And to follow up on the little Austin riot….

[Cpl. David Boyd with the Austin Police Department] says they normally have a special crowd management team to prepare for large and potentially unruly crowds.

“We weren’t expecting anything, so we didn’t have the team on standby ready to be deployed at any time.”

So, there wasn’t enough police presence. And they didn’t have a team on standby. And so, response took time. In fact, while the video in the original report did have footage from APD’s helicopter, so what? It’s not like the pilot could stop anything (nor was the presence of the helicopter nor police on the ground being any sort of deterrent). In fact, they had to wait for some cars to clear before they could go in.

Suppose you were caught in the middle of that (very possible, given it was happening outside a Halloween attraction), what would you do?

Obviously APD wasn’t set up to save you.

And for those that think we’re paranoid, it’s not that — it’s preparedness. APD, by their own admission, wasn’t prepared. Look at the result. Bad things can happen at any time any where. That doesn’t mean they always will, but that’s of little comfort when you happen to be caught in that rare moment when it does happen.

Have a plan beforehand. Have tools to manage your situation. And better yet? take Farnam’s advice on risk management.