About this episode
Violence is not random.
The people who commit it are not guessing—they are choosing.
In this episode of Defense for Women, David Burnell breaks down how attackers think, how they select targets, and what they are looking for before anything ever happens.
This isn’t about fear—it’s about understanding the process.
You’ll learn why distraction, hesitation, and isolation matter, and how small changes in awareness and behavior can make you a hard target instead of an easy one.
Because the truth is simple:
You don’t get chosen by accident.And once you understand what they’re looking for…you can take it away.
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Echo Valor Podcast — Defense for Women: What Predators Look For. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Violence is not random. The people who commit it are not guessing. They are choosing. And that choice happens long before anything physical ever begins. It happens in the moments where someone is watching, evaluating and deciding who is worth the risk because that's what this is for them, a calculation. They are not looking for a fight. They are looking for an opportunity. They are looking for easy. They are looking for the distracted, the unaware, and the isolated. They are looking for someone who is not paying attention. Someone who's head is down. Someone who is focused on a phone instead of the environment around them. They are looking for hesitation. Someone who will pause, second guess, or freeze instead of acting. They are looking for compliance. Someone who will be polite, who will not make a scene, who will go along rather than resist. These are not random traits. These are patterns.
This is how predators operate. Just like any apex predator in nature, they observe before they act. They watch movement, posture, attention, and behavior. They look for signals, small indicators that tell them whether someone is aware or unaware, confident or uncertain, engaged or distracted. And once they see enough of those signals, they make a decision. Most people never realize this is happening. They think danger begins when someone approaches them, speaks, or gets too close. But by that point, the decision has often already been made. The selection process is already complete. And this is where you take control. Because if they are looking for patterns, you can change the pattern. If they are looking for a distraction, you become aware. If they are looking for hesitation, you act early. If they are looking for isolation, you stay where there is visibility, light, and people.
These are not complicated changes, but they are powerful ones. Bad people do not want attention. They do not want resistance. They do not want complications. They do not have time for it. They want something quick, quiet, and easy. And the moment you remove easy from the equation, you change their decision. This does not mean you eliminate all risk, but it means you reduce the likelihood of being selected in the first place. And that is where real safety begins, not in reacting to violence, but in avoiding it altogether. Because the truth is simple. You don't get chosen by accident. You get chosen based on what you show. And once you understand what they're looking for, you can take it away. Lift your head, pay attention, move with purpose. Be aware of who and what is around you. These are small actions, but they send a clear signal. You are not easy. And that matters because the goal is not to win a fight.
The goal is to never be in one.
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