8 year old uses Kung Fu to fight off kidnapper

The assailant might have smelt like garbage, but this story smells like last weeks fish supper.

"After the man ran away, she woke her parents and told them what happened."

She didn't scream, she didn't cry out? She just let the man grab her and drag her down the stairs and then she hit him hard enough to make him drop her.

It strains credulity.

 

Story seems very fishy to me too.

 

Nah. Kids are sleepy (a recent report showed they routinely sleep through fire alarms and must be woken by adults if there's a fire), it's dark, getting picked up by "adults" is a normal part of their life (you'd feel it was creepy and odd to be picked up but kids get carried all the time) and the events described could have happened in a couple of minutes or even less.
It happening quietly enough so that parents were still asleep until after the kid was free and the kid not immediately being aware enough to scream and shout doesn't surprise me at all.
It's a news report not a detailed verbatim account of what happened.

 

It sounds all a bit fishy to me, too. The first thing I thought was "who's selling what?".

But, screaming isn't a guaranteed reaction. Also, we are talking about the most heavily medicated country in the world, so if her parents were full of sleeping pills screaming may not have woke them up.

Here's a news piece that includes the girl's account, which was that she struck the guy with a half-fist somewhere on his neck:

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/on-air/a...CAJON-HOT-P_KNSD0MZL_San-Diego-386245391.html

 

I just don't buy it, if this was an attempted burglary, the guy doesn't try to carry the girl off. If it was an attempted kidnapping, no 8 year old can hit hard enough to make a difference, mad Krotty skills or not.

 

If it is true, I would presume that the guy was mentally ill and delusional, not following some kind of coherent plan. As aaradia said, no unarmed 8 yr. old could stop a determined attacker.

 

I think I could, not all the time but often enough, pick my kids up when they are asleep and get them all the way down the stairs and into a car with them barely waking up TBH.
All parents know this right?
Driving back late at night and they fall asleep in the car you can transfer them into bed with barely a murmur and they'll even cuddle into you as you do it.

And also...the girl didn't have to hit hard enough to hurt the guy...I doubt she did...she just needed to do more than he was prepared to deal with in the circumstances. Like any self defence situation. You don't have to win but do enough to escape to safety. When he met slight resistance he bailed and ran.

That said this could be all nonsense and just a sleep walking kid having a dream or making it up for attention.
I'm just not dismissing it because of what's been presented so far.

 

Or a very sneaky piece of marketing by a San Diego kung fu class?

 

There's no telling what can make a difference. 8 years old or not.
There's not a defined line a response has to get beyond to work. Sometimes cross words and minimal resistance is enough. Sometimes fighting for your very life doesn't cut it.

Most parents have had their kids headbutt them (face or nuts!) or poke them in the eye by accident.
Something like that combined with wriggling, shouting and struggling when help is close at hand and/or the attacker is already spooked (or high or scared) could be enough.

 

Or that.

 

Actually I've just summed up self defence pretty well IMHO.

You just need to do more than the attacker is prepared to deal with in the circumstances and escape to safety.

It's a contextual sliding scale with no definite answers and no clear cut "win" or "lose" and is accessible to all ages and abilities (within reason).

 

Must be fiction.

We all know Gung Fu doesn't work!

 

Not improbable at all - picking up a puppy that doesn't want you to is difficult....an 8 year old is even harder

This is a story about a 13yr old with no training who managed to extract herself

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/sylvan-lake-attempted-abduction-1.3657115

You don't need to "beat" an attacker - you just have to stop them attaining their goal - target hardening in other words

 

I just don't think the incident happened at all.

A child's lie gotten out of hand.

Assailant arrested in 5...4...3...

 

The guy could easily have had his hand over the girl's mouth keeping her from screaming, and if he's doing that, he's only got one other hand to hold the girl, leaving her with her arms free to hit him in the neck, which is all she claimed. So I think it's entirely plausible and there's no evidence or indication this is made up, especially since the police seem to be taking it seriously. I don't buy the idea that an 8 year old girls wakes her parents up in the middle of the night with a make-believe story or bad dream about using leopard jabs on a home invader, and then initiates a 911 call. It's actually more likely that her training was actually somewhat sensible (fight back with what you can), and she got lucky. According to the mother, if she hadn't she'd have been out the door in seconds. There are, in fact, a saddening number of child kidnappings in California all the time, so I'm glad we're at least not reading about a missing 8 year old girl.

According to the news report, there were other houses nearby showing signs of forced entry. There was police report filed, police dogs have been searching and son on. The family installed a security alarm and surveillance cameras after the event, and the mother is considering buying a gun. So at least the parents and San Diego PD is taking it seriously. I doubt the story is fake, because there seems to be physical evidence and two witnesses (8 year old girl, 6 year old brother). I don't think anyone can assume both are lying about anything, or their parents, without evidence of that. If they did of course they'd be in a lot of trouble, but the PD looks into that sort of thing before devoting cruisers and dogs to canvass the area.

From the kid's demonstration, she shows some sort of leopard style (she called it 'cheetah', which is of course one type of leopard) knuckle jab into his neck. That is exactly how that sort of strike is supposed to be used, against soft targets, and an 8 year old kid who is scared out of her mind might definitely put enough into it to make the assailant reconsider, especially if a lot of noise is being made. Whatever the suspect was intent on stealing (goods, or the child), police have a pretty good description. I think if the story was made up, the police would have figured that out, instead they're devoting a lot of resources to this case.

The odor factor was something I don't think an 8 year old could come up with on their own, either. That seemed very specific type of detail that a kid would recount if questioned by police in a real attempted invasion/kidnapping.

 

Two different species. Not a type of Leopard.