Surprise man uses martial arts on intruder
Father of 3 fights back vs. stranger with gun in home
by D.S. Woodfill - May. 5, 2012 08:51 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com
David Jennings slowly emerged from a deep sleep, sensing that someone was standing by his bed.
In the dark room, the blue glow of the television illuminated a man's silhouette. The stranger was pointing a gun at Jennings' head.
"Don't move," the stranger said.
Crime victims often have just moments to react, as they decide how best to keep alive and protect loved ones. With his three children sleeping down the hall and his wife lying next to him, Jennings had a second to decide.
He moved.
2:50 A.M.
Jennings would later say it was almost as if he weren't directing his own actions.
Protect the family.
Jennings, who was lying on his stomach, reached around behind his back with his left arm and grabbed the intruder's hand that was holding the gun -- the same gun Jennings kept by his bed for protection, a Bersa .380 semiautomatic.
Jennings used his free hand to push himself off his bed and swung his left leg off the edge. Turning toward the intruder, Jennings lunged. He slammed his shoulder into the man's midsection, and with his arms wrapped around the stranger's torso, lifted him off the ground to take him off balance. With the stranger digging his fingernails into Jennings' back, the two crashed to the floor, about six feet from the foot of the bed.
Sitting on the stranger's torso, Jennings wrapped his leg around him to constrict his breathing.
"I was smashing his head into the ground, trying to keep him disoriented," Jennings said.
He shouted for his wife to call 911. Jennifer Jennings grabbed the phone and dialed but couldn't remember her own address. She composed herself enough to spit the words out and then ran from the room, jumping over the two men who were blocking the door. She took the children downstairs to the family room.
The intruder stopped struggling when the two hit the ground.
That's when he said something totally unexpected.
"He was just saying, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' as he lay on his stomach," Jennings said. "He wasn't doing anything else. He was just laying there, his arms out to the side."
The gun was a few feet away, dropped during the struggle.
Jennifer unlocked the front door for the police.
Upstairs, she told them.
As two Surprise police officers charged into the room, guns drawn, they grabbed the aggressor, the one who had a man pinned to the bedroom floor on his stomach.
Jennifer, just behind them, saw the mistake.
"Wait, that's my husband."
They handcuffed the intruder and took him away.
David Jennings' hands shook for five hours.
Reaction
Whether Jennings reacted to the situation appropriately depends on who's doing the talking.
Surprise police Sgt. Bert Anzini praised Jennings for his quick action but stopped short of saying that everyone in that situation should react in the same way.
"It's the person -- the victim who's in this situation -- that has to make that choice of whether they're going to submit to the demands of the criminal and hope that there's no type of violence," Anzini said.
Michael Foley, who teaches self-defense, said victims in a similar situation as Jennings should definitely take action. Foley said when someone breaks into an occupied home and has a gun, "they're probably going to do something to you no matter if you comply or not."
"Your best bet is to fight with everything you've got," he said.
James Gierke, director of victims services for the National Organization for Victim Assistance, said taking on a criminal suspect is not always the right thing to do.
"I think (that's) way too black and white," he said. "There's a huge potential for you to escalate a situation. Sometimes compliance is the best approach.
"I cannot and I would not absolutely recommend that in every single situation the appropriate response is to fight. I think in certain situations compliance makes sense."
The aftermath
The man who broke into the Jenningses' home in the middle of the night had the misfortune to run into someone with some experience with fighting.
David Jennings said he briefly studied mixed martial arts five years ago, training that kicked in when he came under threat that night in his room. Mixed martial arts is a combat sport that uses techniques from wrestling, boxing and kickboxing as well as judo, Brazilian jujitsu and other fighting styles. Using his legs to constrict the intruder's breathing, which is known as a body lock, is one of the moves he learned.
The quick reaction came partly from his experience as a bouncer. But it was his life as a husband and father that led the 29-year-old to battle that weekend night in March.
"All those what-ifs -- like if he would have grabbed one of my sons or daughter," he said.
Surprise police arrested Ivan Sanchez, 18, who has a juvenile record for armed robbery and burglary.
Sanchez, accused of entering the Jennings house through an unlocked sliding-glass door, faces charges of aggravated assault and burglary.
Six weeks after the Jenningses awoke to the stranger beside their bed, David Jennings is thinking of putting in an alarm system. He double-checks the door locks every night. He still keeps the gun by his bed at night but started using a trigger lock.
Jennifer still sleeps with the lights on in the hallway and stairs outside their room. She makes her husband investigate every noise, no matter how minor. She is thinking about carrying a gun with her everywhere. She remembers how the intruder looked at them.
"That's what I see every night when I close my eyes."
Reply With Quote
