On adrenaline, note that some memories come back that are foggy or blanked-out due to the adrenal-stress. They do help dissect the event and give clarity to what happened, aiding us in data-collection and decision-making for future reference and incidents. They also can aid in solving motivation, tactics, and methods.

1. It’s important, for those following and learning that aren’t exposed to adrenal-stress with any regularity as well, that some reactions we do under duress are unexplainable at the time. We don’t know why we do them…but they’re done for very specific reasons due to our innate survival skills and we only acknowledge them later on. They come from training, exposure/experience, nature/nurture, environment or combinations thereof. We remember and assess them post-event. I’ll discuss those that were present in this event below.
2. It’s normal to forget some things, which is why it’s important to process and analyze later as the adrenaline wear-off what those things were and whether they were successful or not.
3. When another person is involved, that added benefit of cross-referencing and comparing and mixing-and-matching is invaluable in remembering minutiae that one alone might not.

After cross-referencing and deep-memory accessing when the adrenaline started to wear-off, some other details were brought back to the surface:

-a clown was pressuring us to buy his balloons earlier, then as we were in-motion away from the threat, started pressuring to buy again, but more intensely. I remember clearly telling him to “fuck-off” and telling my wife to keep moving, as any distraction while moving I take as a potential affiliate and will act accordingly. It may have been entirely coincidental…but it was a detail nonetheless and something to make note of in hindsight

-I remember seeing a tall, thin guy with shades and a similar black t-shirt pop-up 3 times during the departure, again…maybe coincidental…maybe not. I know he was omnipresent in my mind as anybody who I remember multiple times that catches my eye is avoided and made note of, whether threat or not. Shades also  hide intent and attention so it’s hard to tell if he was focusing on us, but his repeated visual was peculiar

-I cannot say whether I saw the plastic bag with the guy upon earlier visuals or if he may have picked it up along the way. I can remember now that right before the last time we saw him, he had his right-hand in the bag (right-handed), the other holding his “bag-wrist”…so it had some weight to it

-Whether he saw me deploy weapon or not, I was not entirely subtle with my draw, very likely for a reason. The presentation, void-look, and my serious intent was probably unconsciously-designed to intimidate and de-motivate – it worked as he departed and that was the last time we saw him. He was 30-35 years old and, as mentioned, his clothing, facial hair, and build stood-out immediately as being an alarm in this particular area. He was well-defined, black hair and goatee, both well-coiffued and maintained, all in black

-My son listened intently, which is neither easy nor regular at his age. He clearly knew something was amiss and acted obediently, full marks and I plan on discussing this with him tomorrow.

-If I’m assured that there’s a weapon present, I don’t pay much attention to calloused hands or signs of fight-experience, if being honest. I simply pay attention to hand-movement and location. I’m weapon-aware more than fight-experience-aware and once a weapon is identified as even a potential entry into any violent conflict, that should take precedence over any assessments on fight capability.

-I remember not wanting to tell any of the omnipresent LE (law-enforcement) about this, even though they were omnipresent as a) it may motivate the person more intensely after we’re again on our own and b) I was unconsciously concerned that some area-LE might be involved in some way. I wanted the heat – my family, who better to protect them than me.

-We had just gotten coffee and it was lidded and extremely-hot. I remember my wife telling me to take off the lid in case we needed a projectile but coffee cools super-quick without the lid and in open-areas with a breeze. I told her no as he wasn’t in-proximity and I wanted the coffee steaming-hot.

-My wife remembers telling my son immediately before the event that if anyone tried to take him that he needed to fight and scream. Such an interesting tidbit on reflection, that she said it at that very moment. Intuition? Irony? Who’s to say..

Yes, it was high-order and extremely-dangerous….this guy had committed violence and victimized before, I knew it innately. Through and through. Abductions and hits are both not uncommon here. I do know he was a serial-predator who was “misplaced” there and this was definitely his hunting ground.

I am documenting this as a post-incident reference-point for accuracy, for a potential legal document, for posterity, and for learning/studying purposes of others’ survival-plan. I believe there are 3 possibilities as to motive here:

1. A kidnapping-plot.
2. A serial-predator looking for a mark. Violence for the sake of violence, mental-issues, violent-robbery, murder, rape, foreigner-resentment, process-predator…who knows.                              These are the 2 highest-percentage, most logical possibilities. The one I’m having trouble getting out of my mind to this point:
3. A hit from people who would like to see bad things happen to us, of which there are some we’re aware of.

What’s something we both agree on is that this was an attempt on one or more of our lives and was treated as such.