Fucked up outside of the usual here

It wasn't that long ago that some of the staff here were faced with a very unpleasant situation. A patron decided they didn't want to abide by the store rules of conduct and after eventually being herded outside, that person decided to camp on our doorstep in an aggressive fashion and getting good and liquored up.

The police were summoned and force was employed on the surly person we were trying to get rid of prior to the officers arriving. I turned out there were outstanding warrants on the critter in question too. It was a tense and potentially dangerous situation. As reported to me by the staff involved, the guy would repeatedly advance on my people with a glass bottle in hand. Anyone that doesn't consider that an effective weapon has sawdust between the ears.

In any case, everything turned out alright. It was just one of those random occurrences that sometimes happen at a place of business. No way to accurately predict, only to be prepared for.

Of course, now that the whole interaction is in the past, I find myself dissecting it. Where were the mistakes? What could have been done differently? How many chances did my co-workers take? Perhaps it could be considered arm-chair quarterbacking, but I know there are things to be learned. Regardless, I'd have to say what was done was essentially correct on the basis of outcome. I just have to worry at the bones for a bit.

I think I would have placed the call to the authorities sooner than they did in this case. As difficult as it was for them to get him out of the actual building, his continued presence in the parking lot was definitely an act of provocation. It's a judgment call, but at that point I would say it was past the point where ordering him to leave was going to have any positive effect.

I don't think I would have gone outside to confront him. On the other hand, he had stationed himself just outside the doors and was in a combative posture and as such an argument can be made that for the sake of our customers we needed to shift him to another area.

I do think that my clerk spent too long dancing on the edge of using force to avert the continued threat of force. If you've tried a few times to get the guy to drop his bottle or knock it from his hand and he's still advancing, it's a good bet it's because they intend to use it. Continued attempts to knock it away are only going to set up a pattern of feints until someone decides to make a real move. If you do decide to hit them in the knee with a bat, you've committed to the belief they are an immediate threat to your person, do not tap them on the joint and hope they will back off. As it happened, they were still dancing back and forth when the cruiser arrived. Call me weird, but in my estimation the longer things drug out the higher the chances that someone, probably my staff, were going to be seriously injured.

Yeah, I wonder how many people thought they'd ever run across a porn store clerk discussing the use of physical force.