Your Ring Doorbell sounds on a Saturday night. Do you just open the door to see who it is? Or should you actually take a look at the video that the doorbell shows before you open it?
A man in Staten Island, New York, could have prevented his own murder by taking a quick peek at his video. He would have seen this:
The video shows two men dressed in hoodies and wearing masks (the new normal during COVID in 2020-2021) approaching the door. You can see one man start to pull a modern sporting rifle from a backpack. The man carrying the rifle rings the doorbell and takes an aggressive position to burst in through the door as soon as it is opened. The resident, who has a recording studio at the location, opens the door and the two criminals burst in. The second man is holding a handgun and does not seem to actually get over the threshold. You can hear at least four shots ring out and the attackers flee.
It does not appear that the invasion involved any sort of robbery because the armed criminals did not spend but about13 seconds for the actual attack and apparently left empty-handed. Perhaps the incident was solely an assassination. We probably will never know.
What we need to do is take a look at this incident with our eyes towards what can we learn from it:
If you have a camera like this or a window out to the porch, take the second or two to visually check who is at the door.
Don't voluntarily breach your own defenses by prematurely opening the door.
Have a plan to defend your self and your family from inside your dwelling.
Use the defenses of the dwelling to provide cover, concealment, and time to repel the assault.
Retreat deeper into house if you have to. There is no rule that you must counterattack outside.
Detection, deterrence, and denial are three elements that can delay the attack long enough for you to mount a defense.
Think about adding layers to your defense to buy you distance and time. Both of these elements buys you options for your defense.