Mindful of the Tueller Drill and the 21′ Rule, what transpires below is extraordinary.
A clearly distraught man in Indonesia is moving around wildly with a large knife in his hand. He is approached by a policeman armed with a handgun and bamboo stick. A warning shot is fired overhead, but the man with a knife refused to comply with the orders to drop the knife.
Three policemen with long bamboo poles attempt to corral the man. As he presses towards the man who had fired a shot, the policeman sets aside his pole, and instead of taking a likely fatal shot, engages with the knife wielder, hand to hand, and disarms him.
In the early 80s, Sergeant Dennis Tueller, of the Salt Lake City, Utah Police Department conducted a series of experiments. He learned how long it took and officer to:
•Recognize a threat;
•Draw a firearm;
•Hit center mass twice.
The answer was 1.5 seconds. Then he determined how far someone with a knife could cover in 1.5 seconds. The answer was 21 feet.
Thus, a LEO with a holstered sidearm is in danger if he is within 21 feet of a potential attacker armed with an edged weapon. For three decades this 21-Foot Rule has been a central aspect of teaching law enforcement officers to defend themselves against edged weapons. In brief, if a suspect is armed with an edged weapon, and is within 21 feet, then the LEO should have his firearm out and aimed.
Not only did these police officers not use a firearm, they did it in area where many people possess extreme skill with a blade. If martial arts from England are defined by boxing, and martial arts from the USA and Russia are defined by wrestling, martial arts from Indonesia are known for their expertise with a blade. So not only did the brave policeman take a knife off a man with his bare hands, he did it in a nation where a knife in a hand is terrifying.
