People think crime looks like the movies. Somebody jumps out of the bushes, and it’s on. It almost never happens that way. Before a mugger, a carjacker, or a home invader ever puts hands on anybody, there’s a step in between that most people don’t even know is happening. The guy runs a test on you first, and you are getting graded on it whether you know you’re sitting for it or not.
I’ve been telling readers about this for years, mostly from my own time around people who live this way. But I wanted you to hear it straight from the source, so I tracked down a guy I’ve known a long time who spent a good chunk of his life doing exactly what I’m describing. He did his time, he’s out, and he agreed to talk on one condition: I don’t use his real name and I don’t say where he’s from. So I’m going to call him Dee. Some of what he told me he did himself. Some of it is stuff he watched other guys do, or heard them bragging about it in prison, because inside, these guys compare notes like it’s a trade. Either way, it’s real, and it’s the kind of thing that’ll keep you or somebody you love off the wrong end of it.
I’m going to give it to you close to how he gave it to me. It’s blunt. That’s the point.
“You Never Just Grab Somebody”
A lot of people think that most crime is random, so I started the interview to get his take…
Me: When you were working, did you ever just pick somebody at random?
Dee laughed. “Nah. That’s how you catch a case, or catch a bullet. You don’t know that dude. You don’t know if he’s carrying, if he boxes, if he’s the type to chase you down over forty bucks. Everybody looks soft standing still. You gotta find out what he’s really about before you’re committed, because once you step to somebody, you’re in it. So you check him first. Quick. He usually don’t even know you checked.”
That right there is the whole game, and it’s why situational awareness matters more than any gun or class. Dee wasn’t rolling dice. He was gathering information, and he was doing it in the open, in plain sight, in a way that looked like nothing a normie would suspect. The check comes before the crime. If you can spot the check, you can shut the whole thing down before it becomes a crime at all. I get into the foundation of that in my piece on situational awareness, because spotting the signs is impossible if your head’s buried in your phone.
Me: So what are you actually looking for when you select somebody?
“One thing,” he said. “Can I get away with it. That’s it. That’s the only question. Not what he’s got. Whether I walk away clean. Everything I’m looking at is me answering that one question.”
He Clocks Your Energy Before You Ever Open Your Mouth
Before Dee ever gets close enough to say a word, he’s already made up his mind about you from clear across the street. When I asked him how, he couldn’t even put a real number on how fast it happens.
Me: When you pick somebody out of a crowd, before you say anything, what are you actually going off of?
“It’s a feeling, man. I know that sounds crazy, but that’s what it is. I can look at a whole block full of people and just feel who the one is. Takes me a second, maybe two. Some people give off this energy like they’re switched on, like they belong right where they’re standing and they’re already clocking everything around ’em. You leave them alone. Then some people give off nothing. Timid. Kinda shrunk up. Like they’re hoping nobody notices ’em. And that’s the exact thing that makes me notice ’em.”
Me: So it’s not really about how big they are or what they look like?
“Nah, that ain’t it. It’s how they carry it. I seen little dudes put off a don’t-even-think-about-it energy, and I seen big dudes put off please-don’t-hurt-me. Size got nothing to do with it. It’s confidence. You either move through the world like you’re awake and you got this, or you move through it like you’re a little bitch. And I can feel which one you are before you even know I’m looking at you.”
Here’s what most people never get. It has almost nothing to do with your size or your clothes, and it’s not even really the mechanics of how you move, that’s its own whole article. What a guy like Dee is reading is the energy you’re putting out, and he reads it the way you’d read the weather, in a second, without even thinking about it. To him, confidence isn’t a personality thing. It’s information. It tells him whether you’re going to be a headache, and he’s already made that call before you ever registered his face.
“And the phone,” he added, without me asking. “The phone is the best thing that ever happened to guys like me. Everybody’s got their face buried in it. In the parking lot, at the gas pump, walking to the car at night. You got no idea what’s ten feet behind you. Used to be people watched their back. Now these morons help us do our job.”
Then Comes the Test
This is the part almost nobody sees for what it is. Once Dee flagged somebody, he didn’t charge. He walked up and ran a little test, and the test was designed to look like nothing at all.
Me: Okay. You’ve spotted somebody. What’s the test?
“Easy stuff. I walk up like I need something. ‘Hey, you got the time?’ ‘You got a light?’ ‘You know how to get to such and such street?’ ‘You got a couple dollars, I’m trying to get on the bus.’ Regular. Friendly, even. But I ain’t asking ’cause I care what time it is. I’m asking to get close and see what you do.”
Me: And what are you reading while you do that?
He held up a finger for each one.
“First, did you even see me coming, or did I get right up on you before you noticed? If I’m already in your space before you clock me, that’s a fail, you lose. Second, when I stepped up in your area, what’d you do? Did you hold your space and turn and face me? Or did you kinda shrink up, back off, start saying sorry, get all soft? Third, and this is the big one, when I pushed a little, when I stepped a little closer than I should, did you freeze? ‘Cause a lot of people freeze. They don’t know what to do so they do nothing. That freeze tells me everything. That’s a green light.”
Sit with what he just said, because that’s the whole thing laid bare. He’s not asking for the time. He’s checking three things: your awareness, your boundary, and your freeze. The question in his head the entire time is the one he told me at the start. Can I get away with it. Your answer is written all over how you handle a stranger asking for a cigarette.
“People are polite,” Dee said, almost like it bothered him. “That’s what gets ’em. They been raised to be nice, don’t be rude, answer the question, don’t make a scene. So some guy they never met walks up too close and they stand there being polite while I’m reading ’em like a menu. Being nice to the wrong person will get you hurt.”
The Loud One
Not every test is friendly. Dee told me about a different kind, and I’ve heard the same from other guys over the years.
Me: Is it always the calm, friendly approach? Or are there other ways this is done?
“Depends on the guy and what he’s after. Some dudes do the opposite — these motherfuckers are the ones that just aren’t right in the head. They come in loud and hot on purpose. Get right up, start yelling, ‘What you looking at, what’s your problem,’ aggressive, fast, in your face. But, that can be a test too. That’s them seeing if you fall apart like a bitch. Most people, somebody blows up at ’em like that outta nowhere, they lock up, they get scared, they start stammering. That’s the guy who does that on purpose. He wants that reaction. If you fold when he yells, he knows you’ll fold when it’s real.”
That sudden blast of aggression is its own screening. It’s not a guy losing his temper. It’s a guy checking whether shock and noise turn you to stone. The tell that separates it from a real argument is that it comes from nowhere, over nothing, way too fast. Somebody manufactured that heat to watch you melt.
What Makes Him Walk Away
This is the part you actually want. I asked Dee the money question. What made him pick someone else.
Me: What’s a hard no for you? What made you drop it and move on?
“When I could tell they saw me first. That’s the biggest one. I hate when I go to check somebody and I can see in their face they already had me. They watched me come. Now I don’t have surprise no more, and surprise is half of it. Soon as somebody looks right at me, clean, not scared, just letting me know they see me, I’m already thinking about the next person.”
He kept going, and honestly it was a clinic.
“Somebody turns and squares up to face me instead of letting me get to their side or their back. Somebody who answers short and moves on, don’t get sucked into the little conversation, just ‘no’ and keeps it moving with their feet still under ’em. Somebody whose hands are free and ready, not full of bags, not both hands in their pockets. Somebody who steps back and makes space instead of letting me close it. All that stuff tells me this one’s gonna be work. And I ain’t looking for work. There’s an easier one a block away every single time.”
There it is, from a man who did it for real. You don’t beat becoming a victim by being the toughest guy on the street. You beat it by being too much trouble to be worth it. Notice him early. Face him. Keep your hands free. Make space. Answer flat and firm and keep walking. Every one of those is you failing his test on purpose, and failing his test is exactly what you want to do. When you’re ready to go past awareness into what happens if the test doesn’t stop him, that’s what my article on defending yourself from an attacker is for.
“And look ’em in the eye,” Dee said. “Not crazy, not challenging, not puffing up like you’re looking for it, ’cause that’s its own kind of tell and some guys will take that as a dare — again there are motherfuckers who are just crazy and do this shit for fun. Just let ’em know somebody’s home. That’s it. That’s usually all it takes.”
Size and a Gun Won’t Save You If You’re Not There
I figured a big guy or a guy who might be armed would scare him off. His answer flipped that on its head.
Me: Does it change anything if the guy’s big? Or if you think he might be carrying?
“Size don’t mean what people think. A big dude staring at his phone is easier than a little dude who’s switched on. The big guy thinks nobody’s gonna mess with him ’cause he’s big, so he stops paying attention. That right there is the easiest mark there is, a strong guy who quit watching ’cause he feels safe. I’d take him over some skinny dude who’s looking right at me, every time. The skinny dude who sees me is a problem. The big dude who don’t is asleep.”
Me: And a weapon? If you figured he might be carrying?
“A gun in your glovebox or your nightstand don’t do nothing for you when I’m already on you. If I did it right, you never saw me coming, so by the time you’re reaching, it’s done. That gun’s only worth something if you saw me early enough to get to it. And if you saw me that early, I probably already went and found somebody else. It always comes back to the same thing. Did you see me, or didn’t you.”
I couldn’t have scripted that better if I tried. Every tool you own, the pistol, the pepper spray, the years of training, all of it only works downstream of one thing, and that’s seeing it coming. A weapon you can’t reach because you got caught flat is just weight in your pocket. Awareness is what buys the time to use everything else you’ve got. Miss that first step and none of the rest of it gets a chance to fire.
Houses and Cars Get the Same Treatment
The interview isn’t only a street thing. I asked Dee about breaking into homes and taking cars, and it turns out the test just changes shape.
Me: What about houses? Same idea?
“Same exact thing. You knock. Everybody knocks first. You come up with a story ready, ‘I’m looking for so-and-so,’ ‘my car broke down, you got a phone.’ If somebody answers, oh, wrong house, sorry, and you’re gone, no crime, nothing happened. But if nobody answers, now you know it’s empty, and now you go around back. The knock is the interview. You’re testing the house the same way you test a person. Is anybody home. That’s all a burglar’s really scared of, running into somebody.”
That lines up with everything the research says and everything I’ve written. The thing that stops a break-in cold is the burglar believing somebody’s inside, which is why the cheap stuff like a car in the driveway, a radio on, a dog, and a door that won’t quietly give matters so much. If you want the full breakdown of the signals people unknowingly send that say “nobody’s home,” I laid those out in this piece on inviting a home invasion.
Me: And cars?
“Cars, the bump. You tap somebody’s bumper, little fender bender, they hop out all worried about the scratch, keys still in the ignition, door open, phone in their hand. Now they’re standing in the street thinking about insurance instead of thinking about you. You made ’em get out and get distracted, and you watched to see if they’d do it. Somebody who cracks the window two inches and says follow me to the police station and won’t get out, that’s a no. Too smart. Move on.”
The Stuff He Watched Other Guys Do
I told Dee I wanted the things he maybe didn’t do himself but knew about, the stuff guys talked about inside. He didn’t hesitate.
Me: What about the things you didn’t do, but you know go on? Stuff guys talked about?
“Man, everybody’s got their thing. The follow-home is a big one. Dudes post up outside a bank, an ATM, a check-cashing spot, a nice bar, and they don’t do nothing right there where there’s cameras. They pick you there and follow you. They hit you at your driveway, your garage, wherever you let your guard down ’cause you’re home now and you feel safe. By the time it happens you’re miles from where they picked you, so you never even think about it.”
He went on. Some of these I’d heard, some he laid out cleaner than I ever had.
“The two-man thing. One guy comes up front, asks you the directions, gets your eyes on him. His partner’s coming from behind while you’re busy being helpful. You never even see the second dude. That’s why when somebody stops you, you gotta clock who else is around, not just the guy talking. The talker’s the decoy half the time.
“Elevators and stairwells, ’cause there’s no cameras that matter and nowhere for you to go. Guys wait for that. You get in a parking garage stairwell alone, that’s a fishbowl.
“And the worst ones, the ones that made me not wanna hear it, guys that test kids. Same thing, but on a kid. ‘Hey, can you help me find my dog.’ ‘Your mom told me to come get you.’ Seeing which kid comes, which kid freezes, which kid’s off by themselves not paying attention. Same test. Just evil.” He got quiet for a second. ” These motherfuckers are sick, have no morals. That’s the one you gotta drill into your kids. Don’t be polite to a grown man you don’t know who’s asking you for help. Grown men don’t ask kids for help.”
That last one is worth the whole article by itself. The same three things Dee reads on an adult, awareness, boundary, freeze, a predator reads on a child, and kids are trained by every adult in their life to be polite and obedient, which is the exact opposite of what keeps them safe. Teach your kids they’re allowed to be rude to a strange adult. Teach them a real grown-up doesn’t ask a child for directions or help finding a puppy. Teach them the word no and back them when they use it.
What He Wants You to Take From It
I closed by asking Dee what he’d tell regular people if he had the floor.
Me: If you could tell everybody one thing, what is it?
“Look up and start fucking paying attention. That’s it. Look up and see people. Ninety percent of the folks I ever picked, I picked ’cause they weren’t there. Not weak, not small, not old. Just not paying attention. Gone. If you just walk around actually seeing what’s around you, seeing me before I get to you, letting me know you see me, I promise you, guys like me go find somebody else. We’re lazy. We want easy. Don’t be easy.”
I’ve said a version of that in nearly everything I’ve ever written on this, and it hits different coming from a guy who worked the other side of it. Situational awareness is key before almost every street crime, every home invasion, every grab. You’re being tested, and the beautiful part is you get to fail it. Failing it is free. It costs you nothing but the habit of keeping your head up and your eyes open and your mouth firm when a stranger crowds you.
When we were done and said one more thing on his way out, and I’m going to leave you with it because it stuck with me.
“Every person I ever hit proabably had a bad feeling.’ They all felt it. They just talked themselves out of it ’cause they didn’t wanna be rude.” He shrugged. “Being rude to me woulda saved every one of ’em.”
Trust the feeling. It’s the only part of the test you don’t have to study for.
