“I’m not going anywhere!”
A man tries to force a woman into his car against her will. She runs into a karate studio. The man, a large man, chases in after her. The head instructor of the karate studio, wearing his karate uniform, asks the man “How can I assist you?” The man told the instructor he was there for the lady. The woman made it clear she did not want to go with the man. The karate instructor asks the man to leave, but he responds “I’m not going anywhere!” The man then aggressively pushes and swings at the karate instructor in an attempt to get the woman. The man is soon escorted out of the karate studio. Once outside, the man again gets aggressive with the karate instructor again and tries to get to the woman. The man is soon immobilized on the sidewalk. The police arrived and the man tries attacking them. The man is arrested and then taken to the hospital in an aid car.
Three times this aggressor in this true story refused to take no for an answer and got aggressive with people who were capable of holding boundaries. Not all people who engage in coercive control behaviors are so aggressive or persistent, but many are (whether drugs are involved or not). In most instances of coercive control, it is very hard for the target of the control to find help. When victims tell these kinds of stories, but when no one else is present, it is often hard to believe they could be true.
The important take-away from this story is that in some cases of extreme efforts at coercive control, the behavior won’t stop until someone sets and enforces a boundary with the aggressor.
The story above is a summary of a true story reported at: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/04/us/woman-kidnap-karate-studio-charlotte-trnd/index.html,
The man was August Williams. The head instructor of the north Charlottte Bushiken Karate Charlotte Dojo was Randall Ephraim. There were child-students in the dojo during the man’s attack.