A Karate Cop to Crime : Officer Helps Tighten Belt on Assailants

Eight years ago, while her family slept, 19-year-old Debbie Lance arrived home late one night to find three men dismantling her parents’ stereo. She yelled at the intruders and scared them off--but not before one of them struck and injured her.

Lance now acknowledges that she didn’t know what she was doing that night, and that her spontaneous act could have resulted in serious injury or even death.

“Afterward I was scared,” she said. “I could have been raped or killed.”

But the burglary attempt drove the college freshman to enroll the very next week in a karate class--then the only self-defense instruction offered by her university. Since then, Lance, now a first-degree black belt and an all-around athlete, has used her training only once, while on duty as a San Diego police officer.

Pushes a Positive Attitude

In an effort to help others avoid being caught off guard, Lance is spending her August weekends supervising self-defense and karate demonstrations at the Kobey Swap Meet next to the San Diego Sports Arena.

At the eight demonstrations each weekend, the patrolwoman pushes the idea that a positive attitude and confidence--which she said she gained by studying karate--are as valuable in deterring an attack as is the physical ability to escape an assailant.

“Karate gives me a lot of confidence,” she said. “(It) taught me focusing and concentration, and to learn to relax while under pressure.”

Lance tells the scores of onlookers at the demonstrations that with crime rates rising, it is vital for all people--but especially women--to learn to avoid threatening situations and to defend themselves when they have no other choice.

“This is not going to make you attack-proof; this is going to give you some options,” said Lance, who emcees the presentations by karate students from the Japan Sports Center. The demonstrations are held on a lot donated by the swap meet.

Lance stresses that an assailant looks for a particular type of woman--one who walks with her eyes down, shoulders hunched, arms held close. An inability to make eye contact sends a message of insecurity to an assailant not interested in confrontation, she said.

The safety tips and demonstrations were the brainchild of Lance and her teacher and founder of the school, Minobu Miki, who was named 1987 instructor of the year in Black Belt magazine.

Lance said the month of demonstrations was initiated because the Japan Sports Center had received an increasing number of calls during the past six months from women asking about classes in self-defense.

However, it takes time to learn traditional karate to the point of being able to respond well to a surprise attack, Lance said, and while the art is good for developing concentration, it does not focus specifically on the self-defense needs of women.

She said judo, which teaches people to use their opponents’ size and strength to their own advantage, is one martial art she would recommend to women willing to invest the time.

Karate is “not just fancy dancing,” she said. “To develop into a person that can respond in a stressful situation takes about a year or more of continuous training.”

But most women don’t want a course that requires them to wear funny-looking white pajamas, Lance said. They simply want someone to teach them how to escape from a grab, how to kick.

Lance, who won the 1986 women’s heavyweight world collegiate title for the World Union of Karate Organizations, said the demonstrations, which begin on the hour from 11 a.m. through 2 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, vary according to the composition of the crowd.

She stresses ways to avoid attacks altogether, such as staying in large groups and in well-lit places at night. Even the 5-foot-8 blonde, who bench-presses 145 pounds just for “muscle tone,” knows her black belt skills do not make her attack-proof.

“I get scared all the time about getting hurt, getting killed. Karate helps me stay calm and confront and deal with my fears,” she said.

Originally from Seattle, Lance moved to San Diego to attend the University of San Diego Law School.

However, halfway through the four-year night program she decided she wanted to become a police officer so she could have a more direct effect on people and be where things are happening, she said. But she intends to eventually earn her law degree by going to school at night.

Lance is recovering from a knee injury she received when tackling a suspected drug dealer last May, and is restricted from her usual intense karate workouts by a steel knee brace.

But she said she hasn’t let that slow her down, and added with a smile that she can’t wait for her doctor’s permission to leave desk duty so she can “go out and crush crime.”