About
Michael Edward Loftus Sr:
Bio and CV

Almost my only memories from early childhood are of my alcoholic father’s fists, knife, or gun as he'd go berserk. Luckily for me, I was his youngest of five, his “little tyke,” the apple of his eye – so he'd merely backhand me out of the way to get at my mother. All I could do was run for help.

Sometimes my adult brother would beat him unconscious, spattering blood on my toys; other times cops would drag him off in handcuffs or a straitjacket for an overnighter in jail.

The next day he’d be kind and gentle again as we'd walk to the store for my Three Musketeers candy bar and his morning pint of whiskey. Halfway home, he'd toss his empty bottle into an alley and I'd toss my empty candy bar wrapper; it was our little ritual. By my fifth birthday he was gone.

As a sixteen-year-old searching for my long-lost father, I found him covered with wine-sores, sleeping in a flophouse on Detroit’s skid row. I gently shook him awake but he startled and yanked a wine bottle from under his pillow, furiously trying to bash me with it.

I held down his feeble arms while trying in vain to explain I was his son. Soon exhausted, he gave up and offered me a swig from his half-empty bottle. I declined. He chugged the rest and passed out.

I got a hamburger and nagged him awake to take a bite. He’d barely chewed it when he passed out again. The next day the hamburger minus the one bite sat on his nightstand as he snored, clutching still another half-empty wine bottle.

I saw to it he spent the rest of his days dried out in a loony bin, eating three proper meals a day. Maybe he was better off. I wonder if he ever knew his reluctant visitor was his little tyke now grown up, and wonder if he hid behind a kind and gentle yet vacant mask.

Never mentioned by the remnants of his family, he’d squandered his life, but in the debris I found precious lessons about victims, violence, terror, and survival. Some examples, for instance, are in Stress Control.

Of course many other kids and their mothers have had, are having, or will have it far worse, as shown in Domestic Violence.

MY FEAR OF FEAR ITSELF
As a ten-year-old I first saw my childhood hero one night when screaming sirens drew me to a scene outside Jo-Jo’s Bar where eight frenzied Detroit cops clubbed and kicked Lucky Barton, the neighborhood legend, into a straightjacket while he bellowed, “More! MORE!”

I longed to be even half as tough. I became addicted to testing my bravery – sometimes unable to stop laughing uproariously while in danger despite making matters worse; other times being stupidly hostile.

Many years later, to defeat Lucky Barton in a brawl, a motorcycle gang shot his legs out before they slowly circled him, taunting and stabbing as, no surprise, he fought to the end. As far as I know, he lost only his final battle.

Though I never got anywhere near the heights of my childhood hero’s bravado, I finally realized that fine lines separate bravery, madness, and stupidity – and fear paralysis comes from not knowing just where those lines are.

Lucky Barton, whether hero, madman, or merely a spectacular fool, spurred my search for courage which now – bolstered by today’s foremost academic and military research – helps me teach innocent prey to reach the mad-dog mindset needed to fight for their very lives if ever set upon by an evil predator – as shown throughout Fighting Options - Overview. Especially see Victim's 5th Option: Fighting for Your Life and Optimal Mindset.

AT AGE FOURTEEN
I began fighting at a housing project boxing gym. Over time, it helped me outgrow the street gang I'd joined at age nine and the fast track to a life of crime, early death, or prison that too many of my childhood friends had chosen.

As our crimes escalated from stealing cars to burgling stores and drug dealing, our paths began diverging as differences in our innate characters began emerging. Some of my friends didn’t care who they harmed – mugging drunken family men, burgling people’s homes. Two eventually became hit men. Those were the ones of us who'd always clung to warped values, sneering at contrary views.

Still others of us, myself included, burgled only businesses (assuming they were insured) and trapped and mugged only the loathsome pedophiles who offered us – mere kids – money for sex. I fancied myself a sort of Robin Hood to justify my behavior. Ultimately, I learned firsthand the twisted morality of a criminal's mind that now – along with today's science – illuminates my lessons for innocent prey – as shown throughout Criminal Minds.

DREAMING OF SOMEDAY
becoming world heavyweight champion, I fought for nine years overall – the last three-and-a-half at Detroit’s legendary Kronk Gym where I forced myself daily to appear nonchalant while enduring the dread of battling world-class professional boxers as their spar-mate (or human punching-bag).

I was the only white fighter there. The closest thing to a father I ever had was the top boxing coach in Detroit, the supremely dignified, wise, and truly caring head coach, John Brown – a black man. I learned that your race doesn't matter – only your heart.

With chronic shoulder impingement syndrome, boxer’s neck from too many blows to the head, and a debilitating, permanently broken L-5 vertebra (from a foolish accident) taking their toll on me as well as my quixotic dream, I quit fighting at age 22. I took my annual August rest, and somehow just never went back. I still don't know why. Maybe deep inside I knew it was time to move on – while I still had a few brain cells left.

Though I never came anywhere near my ambition of becoming a world champion, boxing’s grueling training regimen taught me self-discipline and a thing or two about fighting, fear control, a survival attitude, and – above all else – led me away from a life of crime and eventually to my calling.

MY RIDICULOUSLY RECKLESS LIFE
had put me in Detroit hospital emergency rooms perhaps forty or fifty times altogether (sprains, stitches, 25 broken bones, receiving Last Rites, etc.). My poor mother, my saving grace, had to fetch me from hospitals or police stations countless times. My father had tormented this good, kind woman, then I did.

My myriad injuries later drove me to become a therapist for muscular pain and dysfunction to rehab myself from various chronic pains as well as to make a living. In the late 1980s, expecting to live a quiet life, I began working in New England clinics treating a variety of patients – mostly neck and low back problems.

I pursued my own rehab exercise program at a nearby gym where I soon started a boxing program in the basement. Some students were raw beginners, some were black belt martial artists from various disciplines, and some were National Guard reservists and ex-Army Rangers.

As I taught them boxing – the king of hand strikes – I learned the basics of their arts: grappling, joint locks, knee/foot strikes, and weapons defense. Though formally a boxing program, none of my students truly planned on fighting in sanctioned boxing bouts and instead blended it all into their own eclectic street-fighting survival styles for self-defense.

A pain therapist teaching ways of inflicting pain really isn’t quite the paradox it may seem; defending yourself honors life – it’s a matter of good versus evil.

MY NEW LIFE
in New England soon began to change when several nurses at the troubled local hospital asked me to teach a self-defense class for them and their kids. They had little time to spare yet wanted to be safe and secure. They wanted a woman-and-kid-friendly, one-time, rape and kidnap prevention class at the hospital. Gee, is that all?

At the time, back in 1990, I’d assumed something was already being done to protect women and children but found only a hodge-podge of woefully deficient programs and books. I vowed to fill that gap – a vast chasm, actually. I had no idea it would become my lifelong task.

Modeling my program on military express training, I began teaching fighting and escape strategies for a child or small woman, and sent them home with my booklet on avoiding danger in the first place. But through time and endless research, my little booklet grew into an exhaustively thorough book manuscript, and strategies for avoiding danger became my primary focus.

THE NURSES WERE HUNGRY
to learn safekeeping strategies and, as it turned out, so were plenty of other people. I began teaching classes within an 80-mile radius of my western Massachusetts town: from many hospitals, Girl Scout and Campfire Girl troops, colleges, and senior citizen centers, to corporations and rape crisis centers. After saturating western New England and eastern upstate New York with hundreds of classes, I moved to New York City in 1995.

The new direction of my life was exhausting, but what I was learning was priceless. The hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses of an endless stream of thousands of women and children were molding my classes as well as the material that grew into my book (now here in full on this web site). Their constant feedback made their needs stark and obvious in a direct, visceral way not found in any books or research. My students taught me how to teach them.

IN THE PAST TWENTY YEARS,
I’ve benefited enormously from the wisdom of the experts who’ve furthered the frontiers of our knowledge on crime prevention tactics, insights into crazed and heartless predators' minds, and therapeutic strategies to soothe crime survivors’ haunting, crippling memories.

Throughout that time, hoping to spare myself the ordeal of researching and writing my own teaching materials, I kept searching for a good safety manual for my students. But time and again, the books, programs, and websites I found were too narrowly focused and, worse, were obvious that the authors or teachers themselves had no firsthand experience of being a victim of violence, no firsthand experience of prowling with career criminals, and little experience learning from thousands of students.

Experts lacking that experiential triad inevitably ring resoundingly hollow to me – no matter how impressive their professional credentials as cops, FBI agents, or whatever. I know the prey deserves far more.

AFTER I RETURNED TO DETROIT,
the director of Michigan’s premiere police academy, the Wayne County Regional Police Training Center in suburban Detroit, hired me in summer 2001 to teach veteran police officers how to teach crime safety and security to the general public in the way I teach it. To make it official, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards (MCOLES) approved my program and book (as a work-in-progress that now comprises my web site) for police academies statewide.

The first time a uniformed cop with badge and gun formally asked me, a former street punk arrested many times, for permission to leave my 40-hour class awhile to testify in a court case, I thought, ‘‘Huh? He’s asking me?”

WHAT COPS HATE
During a break in a police academy class, one student told me of his second day as a rookie deputy sheriff in Traverse City, Michigan, fifteen years earlier: “My sergeant drove me to a house and told me to go tell the homeowner that her son had been murdered. I said, ‘I can’t do that! You’re the sergeant, you do it!’ He said, ‘That’s right, I’m the sergeant and I’m ordering you to go tell that woman her son is dead.’

I did my duty. I stood on the porch with my hat in hand and my voice cracking as I broke the news to the woman who’d answered the door. She stared at me for the longest moment as though I were the grim reaper himself, and then collapsed, sobbing, into my arms. We cried together until a neighbor came over and I could compose myself enough to return to my sergeant waiting in the car. I couldn’t finish my shift and went home to cry all night in my wife’s arms. I almost quit the force the next day.”

As class resumed, I mentioned it to the other students and was flooded by the emotion they let loose, often talking over each other. It’s the one thing all cops hate doing, and yes, some cops do indeed quit the force after delivering their first death notification.

Sometimes partners argue – some have actually gotten into fistfights – over whose turn it is to be the grim reaper. One cop said he’d rather be in a gunfight than deliver another one. Bottom Line: cops really do care – very much.

The cops who've attended my police academy programs hope to prevent the anguish of even one more death notification – or the shattering injuries of crime survivors.

IN THE WAKE
of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, I helped the Michigan State Police teach access control to security personnel for hospitals, casinos, shopping malls, government agencies, and Ford Motor's executive bodyguards (former CIA, FBI, and Secret Service agents). Once again, as in my public classes, my students helped shape my book – now here in full on Crime-Safety-Security.com (see why I'm putting it all online for free).

AS THE CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN,
my fractured early years started me on a roundabout path to gather the best anti-crime advice to counter a predator’s biggest advantage: the naïveté of the prey.

Yet after 20 years I still see the endless flood of more than 12,000 victims daily in the U.S. alone – and in most cases, the crime could’ve been easily prevented. Just the littlest of tips would’ve spared the victim.

Here’s my summary – how to tilt the odds more in your favor:

You don’t need a bulletproof vest, a bodyguard, or to sleep with one eye open. Just learn how to be SAFE – Skeptical, Aware, Flexible, Explosive:

Skeptical of anyone trying to get near you or trying to isolate you whether you're at home or outdoors – as shown in Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Friendly Predators, and Scam-In;

Aware of street crime danger zones and escape strategies – as shown in Spotting Danger and Facing Danger;

Flexible: being tricky, changing strategies as needed – as shown in Victim’s Options - Outsmarting and Verbal Self Defense – and if worse comes to worst:

Exploding like a mad dog to fight for your life. Stun & Run – as shown in Sucker Punch and Self Defense Techniques.

In a nutshell, that is the essence of my decades searching for how to help the prey stay out of harm's way.

Michael Edward Loftus Sr

PS – Some biographical anecdotes:
• Posturing > “Subway Encounter” & “Not All Threats…”
• Surviving the Worst > “Gang Attack”
• Outsmarting > “No-No's”
• Punched

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My Thanks To
Why I’m Giving Away a Lifetime of Research
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