Ocean City local Jim Lopez teaches self-defense at TCNJ

EWING, NJ (02/13/2013)(readMedia)-- In a country where a sexual assault occurs every two minutes, Jim Lopez is helping to make students at The College of New Jersey safer. The Ocean City local and TCNJ campus police officer recently began teaching the Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) program at TCNJ, a system first introduced to the College in 2009 and now present on over 450 college campuses.

Students peering through TCNJ's Fitness Center window will see girls decked in padded headgear and gloves, sparring attackers in heavily padded suits, as they participate in the 12-hour course spread between four classes led by Lopez. Focused on risk reduction and hands on training through skill practice and simulated assaults, classes are designed to give victims an upper hand in an attack situation, as students are taught to enhance their natural "Fight or Flight" instinct with simple martial arts.

Lopez's involvement in R.A.D. began in October this year, after attending an R.A.D. system's instructor course. He's been dedicated to the program ever since, offering the free course at least once a semester to sororities, sports teams, and any students desiring to learn self-defense.

"What amazed and motivated me was the alarming statistics of assaults on women in our country and how these statistics haven't changed much in decades," he said. "Personally speaking, I have women of all generations in my family, and these statistics worry me!" Lopez reports numbers from the FBI suggesting one in three women will be assaulted in their lifetime, and in the United States a forcible rape occurs every seven minutes. His program looks to "change these statistics," preventing future assaults and their aftermaths, which, according to the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN), include a significant increase in risk of depression, drug abuse, and contemplation of suicide.

Lopez is eager to watch R.A.D.'s future unfold, not only on TCNJ's campus, but nationwide.

"What has excited me is not only the ease of learning this program, but how this program has joined with law enforcement, colleges, and universities to not only train women in self-defense, but to get rid of these alarming statistics forever."

With the help of instructors such as Lopez and participation of girls nationwide, Susan B. Anthony's long lived dream may someday be realized, a dream printed at the top of each of the college's colorful R.A.D. flyers: that "woman may not depend on the protection of man, but be taught to defend herself."