On December 2, 2017, I attended the first ever Kembativz Brand (https://www.kembativz.com/) Active Incident Workshop at their facility in Fredericksburg, Va. Kembativz Brand is owned and operated by Kelly McCann former Marine Corps Special Missions Officer and government contractor and his partner Michelle Washington. If you have ever trained with Kembativz Brand you know you are not getting some sugar-coated PC version of information, Kembativz Brand deals with realistic solutions to ugly real-world situations.
This is not your average active shooter type of course; the course is designed to be much broader in scope to be consumed by the average citizen as well as applicable to professional, social, and religious organizations. In short, this is real deal information for all interested parties. The course addresses active shooter/edged weapons/vehicle attacks (as conducted by individual motivations as well as terrorists), terrorist incident to include bombing situations, street crime, as well as a number of other personal security concerns.
The day was split between Kelly and Michelle’s tag teaming the various topics related to active incidents. Topics included the following:
- A brief review of recent incidents
- Attacker motivation and does it really matter in the moment
- Situational awareness
- Mindset – self-defense vs. self-offense
- Victim selection matrix
- Behavioral cues to be aware of
- Avoidance
- Violent attacks
- Responding to incidents active shooter, terrorism, criminal
- Run, Hide, Fight, & Shoot (This was not your standard government advise)
- Use of time and space
- Cover & concealment
I’ve attended many self-defense courses and the information put out here was by far some of the best I’ve heard.
The afternoon was dedicated to what I will call trauma medical for the layperson. The Instructor for this block was Doc John Duncan former Navy Corpsman with Marine Force Recon and Crucible instructor. Doc’s presentation titled Street Medicine was spot on in covering the lifesaving basics for the layperson. Included was the basics of injury recognition and treatment prioritization, use of tourniquet’s, airway management, use of hemostats, application of battle dressings, self-treatment and buddy aid, patient movement, and gear selection and many other topics crammed into 3.5 hours. As an EMT, first aid trainer, and security provider I will say this block of instruction is perfect for the layperson and could easily have filled the whole day. The block was ended with all attendees conducting the skills learned from each other.
In conclusion, this course knocked the topics out of the park. The information and instruction are top notch. In this day and age this type, of course, should be the bare minimum of everyone. There is no telling when or where the next incident will occur but we all know that it will. This course will prepare the average person to be better ready if they are caught in the middle of it. There is some talk about the course going to a two-day format and that is easily possible given the topic.
Author – Art Dorst served in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserves and eventually retired as an NCO from The Army National Guard. He is also a retired municipal Police Officer, a Certified EMT, NRA Instructor, and is currently a security provider/trainer.
