Army Reservist stops arsonist; credits CMA training

[Bill Mattocks]

Good story:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/380925...ning-for-stopping-arsonist-at-restaurant.html

A 21-year-old Buffalo Grove man who recently completed 10 months of Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training for the U.S. Army credits his martial arts training for making him act against a man who tried to set fire to a River North restaurant last week.
...
“I had my back facing the door,” he says, when he heard a man yelling. “I turned around and saw him slashing (a) gas can around.” The man, later identified as Asif Kahn, 42, had apparently been refused service at the restaurant earlier and returned with the gas can.
“I was about to walk out because I knew it wasn’t safe, but I turned around and saw him about to light the match, so I reacted by stopping him instead of leaving.”
He confronted the man, and hit him, in an effort to subdue him. Asked if the man put up a fight, Kumra said, “Not really, he was drunk. He was fighting back. He did grab my leg. Then he threw a chair, but I reacted to that by finally stopping him.”
...
Kumra says it was the “decisiveness” to react in such a situation that he learned through his martial arts training that made him take action.
“The other 20 people in the restaurant, (were) going to stand by and watch themselves go up in flames. I just had the decisiveness to do that.” For that he thanks his martial arts teachers, Instructor Richard Baron, who teaches in Highland Park and Sifu James McNeil, who teaches in Irvine, Calif. They’re part of Little Nine Heaven Kung Fu and Tai Chi in Highland Park. “Without them I don’t know,” Kumra says. “I’d have been like the other people waiting to be lit on fire.

Great job, well done.

 

[chinto]

good that he used his training. He was at risk as well, and in my state if they verbalize the intent to do harm, they are fair game. You do NOT have to wait in my state for a blow to be struck or weapon drawn.
In my state arson is by law a black letter deadly force situation. Personally, drunk or not I would have been looking to stop him fast and very very hard! I hope he did the same.