Self-Defense Training Pays Off for Couple

After fighting off two bandits who tried to rob them at gunpoint, a San Fernando Valley couple gave credit to a self-defense course they took two years ago.

“When I was able to get ahold of the gun hand that was hitting me, I was able to defend myself a little bit,” the man told The Times. He asked that his name and his wife’s not be used; the robbers have not been arrested.

“It was funny, it was like everything was going in slow motion, and the things I was taught almost two years ago were coming back.”

On Saturday evening, the man and woman, both 40, were leaving a Tarzana restaurant where they had dined with two friends after seeing a movie. As they strolled to a parking lot, the robbers pounced, said Los Angeles Police Officer Sandra Castello.

As one couple watched from only a few feet away, the robbers walked up behind the other couple. One held a gun on the man while the second tried to take the woman’s purse, said the male victim.

But the woman, who had also taken training classes for such encounters, held onto her purse and kneed the assailant in the groin, Castello said. Seeing the scuffle, the armed bandit started pistol-whipping the husband, striking him at least five times, Castello said.

“I didn’t know what was going on until the guy hit me three or four times,” the victim said.

He fended off the gunman’s weapon with one hand and hit him with the other.

Meanwhile, their friends had retreated about 30 yards away behind a parked car and called 911 on a portable phone, the man said.

The bandits gave up the attack and fled to a waiting parked car.

Both victims were taken to the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where they were treated and released early Sunday. The man suffered cuts on his head that required stitches, authorities said. His wife was unhurt.

“I’ll be calling them on Monday to sign up” for another course, he said of the self-defense classes the couple took.