a giant that he’d removed the front seat and welded a new foundation for it, moving it back a few more inches than factory spec, so that he could fit his giant self behind the wheel and work all the pedals. So, though my own 6’3” self felt like a kid in there. I drove his car once on another case we worked and could barely reach the steering wheel, and I needed a Dallas phone book to sit on. But, I digress. Back to the case…. The robbed county store was not that far from the Crebbs’ family house. The owner himself was robbed, and he thought the getaway car he spied parked up the road from the store was familiar looking “Seen it around,” he said. The masked man with a gun reminded him over-all of someone in the area, but he couldn’t say for sure whom. The man said that the .45 pistol aimed at him was old and even “rusty-looking.” Right then I recalled that we too in my city, had two armed robberies where a suspect held an old .45 pistol. I realized the suspect at home did match the overall shape and size of this Crisco crime.
Back at the Crisco Sheriff’s Office, Bone and I made a plan. We would take turns surveilling the Crebbs’ family house and if that dried up in a day or two, we’d march up to the house and question everyone. As Howard Kelly would say, “When you hit a brick wall, go shake the tree. That might not make sense, a “wall” and then a “tree.” But it meant that when all leads fail, go shake up, and mess with the suspects. Sometimes they react in a beneficial way. What have you got to lose? You never know what will fall out of the wall…er, I mean…the tree.
The next day I asked Judy to make a return visit to the P.D. I showed her a photo line-up with Crebbs and with similar males with blond hair. Since the rape occurred in darkness, she just couldn’t be sure enough to pick Crebbs out. She gave me a maybe on Crebbs. I can’t work with a maybe. I did a “shift” on the Crisco county house. Bone did a shift and he had a deputy do one too. We never saw Crebbs, and only observed the comings and goings of a large rural, family. Nothing interesting happened. Not even a sighting of Crebbs. We decided to do that “march” and “tree-shaking” after three days. We drove up the dirt road to the two-story house and knocked on the door. What we found was a mad mom, a mad dad and a mad uncle. Not mad at us. Mad at Martin! We all sat down in their large living room. “I know that little shit is robbin’ places! I know it!” the dad exclaimed. “The day after he got out of jail, his little sister took him to Boydston, to a pawn shop, and he bought a gun.” “What kind of gun?” I asked. “It’s an old Army pistol,” he said. “I’ve seen him with it.” “By old you mean…” “Like World War II? An automatic.” It was very common to call semi-automatic pistols, “automatics” in those days. “He is a hangin’ out with that Steve Spitz from Sherman. He’s trouble,” the mom said. Bone nodded and said, “Heard of him.” “I’ll bet you have. He’s a snake in the grass,” the dad said. “They drive around in Spitz’s car,” the mom said. “Some kind of Camaro, dark red. It ain’t his, it belongs to some poor girlfriend of his.” We collected various bits of other information, like the little sister’s name and birthdays. Cars. Etc. Then Bone and I drove back to the Crisco Sheriff’s Office and we went straight to their records room. We looked up Spitz. Bone uncovered in the county files that both Spitz and Crebbs were roommates in their jail years ago under burglary charges. With the Spitz birthday on file, we ran his criminal history and drivers license info. We had mugshots. Spits had dark hair, Crebbs had blond hair. Back home I collected all our recent armed robbery reports. I was not assigned to any of those robberies. One robbery was at the usual gas station combination convenience store. According to a customer pumping gas who saw the robbers approach the store, one robber was masked, the other man was still donning his mask while running across the lot. This almost masked man had black hair. And the customer saw the man’s face before the mask slipped on. The robbery team got inside, pulled an “old” semi-auto gun and robbed the place. Who was the witness pumping gas, the customer who saw the face? I scoured the report. The detective assigned to the robbery case had not found out, even after three weeks? I will only tell you that the detective assigned to the robbery was a slug, and I wasn’t surprised. I drove to the store and working with the manager, looked over the credit card receipts from the crime date and time, hoping the guy didn’t pay for his gas with cash, but used a credit card. He did use a card! He used a company card. With some long-distance phone calls, we found him, an Oklahoma truck driver. I created a photo line-up of similar white males, and I met this witness at a restaurant on the Texas/Oklahoma border. He actually picked Steve Spitz out very quickly. The next day, I got an arrest warrant for Spitz, and we spread the word all over North Texas.
Meanwhile, I contacted Texas Ranger Phil Ryan who worked the region including Boydston. I gave him the info on Crebbs and Crebbs’ little sister and asked him to find the pawn shop where the gun was purchased. Ryan was a great Ranger and I write about him often in my recollections. He would work a tractor theft as hard as a triple murder and within two days we learned all the details of the gun purchase. It was an old .45 caliber, semi-auto pistol.
Days later, my desk phone rang. It was Bone. “We got Spitz,” Bone said. “A state trooper found him driving on Highway 8. Alone in his car. Nothing in the car. I’ll wait for you to get up here, and we’ll talk to him.” “I am on my way,” I said.
Spitz was a real punk, but he knew he was caught and he did talk in his hope for leniency. “Cripps is crazy, man! He thinks he is Joe the Dope Dealer with drugs and Bonnie and Clyde, Clyde the robber. And he thinks he is Jack the Ripper.” In just three weeks these idiots committed a crime wave of felonies with more plans on the Crebbs drawing board for supermarket robberies, raping lone convenience store clerks and Crebbs favorite – home invasions, but of families at night. They had even plotted a bank job. Police officers stumbling into these scenes would be taken hostage or shot. “You know, it was all Crebbs. I…I wouldn’t do all that,” Spitz said. Spitz was an emotional mess. Crying. Bulging veins. Pleading. We knew we would have to prove and re-prove everything he said, anyway we could. I won’t bore you here with the skyscraper of paperwork this produced. And all this back in the day when we typed reports on typewriters, maybe electric, sometimes not, with carbon paper, and used expensive, copy machines when we could. But filing warrants and cases on 30-plus felony crimes was a paper puzzle. We did it, none the less, filing cases in three counties. Welcome to my world. Today, all this would be done by a task force. Back then, it was just me and Bone. (In case I forget to tell you later? Spitz took a 10-year plea bargain.)
We were informed by the angry relatives that Crebbs was still coming and going from the family house once in a while in another friend’s borrowed, two-door, light yellow Chevy. Bone drew up a search warrant for Crebbs’ room in his house, just in case, which we searched and turned up nothing. Now, all we had left to do was find Crebbs and that gun. The word was out he was a wanted man. We were back to staking out the family house in plain cars. I was driving my personal Ford Thunderbird. And then one afternoon after a few days, we saw him go by in the two-door Chevy. We pulled a simple traffic stop and an “under-the-gun arrest.” He tried nothing. He knew he was surrounded. Cuffed and stuffed, I took a quick look over his car. There in an open compartment in the console was a chain and a piece of jewelry. It looked familiar. It actually looked like the drawing Judy sketched of her stolen necklace. I walked back to my car and returned with my Polaroid camera. I snapped a photo of the console and the jewelry. I pulled the jewelry out. It matched Judy’s drawing perfectly. Her missing piece! The souvenir of a rapist. I stuck the picture and jewelry into my pocket.
Next, began one of the most unusual relationships I guess I have ever had with a criminal, and I have had many, from Narcs, to Cowboy Mafia-men to dopers and killers. Back at the Cisco jail, Bone and I sat down with Crebbs in an interview room. We read him his Miranda rights. He waived them. I think he was dying to talk and see what we had on him. At first, Crebbs denied everything and was only concerned with the evidence we had, trying to play all the angles he could. He yelled and swelled up, and pitched a fit of innocence. He called us crazy. I pulled the chain and pendant from my pocket and held it up, the pendant swung like a hypnosis watch. “You took this from a woman,” I said calmly. His head shook slightly, just back and forth, not side-to-side, not yes, or no, and he almost smiled. Then I proceeded to tell him a list of what we had on him, step-by-step, to include a complete confession from Steve Spitz. Then I told him about the evidence the lab was working on. He listened intently. “You’re good,” he said. “No,” I said. “You’re just that bad.” But actually, he was impressed with me and Bone. His whole demeanor changed, and he sat there and told us everything, almost as only an actor could, playing the part of psycho, talking about someone else, not him. He spoke in a passive, monotone voice. He did slightly giggle over some of the rape details. He bragged about the houses he “shafted.” He criticized his accomplice’s inadequate performances. “Did Spitz lie about anything?” I asked. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. It was pretty clear we were dealing with a psychopath, who viewed the rest of us as mannequins to his passing fancy. Bone and I took long, separate written (actually typed) confessions from Crebbs. He was quite proud of himself and his…achievements.
Over the next few days, Bone and Crisco County kept Crebbs as they worked on paperwork and court appearances for the crimes in their county. Meanwhile with Judy’s jewelry and the confessions, I obtained a few more arrest warrants on Crebbs and pushed the local paperwork monkey further up the tree. By this time, Texas Ranger Weldon Lucas caught wind of all this and wanted to help out. In about a week, Weldon and I drove up to Crisco, served the warrants and transferred Crebbs to our jail in cuffs and a hobble. Once he was ensconced in our jail, I visited him frequently and I took him out to cruise the city and further document the locations of his rape, robberies and burglaries. I never once talked down to him, and always treated him “normally.” And we talked about a lot of things other than crime. This is an important strategy for every detective to try. You either have this knack, or not. Now, this method of “questioning/interrogation” has been quite formalized by the FBI and now even for fighting terrorism. Crebbs sat in the passenger seat of my car, cuffed around front to drink coffee and eat from drive thru, fast-food places. This was a treat for an inmate. I knew he would kill me in an instant, but I had a detective in the back seat right behind him that I could really trust and who would…seriously intervene. It was probably another detective in our squad, Danny McCormick back then, but I just can’t remember. I knew this was tricky and dangerous, but it was the confession game I was playing. A risk I knew I was taking. And I knew Danny would just shoot the son of a bitch, if Crebbs tried to kill me.
In the process of his first local court appearances, he was appointed an attorney, who immediately shut all this interaction down. This attorney, first-name Gary, was a sharp guy, and we were friendly adversaries, as I was with almost all local defense attorneys. Gary could not conceive the unusual mountain of evidence and confessions I’d obtained from Crebbs. Within a few weeks, I would have a sperm match with the rape kit and a saliva match on the cigarette butts from the yard. Solid, solid case. This surely looked like a major, plea bargain to all of us. When Crebbs was eventually transferred from our city jail to the county jail, he told our city jailer to tell me goodbye.
This had all the earmarks of a plea bargain indeed, but we had a new, go-getter, assistant district attorney I’ll call here “Hal Sleeve.” Hal craved the Crebbs prosecution. He asked me over for a meeting at the DA’s Office, and I expected a puzzle-piece, plan to bunch the crimes together into one big, plea bargain with a hefty jail term. “I am going to start with the rape,” Hal said. “Start?” I repeated. “This guy is an animal, and we are going to try him one felony at a time.” Okay. He’s the boss, and that is what we did. Sleeve really was one helleva’n attorney too, and he did quite a job.
So, within a few months, with Crebbs in our county jail with a “no-bond” the entire time, a trial eventually began. When I walked into the courtroom, Crebbs waved at me, and I nodded at him. Do you see what I mean by strange? When I was called to the stand to testify and Gary could not shake off any of the evidence we presented, especially the confessions I took from Crebbs, that I had to read aloud before the jury. I was dismissed. I had to walk past the defense table and Crebbs nodded at me again. Strange. I just fried him alive, and still he acknowledged me.
Crebbs got about 30 years in the Texas Pen for aggravated rape. But, the next trial date was set a month off, and Crebbs remained in his cell on the third floor of the county jail. And during that wait? Crebbs called a friend on a pay phone for a pick-up, escape vehicle for a planned date and time, took small pipes off of an exercise bike, sharpened one end of each, wrapped the other ends of the pipes with a small, hand towel, tied the towel with some string, and tried to kill a jailer named Yale with seven stabs. Yale fell screaming. Crebbs took the keys off of Yale’s belt. With the jailer’s keys in hand, he turned the whole 3rd floor of the jail loose, and they gained access to the office off the elevator. There were various staff weapons up in that office.
<<<>>>>
And now you know why on that hot, August afternoon, with jailer Yale screaming bloody murder on the floor of the elevator, and the SO in chaos, I stared at the ceiling, gun in hand, and wanted to kill Crebbs. With the elevator sealed, with just a few moments ticked off, we made our move. There was one stairway to the 3rd floor. Me, Howard Kelly, a city patrol officer named Jim Tom Bush (who was a decorated Vietnam War sniper and now brandishing a shotgun) and Jim Wilson gathered at that doorway. Wilson opened the steel door, and we heard the raucous yells and crazed chants from above. With all our guns pointed upward, just me, Kelly, Bush and Wilson ran up the stairs. For some reason? No one else followed us up. I can imagine why. Oh, you might think, “Now wait a minute”, isn’t this a job for SWAT?” But back in those thrilling days of yesteryear, only places like Tokyo and Los Angeles had SWAT teams. Back then, we were the SWAT team. In my department the detective division was the SWAT team. Same with the County Sheriff’s Office. So me, Kelly and Wilson had been on quite a number of raids and actions. Patrolman Bush? Bush was just a routine bad-ass. (Many years later Bush became a leader on our SWAT team.) We got to the big, vault-like office door on the 3rd floor, which lead to the cells. There was a window in the door, and we saw the inmates walking around, yelling, throwing stuff. Unlike modern jails with open pods, this jail was mostly a series of hallways and cells on either side, and some open, sitting and eating areas. Wilson unlocked the big door, shoved it open, and we marched in. “Back in your cells or die!” we shouted, pointing our guns at everyone we could see. This was Texas in the ’80s and they knew that we were not bluffing. Mostly, they did return. Some were shoved. “You cannot get out of this building. Get back in your cells!” we said. I also was on the visual hunt for Crebbs. I couldn’t find him. I couldn’t see him. I ran down an empty hall to one of the day areas. I heard a voice. Angry, pleading. His voice. I turned the corner to see Crebbs on one of the pay phones. He was yelling at someone about his car ride escape. He held the shank in his hand. Jail keys hooked on his pants. “HEY!” I yelled. He turned. He dropped the phone. And pissed-off, stared at me. We were completely alone in this end of the wing. The ruckus in the halls seemed far away. It was another one of those moments in my life. I could have shot him. Dead right there. No one would have doubted or questioned the action under these circumstances. Somehow I had this odd feeling that shooting him was just not enough. It was a gut feeling. I holstered my gun and walked toward him, pointing my finger, “Drop it! Drop it. Drop it.” He didn’t. He didn’t. He didn’t. He raised it as I got close, and we had a fight. I can’t specifically remember each step of this, but I beat him down pretty bad. He’d had a lit cigarette in his mouth, and I hit him there first, which was hard enough to make him drop the shank in his hand. After that? Confusing mess. When it was done, I picked him up off the floor and handcuffed him. A deputy ran down the hall and shouted, “You okay?” “Yeah, can you get that?” I motioned to the shank. I marched Crebbs back down the hall as Kelly, Bush and Wilson and another deputy or two locked up the last of the loose inmates. I took Crebbs through the office, down the stairs and was sort of surprised how no one else had really joined us? No one else in the stairwell, until I got to the bottom, where some officers stood an anxious guard. Maybe they thought we would just take the floor office back, shut the office jail door, and only secure the office? I don’t know. I walked Crebbs past the Sheriff, past some of the detectives, officers and civilians congregating on the first floor hall.
The local news was already there, their office building a few blocks away. All solemn eyes were upon us. Maybe I had a bruise or two on my face. Crebbs did. He was bleeding. I took him into their CID offices, followed by some of the investigators, and sat him in a chair. Nobody cared about the blood. “Yale?” I asked of the jailer when CID Captain Ron “Tracker” Douglas walked in. “He’ll live.” “He’s all yours. Let me get my handcuffs,” I said. And some of the SO detectives stood Crebbs up, and we exchanged cuffs. “I caught him on the pay phone. I’ll write you up a statement right away and get it back to you,” I told Tracker. I needed out of there. Needed air. I walked outside. My car was still outside, and Howard Kelly could simply walk across the parking lot to the City PD. This was a county crime, and a county arrest. I didn’t need to do that usual ton of city paperwork. The county did. I just needed to type a statement. This whole thing took about 15 minutes? 20 minutes? From the second we heard the radio call of, “Jailbreak!” I saw my car on the crowded parking lot. I could squeeze it out between all the emergency and news vehicles. I was going to make my own little escape from the mayhem! I could of killed him. Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda. But I didn’t. I just didn’t. It just didn’t… play out that way. And, I did what I did, and I felt real funny about it. Kind of mentally sick in a body-chemical way I can’t explain. A hard to describe feeling. I just wanted to get to my office and type up a short, concise, statement. I backed out of the parking spot, and then I saw in my mirror, Tracker Douglas outside running toward me and waving. “Oh shit, what now?” I said to myself. I rolled down the car window. “Hock. Crebbs said he wants to talk to you.” “Talk to me?” “Yeah. We need a statement, and he said he would talk only to you.” They really didn’t need a statement. Yale was alive to testify about his attack. But to be thorough, a statement is always…nice to have. I pulled back in the parking spot and got out. Tracker and I made our way back to the CID offices. We found an interview room with a desk, and they sat Crebbs in a chair, cuffing his wrist to the arm of a chair. A deputy with a shotgun sat outside the door. I walked in, closed the door and sat on the desk. I said in an astonished tone, like two old friends talking, “What in the fuck happened up there?” And he began and wouldn’t shut up. He told me everything and I mean everything. I got off the desk and sat in the other chair. He told me with the rape conviction and more trials coming, he realized his life was over and he had to escape. “Well, the only chance you have for any kind of leniency is to explain all this in a statement. If you don’t get your voice heard, you’ll just be like a cool-blooded killer. An attempted murderer,” I said. “You know they won’t let you speak up in court. The prosecution will really tear you apart if you take the stand.” “Yeah, I know,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll make a statement.” Now, technically, Crebbs was still under the auspices of Gary the attorney. In some locales, this might shed a darkness over any statement Crebbs might give. But, on the other hand, he could waive his rights at any time, and offer a statement. So I went with that angle. If worse came to worse? They would just outlaw/dismiss the statement. And so I began the statement process with Crebbs yet again. I got a standard confession form with the Miranda warnings on the top, and I began collecting a confession from Crebbs. We went line by line. When it was done, I told him, “Good luck,” and handed Tracker the confession. It had various details like who the getaway driver was supposed to be. And so, to my memory that was like the 23rd or so confession I had collected from Martin Crebbs. The last one, I had hoped. But oh, no. No.
The next morning, prosecutor Hal Sleeve called me. He wanted to know the details of the escape from my perspective. I told him. In those days, video tapes were a growing interest in the legal system and Sleeve had massaged the DA’s office budget into buying some expensive, camera equipment. He was a real advocate for maximizing the use of video in court from crime scenes to confessions. “So, he confessed,” Sleeve said. “Yeah,” I said. “Would he confess again? I mean on tape? Could you get him to confess again?” “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. What would Gary say?” “Gary’s on vacation for two weeks. Crebbs waived his rights. What can he say? He waived. Would he confess again,” Sleeve asked, “up on the scene. Would he walk you around the 3rd floor and explain what he did? Could you get him to do that?”
“Can you get an SO detective to do that?” I asked. “You know he won’t do it for anyone but you. Go try, Hock.” I didn’t work for the DA’s Office, but I kind of did, you know? We all do in this business, and the police chief and sheriff are really just anal retentive, hotel managers. And, as the old Al Pacino movie line goes, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” Sleeve set it all up. 1 p.m., the next day. Two days after the escape attempt. I went to the SO. Sleeve was waiting there for me. Their crime scene people and operators of the video equipment were at the ready. Tracker Douglas was also at the ready to facilitate. Crebbs was brought down to the same interview room and there we were again. Just me and him. He was surprised to see me. This was the kind of guy that, if you fight him? And you beat him? He respected you even more. And, after some conversation, like a damn salesman on cue, I reluctantly began my requested pitch. “Listen, Martin, it would be a great service to this agency and all the other agencies to hear you describe how you did all this yesterday. You know it’s a new world with these video tapes. And a video like this would be helpful, also make it look like you were trying to help us, and fully cooperate. Show full cooperation. It might show the jury that you have some…you know, hope? Compassion? Whatever.” I guess he had nothing better to do! Why not. His face was expressionless. “Yeah, sure,” he said. And we did. Uncuffed, he stood beside me, on the third floor, with all the hooting and hollering of a hot, un-airconditioned day in the county jail. I read his Miranda rights yet again on film. Maybe the 24th, 25th time? I don’t know anymore. He waived them again. I asked him to start explaining what happened. He walked us to the exercise area, showed us the particulars on the exercise bike where he got the two pipes for his shanks…showed us everything, right up to the point where he and we had our little, physical confrontation in that day room by the phones. I was wondering how he would handle that, describe that part of the tour? Just at this point, I asked him a question and broke his chain of thought. Video done. I left again. I got back to our station and sat down in Howard Kelly’s office, stretching out. “Is it over?” Howard asked. “I think that part is over. Now comes the rest of the trials.”
I didn’t see Crebbs for about 3 months until the next case came to trial. The jailbreak case was put atop the list in his crime wave. He was charged with Attempted Capital Murder with a Deadly Weapon. In the hall Gary the attorney looked at me, half-smiled and shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it,” he said. Meaning my conscience? I think I knew what he was talking about. Should I have waited for Gary to return two weeks before I questioned Crebbs? That whole protocol thing? “He said he wanted to talk to me, Gary. They pulled me off the street to see him. Then he kept waiving his right to counsel.” “And yet? I am still his counsel,” Gary said. “And yet you are.” What else could I say? In court, there were arguments for and against both the written and taped confessions. The judge ruled in the state’s favor and both confessions were admissible. I did a lot of testifying that week. The jailer testified. Sleeve’s great, closing argument was another patriotic, crowd pleaser. In the judge’s chamber, awaiting the jury verdict, Hal Sleeve was ecstatic. At one point he even put his head on my shoulder and said, “Thank you.” Somewhere in the annuals of the county court evidence records, in a locker somewhere is that very strange video tape of Crebbs’ confession, taking us on a violent tour of a jail stabbing and mass escape. Crebbs was convicted, received nearly a life sentence and following that, the prosecutors from various counties joined together for a big plea bargain. There were aggravated robberies, rapes, burglaries, drug charges…what a bundle. He wound up with over a hundred years to do. Somewhere in all this, and I don’t remember how, nor is it in my notes, I somehow recovered that rusty old “Army” gun. Crebbs must have told me where it was. But I got my hands on it, and I do recall, and do have notes, that I traveled around and showed it to the robbery victims in our city to further close up our robbery case files. One woman I showed it to jerked back at its sight, like it sent an electric shock her way.
And that is the Crebbs story and his jailbreak scheme. I sometimes think about the victims of his crimes. And that line, “Don’t bother calling the police. They’ll never find me,” Martin J. Crebbs told Judy the rape victim as he left.
Well, guess again, dipshit.
Me and Howard Kelly yesterday and today (1980s and 2018).
Updates: – Just a few months after his confinement in the Texas Pen, Crebbs was almost beaten to death by fellow inmates. I received no further information about this.
-Just a few months after this beating, Crebbs was stabbed four times by another inmate. He survived. I received no further information about this.
-After a few years, Crebbs was killed in prison by another inmate. Once again, I received no further information about this, nor did I care. This is a typical end for a psychopath.
******
Hock’s email is HockHochheim@ForceNecessary.com
This is excerpted from Hock’s non-fiction memoirs under the exciting Wolfpack Publishing title Kill or Be Killed. Paperback or ebook Get them here
– “I’ll never have a gun, so why should I…” and, – “I can’t/don’t own a gun, so why should I…” and, – “I don’t like guns (or knives), so I’ll NEVER have one.” – You get the picture. The blind, never-never land excuse.
…speeches from all the world. People doing self-defense yet don’t want to hear anything about guns (or knives too). It is ironic because many of the naysay, narrators also do various forms of Krav Maga – systems often chock, so chock full of pistol disarms, and some from the most bizarre positions.
Whether you are a person doing martial arts that are supposed to be realistic too, or a Krav person, cop, or military, whatever, you are probably messing around with pistols and pistol disarms. Or you should be, even in the magical, lucky charms lands of NO-Gun. You’ll maybe do disarms, but it ends there. Does it?
No. With a pistol disarm, 2 things will happen to the gun after you disarm.
One – The gun will hit the “floor,” or…
Two – …the gun will now be in your hand. Are they virgin hands?
This is the point I am trying to get to. AFTER the disarm. Do you have gun-virgin-hands? SUDDENLY, no matter who you are, and where you live? What you say and think – you are now suddenly, like it or not, a “gun guy!” Do you know which end of the gun the bullet comes out of? How this gun works? Do you know where the “on and off” switch is (as USA Gun-God Clint Smith has nicknamed the safety. Is there one?) Does the gun need a real, quick, common, simple “fix.” You know what they are?
And if the recently disarmed guy comes back for his lost gun? Now you have to worry about your “pistol retention” vs his “pistol recovery.” (two old, decades, decades old terms in the gun-fighting world. Ever heard of them? Heard of one? Not the other? ) These terms not in your language?
The history of war and crime is replete with people getting the guns of other people and knowing, or not knowing, how to use them. Remember Tunisia? The Jihadist with a sub machine gun that killed all those people on the beach? The security guard with his own sub-gun, dropped the gun and ran away. A tourist to the rescue? A tourist picked up the sub-gun to kill the bad guy and…and…well…jeez. Couldn’t work it. The tourist was from a NO-gun country and probably never thought he would see, hold or use a gun. Surprise!
Aron Takac, an instructor in Serbia says ” I remember the seminar in 2011. The instructor was currently one of the most wanted in the shooting industry, and he was talking about rifle disarms. Two guys from Norway said, “There are no guns in our country, we don’t need this”. Not two months later Utaya Island attack happened. Breivik killed 77 people.” There is a long, international list of such events.
It is a hand, stick, knife, gun world. No matter where you live. No matter what the local laws are. As a result of this reality, I have been teaching “gun-arm grappling” with any kind of simulated ammo guns I can get my hands on for over 20 years now, as far away as Australia. And yet, for some people this stuff is new…or fairly new? Invented in the last few years or so. It is not new. As another famous gun instructor Dave Spaulding likes to say, “It’s not new. It’s just new to you.”
Gun crimes occur EVERYWHERE in the world. And, ever hear of terrorism? In the “who, what, where, when, how and why” of life, it is important to predict and prioritize your high stat encounters. Even in the NO-gun world around you. Sure. Prioritize, but not ignore realities. It has and will, behoove all so-called, “self defense” practitioners to do some work on, to deal with, hand, stick, knife, gun while standing, kneeling/seated and on the ground. Or just realize what you are doing a sport for a hobby with some very good or perhaps bad abstract benefits.
Prioritize. A good instructor organizing a class, thinks of these things as training time minutes and, or percentages. No matter the subject. How many minutes in night class? How many hours in a day class? How many days in a week class, should be spent on any particular subject? It’s the totally ignoring something by way of thoughtless excuses that is a doctrine problem.
Sometimes I think about deathbed interviews of people. How many 75 or 80 year-old regular folks/citizens on their deathbed can say, “I’ve never been punched in the face. Why do so many people do these martial arts? Odds are they will never be punched in the face.” Most people. many people. Most people have never been a victim of crime, attacked or punched or shot at. Some cops got through their entire careers and are never punched in the mouth. Is this a “throw-down” excuse not to train…anything then? “Odds are it won’t happen? Why bother with unarmed vs unarmed material, then? Why bother with pistols? Why bother with anything then?
So, please do re-think things about these excuse, throw-down lines – “I live in a country without guns, so I’ll never…”
“Welcome to the jungle…”We all hear about how grounded wrestlers shouldn’t wrestle in the proverbial “street fight,” and one reason name-dropped is the catch phrase “multiple opponents.” Another worry for the wrestler is the catch-phrase “ground n’ pound,” – that includes striking and kicking on the way down and once downed. In the win-some/lose-some in real life, our lives, my life, I have a pivotal story about this, lessons learned from multiple opponents AND ground kicks. I wound up in the hospital.
Back in the late 1970’s I and other patrol officers were dispatched to a “big fight.” Two fraternities fighting in and out of a large frat house. The college police were there and needing help. Who they gonna call? next in line, the city police. When we got there it was a mess. About 30 guys fighting. I have seen messes like this before in the Army military police when whole units would have feuds and enormous fights would kick off. And so, we made our way into the melee and tried to…”stop it.” This was not my first rodeo, so to speak. Looking back I always got banged up in these things and I should have known better, because this one was the worst.
I got inside the large basement and tried separating and fighting people when suddenly for some reason, the rush of humanity pushed and pulled about 10 of us down on the cement floor. It was as they say, asses and elbows, and everything else.
Then suddenly, I was knocked out. Gone. Numerous people were arrested and my sergeant decided it was time to leave. He said,
“Somebody go over there and wake Hock up.”
They said they slapped me awake. Officers told me that they saw it happen. Another college guy got up into a crab walk position behind my head, crab walked a few feet over to me, and from the crab, thrust kicked me in the head. I never saw it coming, as they say. I was out cold in a nauseous dream. They told me I was out for about 20 minutes. If you are in the newer “knock-out and brain business,” you know this much time is really bad. But back then? “Shake it off!”
They helped me up and I stood, trying to unscramble my brains. I was floating on another planet as I got to my squad car, and I actually drove with the caravan back to the station. No paperwork for me! I was asleep for the whole thing. It was near the end of the evening shift. And I floated back to my car, and sick and confused, I drove home.
Once at home, I started vomiting and I couldn’t think straight. My wife drove me to the hospital with my head hanging out the window like a dog. They gave me drugs and kept me overnight for observation. You know…concussion. It was a bad “LSD” kind of night with puking and whack-job thoughts. Two days later? Back to work.
It’s funny but I can still remember part of what I was dreaming on the floor. I was at some kind of horror carnival. If I try to hard to recall it? I can feel the beginnings of getting nauseous again. It’s a brain damage, rabbit hole.
Years later with vision-robbing migraines that lead to other problems, at the brain doctor’s office, I had to count up the times I have been significantly knocked out and it came to 14. Two car wrecks, two kickboxing, two boxing, cop fights. Also twice in baseball (odd stories as a catcher) well, a total of 14 “I am out, bubba” incidents. Now brainy-ologists tell you that even little mini-second blackouts start adding up too. Oh crap! Think about your kickboxing and how many times that has happened.
Decades ago, when we trained, we all expected to get knocked out, oh, once or twice a year. It was usually accidental and just an inevitability. Moreso expectations if in competitions, which I did not do a lot of. My job was enough competition. Welcome to the jungle.
Today the bad brain news travels fast, through American football down to kid’s soccer. (There are two new boxing gyms opening up by me…that never box. Boxing without boxing.) Eventually, I have been tested to have brain damage with symptoms too complicated to explain here as a side issue. I learned that I can control the symptoms somewhat with good sleep (and solid REM dreaming) and a simple diet. I also have an odd problem with dreams and it’s too long to explain here. A couple of railroad tracks in my brain have been disconnected.
But back to the main issue. I was knocked out on the ground by a kick in a multiple opponent scrap. A two-fer! And as I said starting out, we all hear about how ground wrestlers shouldn’t wrestle in the proverbial “street fight,” but I want to advise survivalists and self defense folks that you absolutely must learn and hone some core wrestling/ground fighting moves inside the ground n pound module-world. Add mixed-weapons to that menu.
Of course if you are just loving you some sport submission systems? Continue your hobby. But you must REALLY KNOW where that fits…in the jungle.
Addendum:
“Hi Hock, I really enjoy your website. It is definitely the best on the internet covering all areas of self defense. In response to you being knocked out by a kick to the head, something similar happened to me, when i was with the PD prior to my retirement. In the early hours of my shift on a weekend, several officers and i were dispatched to a large biker party, in a back yard. Upon arrival, approximately 60 subjects were present. There were 8 officers including myself present. A fight began and one officer was on the ground attempting to handcuff a suspect. I dropped to my knees to assist and the next thing I realized I was in the back of a patrol car in route to the hospital. I had blood running out of my mouth and it felt like I had gravel in it. Upon arrival, I was checked for injuries, and the gravel turned out to be shattered teeth. I had been kicked under the jaw by some punk with steel toed boots. Three of my bottom back molars on each side were shattered from slamming my jaw together. The guy went to jail and got 30 days. To this very day I have TMJ but things could have been worse. Take care and stay safe.” – Doug Boal, RET.
There is a clever meme and some quotes going around now that claim “you can’t have an illegal alien on stolen ground.” You know – words to that effect. You can’t declare someone an illegal alien if you stole the ground, kind of message. Very esoteric. But historically shallow. And not realistic.
Think for a moment about ALL the civilizations of the world, world history since…since the beginning. Think of the travel. The wars. The kingdoms. The empires. They do come and go through time. Animals even fought for turf. One of the first “smart” books I read decades ago as a teen was Ardrey’s “The Territorial Imperative.” I think his ants/bugs, animal/human research still stands (please tell me if otherwise?). Life fights for territory, and life fights to keep it.
Tribes. Churches. Governments. EVERYONE through time, took the lands and the people of everyone else in a never-ending, geographic, musical chairs. Enslaving. Killing. Maiming. Controlling. Who are the original owners of what anymore? (I have been following some work – see below – that even native American genes have European DNA.)
Before memes, decades ago, there were expressions going around (without the web? How? But somehow “going around”) that – the “guys with the biggest guns are always in charge.” Words to that effect.
There is plenty of evidence that mankind is getting safer, less violent and better. But, then and even right now, it seems the guys with the biggest guns, biggest gates, biggest walls get to call the “whose-in, whose-out, shots, no matter who was there before, no matter how much it philosophically/esoterically “smarts.”
“We wuz here first!” “Yeah, well…we wuz here last.”
It’s nice to make clever memes and all with Indians and Eskimos and so forth. In just about any country you could have memes with the “pre-race/group” people, before the church, or the Romans, the Zulus, or the vikings, or whoever marched in to wherever. But the memes don’t mean much in the “guns-gates-walls” equation.
This is no excuse to screw over people, nor any justification for past, present, or future war, trauma, drama. I am just reminding the poetic, esoterics/memers of short-history perspective. How far back do you want to go? “Who had the last “lease?” And the lease before that? And the lease before that?
(Hey, please email me with any pristine lands or islands you can think of with their absolute original occupants still there, but also free of war, even tribal war. Interesting to collect a list.)
*****
More on this – Audrey’s The Territorial Imperative
(Note: This was written in 2018. Has anything improved or changed?)
Seizing guns. We use to do it. Do police seize guns? Yes. How long have they? Long time.
In May 2018, a Quinnipiac poll suggested Texas Voters are in favor of stricter gun regulations. The Quinnipiac survey also showed very high support for requiring background checks among gun buyers, at 93% support. The study surveyed only 1,029 registered voters from across Texas – keep in mind – the current population of Texas is nearing 30 million people, and I don’t know who all “Quinny” asked “across the state?”
But there indeed does some to be a common consensus in Texas and the USA for more serious background checks. AND…some support for snatching up the guns of crazy people as the police come upon them.
Yes, another request from various police authorities is for more “fast-gun-snatching” from on the scene, touchy situations and from odd, crazy people. This plucks at the “due process” heartstrings of American law. But I am here to tell you, there was, once upon a time, an era when we police snatched up guns without things like a molasses, judicial exam. We use to seize some guns in the old days. No warrants. No judges. No hearings. No process. Just us on the street. By God, we just took em!
“This plucks at the “due process” heartstrings of
American law.”
This was years before the “dead fingers” lingo and logos of today. Years before the contentious liberal vs NRA battles. Just took em.’ So, here’s a piece of police history on that I was a witness to and part of.
Texas policing and military policing. In the 1970s and 80s in my necks of the woods, if we were sent to a “hot” call/situation, we would assess the deal. The people. The past, present and future. We very often knew the people involved. Drugs? Booze? Prior violence? If we determined that there might-be/could-be motive for future violence within the next 24 or even 36 hours? Or suicide? And we knew there were guns thereabouts? And we couldn’t make an arrest for some legal reason? It was not uncommon to get the guns in various domestic disturbances, assaults, neighbor quarrels, anything that your common sense on the scene might predict stewing, brewing violence after we left. To my memory nothing bad happened afterward. And, no one complained about the gun…confiscation either. Weird huh? We would snatch up the guns and explain:
“Look, based on what we have here? I think I am going to take these guns. So there are no problems after I leave. Nobody gets hurt. Everyone cools down (or sobers up).”
“Huh, what? How do I get them back?” they would ask.
“You are going to have pay a visit to the police chief. If he thinks you’re okay? He’ll give em’ all back to you.”
Usually it was just one gun. Or two? If we did this on a Friday night, the guy, or gal, but usually a guy, would have to wait until at least Monday to see the Chief. We would unload the guns, lock the guns up in the corner of the police chief’s office with a copy of the incident report taped to the barrel. Then, the next “bidness” day, an appointment was made. The Chief would sit for awhile with the person and talk to them, lecture them, and then almost always give them the guns back. Rarely, he would wait a few extra days if he thought more cooling was in order. Can you imagine the Dallas police chief doing such a thing these days? Atlanta? BALTIMORE? If there wasn’t a dystopian revolution first, the counseling appointments at the chief’s office alone would take more than a full time job.
In the Army it wasn’t the police chief. It would be an MP Captain, or the Provost Marshal (like the police commissioner). It could be the guy’s unit commander. Or even a lessor officer we might reach. Then he became that guy’s “unit problem.” Remember this was a person living on the base and subject to the varied, old, military, base-by-base, rules of gun ownership. Which could also be and could still be, a little crazy despite the 2nd Amendment.
How did this happen back then, in a world with a 2nd Amendment? Cold dead fingers? The gun laws were a hodge-podge mess in many states and so too in Texas way back then. In our city and in many cities and counties, if you wanted to “legally” carry a gun, you often just got a letter from the police chief or county sheriff to do so. Yet, another meeting, appointment with the big man. A person, let’s say one with a business who took money to the bank each day, or someone with a crazy uncle or ex-husband, etc, got a letter from the chief or sheriff to carry a gun. So in “backwoods law,” ye old chief/sheriff was considered to be somewhat of a local authority on gun ownership and carry. Best have it with you. I have been shown a number of such letters through the years. Reading them with my flashlight in the middle of the night at some incident or traffic stop.
I lived in a rural Georgia county for a time in the 1990s. South of Chattanooga and well north of Atlanta. To carry a handgun there, all you had to do was go to the county seat courthouse and simply sign a “gun book,” a thick, old-school, official, leather ledger. When my wife and I did sign the book, as we are gun people –
“So, there’s no training or anything with this?” I asked the county, holy-keeper-of -the-gun-book.
He looked at me funny and said, “No. And old people can’t be running around on a gun range, training. And they have a right to defend themselves too.”
Too old to train? He’s right. Today, many complainers think first “no guns,” then “if guns?” a gun owner needs to first pass like a…a Navy SEAL shooting program just to have a bedside pistola. I’m sure Atlanta has other rules.
But, time marched on. In the mid-1980s, the more “modern” the police chief we got in as time went on, the less this gun-pick-up would happen. Finally it quit altogether, just slowly evolved away. For one reason, I don’t think the modern police chief or elected sheriff wanted such personal involvement with real people’s, ground zero problems. Meanwhile big cities had rules. Smaller ones didn’t. Rural counties didn’t. Everybody seemed to have one gun anyway.
Time marched on and as other states defined their concealed carry laws, Texas did too, a little behind the curve. Much of Texas was and still is rural with boars, rattlers, coyotes, rabid dogs and raccoons, gators down east and a half a dozen other things that need occasional killing. Many Texicans had and still have a shotgun in a rack in the back window of their pick up. This ain’t Berkeley or New York City, nor DC, bubba. Don’t be telling us what to do. You have no idea what happens out on the mesa! In the Piney Woods. Or for that matter, Deep Ellum in Dallas.
The laws, the ideas, the political movements change. Today, such gun seizing of yesteryear could become lawsuits and demonstrations and big news coverage. 2nd Amendment horrors. But back then, no one objected to this quiet, casual “policy,” as the general public thought it was a good idea, it wasn’t abused, and therefore, we had the authority to do so. Like I said, this was well before the “dead fingers” lingo and logos of today.
I know this idea is freaking people out, but this was not about the police going door-to-door and collecting guns like the Oath-Keepers worry about. This is a very small-scale, situational. Today, when various police chiefs and sheriffs want stronger laws to pre-empt things like school shooters and so forth, I think this sort of the model they are asking for. With the establishment of current carry gun laws, with the implementation of quick arrest policies in domestic disturbances, and other modern protocols, many of the reasons to just seize guns in hot situations are gone. There are now other, more established, legal alternatives/solutions to hot situations.
But what about predicting future crime? 12 hours? 24 hours? A school shooting? You’re on the scene and you think something could happen tomorrow, or next week at the church, beauty salon or a school?
Texas Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a 40-point plan for improving school safety in late May, 2018. The plan mentions a potential “red flag” law that would allow judges to temporarily take guns away from people deemed to be dangerous if there is legal due process. Abbott didn’t call for legislators to pass such a law — he instead wants to “encourage” lawmakers to “consider the merits” of adopting it. Texas House Speaker Joe Straus took him up on that late Wednesday and instructed a committee of the lower chamber to study such legal provisions. Study! Study, Studies. Chin-rubbing. Head-scratching. Wind-blowing. Hem-hawing. How is all that going to work exactly?
I would be curious to know of other veteran officers around the country had these olden-days policies? I already know some did and still do in Arizona, Illinois, North Caroline, California, Oklahoma and Missouri from friends. Contact me with stories. Did you? Do you still?.
As taught to me from several FMA instructors from the Presas Family to the Inosanto family, going back decades, the classic “Chain of the____ (fill in the blank)” drills were an important stage in training progressions.
Chain of the Hand – cadena de mano Chain of the Stick – cadena de baston Chain of the Knife – cadena de daga
It essentially is blocking (as in hitting the attack very hard), then grabbing the attacking limb with your free/support hand. Or grabbing the attacking stick itself too, if that’s the case. Shoving the grab out of the way and hitting back with your hand, or your stick, or your knife. From….
From the outside right position From the inside right position From the inside left position From the outside left position From above, right or left From below, right or left
It, in my opinion is usually practiced too cavalierly and too slowly and can create a false sense of speed and success versus fighting in real time for unenlightened students.
And, it might be best against a diminished fighter – one already cracked in the head or say – knee, or against one who is quickly out of gas. Or, is untrained and nonathletic, drugged, etc… Some might call it “second tier” options. But watch the guys who make a living teaching this like I have seen in the Philippines and they are VERY fast and can snatch a fast limb or a speedy stick with good success. In fact, when I was about 30 years old and doing this stuff all the time, I got pretty good at it too. But, it ain’t easy. And remember not everyone you fight is a speedy boxer or stick fighter. Have you seen the Youtube clips lately? Grabbing is not impossible.
The word “chain” is used in many martial ways. We hear it in everything from chain punching to grabs to machine guns. These concepts go back to Europe also, and passed through the Philippines, as you will hear versions of these “Espanyol-ish” terms back in Spain, Portugal and Italy. We are quick to credit the Philippines for a lot of stuff, but we shouldn’t be so quick. I have seen the move in karate, American Apache knife fighting. Or football even (even roller derby!). You want to call it Wing Chun trapping hands? You can! Tapi-Tapi? Sure? Looks like Balintawak? Yes. As Remy would often say “it is all de same.”
Chaining with weapons: You’ve hit the attacking limb so hard, he drops the weapon! Yeah. Bloody good for you (this impact is trained in a progression series). But, what if he doesn’t drop the weapon? Well, crap! But maybe you have at least diminished his grip with a little pain? But sometimes your impact/block STOPPED his incoming attack. Stopped it long enough to be grabbed. This grab, is…the “chain of…something.” If you have virtually stopped or really slowed down an incoming attack, you might have a chance to grab the limb.
This, as explained to me so long ago I can’t remember by whom, – that hand grab, that hand catch, is the first “link” of survival. The first link of the chain. Link-Chain. Get it? Thus the “Chain of Something” has an official name for a chapter in training lifestyles. Thank you very much.
Of course, the next step in the chain is to block or stop that incoming strike after YOU’VE been grabbed. Then you, then he, then you, then he, then, then. Then…then you have a system of study for hand, stick and knife. I use the universal, unforgettable, Combat Clock for angles of attack, but you apply your chosen hobby’s angle of attack system to play the the “Then-Then” game. This ain’t brain surgery or rocket science.
Many martial artists and systems use this chain concept. Remy used the “Chains” too, These close-up “Chain” events. This area of course, is just a segment of a fight. I think some stick systems spend entirely TOO MUCH TIME here at the expense of other problems (like stick dueling for one). In the olden days, Remy was a real mover and head-banger and he spent copious amounts of time making us swing sticks and hit as hard as we could at longer ranges. Ernesto too.
Remy was fond of showing things and then stopping, looking at us and saying to us, “Of course, you could just hit the man in the head with a stick, but I want you to learn the art.”
For decades now, I have spotted “sloppiness, bad structure here and there in training, be it during my old Texas school of the 80s and 90s, or years on the road in seminars. Dropping hands. Sloppy finishes of strikes, or striking sets. For some people this is not a problem as they return to integrity after each move.
Others? Not so much. I have taped a boxing glove to a stick, stood behind a feeder and clobbered trainees that don’t cover themselves well when punching and kicking mitts, pads, shields. The recalcitrant, seeing me behind the trainer, seeing this pending boom, suddenly seem to cover well, but often when I walk away? The sloppiness might return?
I can only hope that when before a real threat, they also worry not about a boom stick, but about a real punch, and they also cover so well? But, boom stick or not, in training mitt drills, in kicking shield drills, they/you must maintain good integrity and structure for good habits.
Did Ed Parker demand the knife and all subsequent training be in a reverse grip? I don’t know. It is widely reported that in 1968 Gil designed the Kenpo Knife (sometimes called the Ed Parker Fighting Knife) for his black belt thesis on knife fighting using Kenpo tactics. These tactics are conducive to karate-kickboxing. Maybe some historian reading this will know and tell us. But the reverse grip stuck.
People pick grips for odd reasons too. I read from a guy writing about his grip choice. He said he once saw someone with a training knife, saber grip, stab a mitt and the guy’s hand slipped up on the blade. This made him pick the reverse grip. Really? That? Because if you don’t have a good guard, saber or reverse your hand can slip onto the blade. A
The reverse grip, edge-OUT offers a slashing possibility, an ADVANTAGE that might diminish or end the opponent alone. And a double-edged, or 1/4 or 1/2 or 3/4s or full sharp edge on the outer side is ALWAYS going to be a doctrine advantage. Maximize your survival with the most versatile knife. Reverse grip, edge-in? This is like only putting 2 rounds in a six gun.
It was afternoon in August in the early ’80s. Egg-frying, Texas hot. That is to say that if you plopped a raw egg down on the street, it would sizzle in less than a minute or so.
