This just happened to me last night. I work as a painter and have been doing night work at a local car dealership in Nimitz. I was waiting for access to the building at about 9:00pm. I noticed a local man walking out of the dealership parking lot with a cart of our equipment. I grabbed my tactical flashlight and pepper spray and confronted the individual. The man very quickly became confrontational and threatening. I asked him to leave the equipment. He then pulled out a knife and ran at me. I pulled out my pepper spray and pointed the flashlight at him. He went back to the cart and kept going. As he kept walking away I called the police and kept following the man. He started down an unlit backstreet alley with no exits. He ran at me with the knife again threatening to kill me. I was reluctant to go down the alley as I don't know the area and didn't want to get cornered. I noticed a cop car come by and went over and told them what happened and where I saw him go. The cops couldn't find the guy or equipment.
I thought I would share the story, as I think it supports the case this site stands for. It would have been much more effective to confront the situation with a firearm rather than purely defensive weapons. Even a taser would have been more effective, unfortunately also not legal. I also don't think I would want to confront such an unstable person in some sort of knife fight.
Please allow us to offer some suggestions to this scenario... Obviously none of us were there... decisions have to be made in a split second.... We are not second guessing anyone...
At anytime someone is wielding a knife... this is a life or death situation...
If you have a "tactical light" and "pepper spray" You should engadge the flash option to blind your attacker and deploy the pepper spray with no questions asked... You have been threated and had to take action. Period. Spray and get away... (this guy should have been given a bath in pepperspray)
The main course of action is to get away from the scenario and not get hurt or killed. (Hawaii dosen't have CCW... another subject which we all know)
Regardless if the attacker is on any type of drugs or what not... Spray and get away! Pepper Spray and Mace is very effective on all types of individuals! A full spray of Wild Fire 18% spray should put down a gorilla. But if it doesn't, it will disorient them so you can get away. You are not the police... You do not have to subdue and arrest the criminal, you need to get away to safety and be able to report the crime.
A lot of opinions will be shared, but the bottom line is to survive to live another day.