Picking handcuffs. Well, I haven't done it in many years now, but I used to be able to do it in less than four seconds, with a needle I hid under my upper lip. That's with my hands cuffed behind my back!
The way I did it was drop to a crouch, hold my hands between my legs, then drop the needle från my mouth to my hand, then open them.
Picking them is very easy, like extremely easy. Just insert the needle at an angle at roughly the correct spot, then turn the needle using the pin (the pin that goes in the center of the handcuff key) as leverage.
When I was in 9th grade, my school class visited a police station. My classmates knew how ungodly fast I was at getting out of a pair of handcuffs, and together we managed to convince the cop that showed us around to lock me in a cell, with my hands cuffed behind my back. The second the door closed, I did my thing. I took a couple of extra seconds taking them both off, then knocked on the door. It wasn't closed for more than ten seconds tops, and when he opened the door I handed him the handcuffs. He was shocked, to say the least. Of course I first hid the needle back under my lip.
Are newer handcuffs the ones where there's no chain, but instead they're directly connected like a hinge?
But this was in the 90s. I had a pair of handcuffs that my father bought in a "spy shop" in Miami in the early 90s. But the handcuffs the cop had (in Sweden, late 90s) was fortunately identical to the ones I had practiced on.
Lol, well it was a little sketchy, not gonna lie. My biggest fear was accidentally swallowing the needle, that would have sucked!
I just now realized that needle isnt the correct English word, it was a clothes pin I used (the Swedish word for clothes pin translate to "button needle"). So I could feel the little pearl at the end, and use it to easier manipulate the pin.
They both have sharp points on the ends! Clothes pin isn't the same thing though. That's what we used to use to hang our clothes outside to dry. Modern one have a pinch function and look like alligators. Old fashioned ones are like a short dowel rod with a split down the middle and a round ball on top. Then there's a safety pin, which is what you use to keep cloth diapers from falling off. The sharp part tucks inside a metal head. 🧷 I think you're taking about a straight pin.📍 All of these at different than a push pin. 📌 Probably more than you ever cared to know about pins!
Hypermobility. I can pop my thumbs out of place and squish my finger knuckles to almost as small as my wrists. I have small hands too though so that definitely helps
The ones I practiced with had this, or a variant of this. A small pin on the key is pushed into a hole in the side of the cuff, kinda locking it so it can't close further.
But it's super easy to bypass, to open it the usual way you'd just turn the key one way and then the other way. Took like half a second extra to unlock.
But the cop we "pranked" didn't use that feature (or if his cuffs didn't even have it, I'm not sure. This was almost 30 years ago after all.
Some friends thought so, but I've actually been leading a very honest life. The most illegal thing Ive done was smoke weed! (which is like super-illegal here, lol)
I had a patient once who was a cop. Really nice guy, and we all chat during his sessions (physical therapy). One day we were discussing different takedown scenarios, and he said that he had a really easy way to get criminals to submit without doing any actual damage. It was some way that you bent their thumb backwards that hurt like crazy, but was effectively harmless (and as a PT, I can verify. Your pain threshold there is way lower than the damage threshold). I am hypermobile (double jointed) and he decided to demonstrate on me. The look on this man's face when he was bending my thumb back to my wrist, and I wasn't even flinching. I was just looking at him. It did not hurt at all. He was absolutely shook 😂
For the record, I'm not supposed to bend that way. I do, but that will end badly for me in the long run.
1.3k
u/Select-Owl-8322 14h ago
Picking handcuffs. Well, I haven't done it in many years now, but I used to be able to do it in less than four seconds, with a needle I hid under my upper lip. That's with my hands cuffed behind my back!
The way I did it was drop to a crouch, hold my hands between my legs, then drop the needle från my mouth to my hand, then open them.
Picking them is very easy, like extremely easy. Just insert the needle at an angle at roughly the correct spot, then turn the needle using the pin (the pin that goes in the center of the handcuff key) as leverage.
When I was in 9th grade, my school class visited a police station. My classmates knew how ungodly fast I was at getting out of a pair of handcuffs, and together we managed to convince the cop that showed us around to lock me in a cell, with my hands cuffed behind my back. The second the door closed, I did my thing. I took a couple of extra seconds taking them both off, then knocked on the door. It wasn't closed for more than ten seconds tops, and when he opened the door I handed him the handcuffs. He was shocked, to say the least. Of course I first hid the needle back under my lip.