Personal Safety Information

What a great thread! I have a list of little things to bring up and perhaps some of the knowledgeable people here will add to them and I can learn new approaches too?
Once on a drive, leaving CA to go home to AZ, I came closer than I ever had to smacking my cousin to get his (properly paranoid) attention - and I don't mean gently; more like my father used to do it in the ring, I was that scared. This was in the early 1990's, so by now, it's going to sound lots more dangerous, at least to me: He stopped at a rest area for us, off the interstate, and there were a number of vehicles parked there already. About the time I got back into his small rice-burner Jeep-type vehicle - sorry, I don't even remember what to call it but it had canvas sides (!) - I noticed a car not far from us parked with the hood up, a young man apparently inspecting the interiors, and the large woman with him walking towards the two of us. She went round to the driver's side window and started asking my cousin for gas money so they could take their car to a station.

I had already said once before she got there for him to take off because I got that weird swimming-gut feeling of 'polecat in the henhouse' and didn't need to know why I had it. He gave me this tired look, thinking I only said that because they were black and 'I didn't get out much' - and didn't move. Whilst that woman was talking, the young man leaves his post at the open hood and starts ambling for my side. Fortunately for both of us, my cousin had time to see me a split second before I sprang on him to gain control of that (little toy) vehicle and grabbed a reverse gear and some gas, and got us out of there.

I had no weapon handy, I'd flown to CA and 'cousin's' knives were boxed in the back and not on him, as if that would have helped with his reaction time so slow... Has anyone here had a similar experience? Is there a graceful way to handle this? I was too scared to worry about looking like an ass and if I'd been wrong, I sure the hell would have done. I don't think I was wrong and I would have liked to be.

 

If you are in that type of situation graceful be damned. You had site awareness and did right. I hope you knuckle bumped some knowledge into the cuz afterward.

 

@RightHand
IMO, someone who raped a woman deserves to die real slow.

Mods: Feel few to delete this post; however, that will not change my opinion.

 

anyone who rapes ANYONE deserves to die real slow.

 

Many of us are predisposed to feel sorry for 'the homeless' or for those pretending they are, because we're mindful of how easy it would be for us to be in the same position. Not everybody knows that state governments have been dumping inmates from state hospitals onto the streets, under the euphemism, 'reintegration into the community' with every new budget cut. Unfortunately, the 'community' means us. From what statistics we've been able to get since 1990, over 70% of the chronically homeless are mentally ill. The vast majority are chronic alcoholics or drug-abusers. Those state hospital rejects are already receiving mental disability checks and don't really have to be living on the streets but they're too dysfunctional to manage the details of getting off them. Another easy answer for why people are on the streets that should occur to most of us, but doesn't: because they just got out of jail!

In Albuquerque, a woman getting gas at a self-serve fuel island, lunchtime at a busy intersection, was shot by a panhandler who demanded money from her, and she was unable to provide it. In the same city, in a busy WalMart parking lot, again in broad daylight, an elderly woman was beaten on the head and robbed by a man and woman panhandler team. In Flagstaff, AZ, on a Saturday morning, the busiest shopping day of the week in that town, in a Safeway shopping center, another elderly woman was robbed at gunpoint by a panhandler who'd been hanging around since early that morning bothering people. In Sacramento, CA, a man waiting for their Light Rail, who had, unfortunately for him, already parked his vehicle and was a good distance from it, was shot and killed by a homeless man demanding money from him. These are just cases I was in those cities to hear about soon after they happened and there is one common denominator that is as worrying as the criminal bums: There were plenty of other people about in all cases and nobody did anything to help those victims or chase off those perps. If anyone bothered to call the cops, they did that after they'd made their own escape.

What happened to all the full-service gas stations? They're hard to find now. I remember that Phoenix Magazine used to have a list every month of all the full-service stations and it was a practical idea but I don't know who else is doing that now. You can be man or woman, even an armed police officer, and you are in danger the very second you exit your vehicle, especially at night. I have sat in my vehicle, at the gas pump, and phoned the clerk on duty before I'd leave my vehicle to go in and pay, if I didn't like the look of someone, singular or plural, hanging around there doing nothing in particular. When the grocery bagger asks me if I want help getting my groceries to my vehicle, as most will, I always ask for help, and if they don't ask me because I only have one bag, I'll ask for help anyway. I admit that I have for the most part, given up shopping at night or getting gas either, if I am alone. I'd rather be home grumbling about my independence being curtailed than dead because I was ambushed - and if that happens to cops on duty, and it does about once a week these days, it can happen to anybody.

A note to those of us who have left the heavily-populated areas for more rural ones, as I too did: we have nutcases out in the country too, a number of whom moved out here to hide from bad histories in other states. Western states are known for not asking a lot of questions if you're not bothering anybody, especially in sparsely-populated areas. Anywhere near a state highway connects large population areas and these, often 2-lane, roads are sometimes preferred by those with reason to want to avoid a lot of police presence, as interstates get. Drug-traffickers and fugitives are very likely to be among the strangers you'll see at local gas stations, staying in motels in the nearest small towns and camping in the woods when the weather is good. So when I said I'd given up stopping in anywhere at night, I don't do it in the country either. The privacy we enjoy out on our rural homesteads is equally appreciated by those with something to hide.

 

Thank you! It's such a relief not to be immediately called a chicken for being so careful, and I often am. Any of us here who have lived long enough to reach AARP age have taken a few really stupid chances at some time in our lives and wondered how we lived through it. Some of us remember times, usually in youth, when we might have pleaded ardently with whatever we believe in that if we can just make it home without incident, we promise we'll never do x, y or z again. Maybe I had more of those than most for I was a headstrong kid. Some things haven't changed much, and aren't going to, whether we like it or not:

My mother told me when I was small child that whenever I travel, I should make a point of being friendly to every desk clerk, every bellboy, maid, waiter and waitress, parking attendant, everyone I met in the course of business. Her point was this: that's how many people know you're there, where you're expected to be and know something's off if you're not where you're supposed to be. Taking the time to form these connections can save your life. She had a story to go with that, of course. She was in the city alone and was accompanied back to her hotel from a club by a well-known and respected psychiatrist, that she had just met that evening, but had no reason to suspect. Unfortunately, a lot of drink made him a bit difficult. He followed her to her room and tried to force her to enter the room with him, grabbing her quite rudely. She made enough noise to alert two old lady schoolteachers down the hall who were in town for a convention, with whom she'd spent time when she checked in. The ladies came out in their nightclothes brandishing lamps and umbrellas and chased that guy down the hall, cussing him all the way and raised enough fuss to get a hotel detective on the spot. Mother never forgot that; nor did I. She also said that was about the only time she went anywhere without her sidearm and sure as hell, she regretted it.

My father, a very large and strong professional fighter, never left the matches late at night with a wad of cash (the usual form of payment in those days) to walk alone to his vehicle. They always left in a group, even back in the 1950's. He also, took time to get to know people everywhere he went and it saved him a time or two. Nobody is invincible. I know it goes against the grain these days, when most of us are trying to avoid attracting unnecessary attention and if we live in the city, we're usually in a hurry but it is still as dangerous as ever, even more so with new elements added to the mix, to be anywhere around a lot of humans where none of them is your friend and nobody notices, or cares, what happens to you. Our modern mores teach us to 'avoid eye contact,' especially girls are taught that - and it's wrong. Get a good look at everybody. Muggers pick on people who aren't looking at them, not on those who are watching every move they make. It's worth it to practice 'brand loyalty' when it comes to where you shop, hotels you stay in, places you eat and particularly, places you drink. Unless you're a spy or at least a sneaky P.I. being invisible when you're in populated areas is more a risk to you than a convenience.

Since about everywhere we have to go to run an errand where I live is a long drive, I always tell a neighbor I'm going and when I expect to be back. Sometimes, they'll chuckle at me but they get the point: if I don't show up, they'll know where to look for me. I ask them where they're going too, especially the older ones. Most of us have animals that need to be fed if their human care-givers don't make it home so we do it for them, even if we'd seldom think of it just for ourselves. Accidents can happen that don't require human agency too and out in the country it takes a bit longer to get help. We generally don't like feeling we always have to tell somebody our business but our concern for security ought to overrule it - and anyway, we get to pick the people we tell. It doesn't have to be the nosiest people we know, just those sufficiently aware that these are dangerous times we live in.

 

I don't know guys, that seems like an awful long way to go for gasoline. I think I'll stick with local and save a couple hundred bucks in gas......

 

N

Now that you've mentioned it, and I wholeheartedly agree with you, by the way, I think we'd see less of that by reacquaintance with some social rules of earlier generations. That's not so easy when our whole society makes the job as difficult as possible.

For example, all through my own youth, if I wanted to go out and party on the town, I could go with my parents and it was completely legal. Anything your parents served you at their own table, you could have, no matter how young you were or how much wine you drank. I believe there were a state or county or two where my father emptied our water glasses to put wine in them at a restaurant but not many. In countries where that's still done, by the time children become young adults, a few drinks are not going to render them totally defenseless and they've formed good habits about keeping food and drink together. By regulating us to death in the USA, we're raising a generation that passes out cold on the floor with a couple of bloody mary's. Europeans built modern civilization and everything in it from a cultural history of drinking wines and ales every day of their lives, from earliest childhood, putting wine in their drinking water to make it safe to drink since ancient Greece and Rome and somehow we made it. Trying to change that has put divisions between generations in their social lives, removing the young and vulnerable from the protection of their elders. This is against nature; families are supposed to be together, not all partying in separate places with no one who cares about them keeping an eye on them.

We all know the mass media are run by a lot of perverts who have turned even daytime soap operas into soft porn, sexualize children as young as five and in general degrade the human dignity of all of us. Mother used to say, 'monkey see, monkey do' when she spoke of the human masses. It's the minority that has the discernment and discrimination to put boundaries on what's allowed to just float into their consciousness; the majority, on the other hand is far more susceptible to programming and propaganda than it thinks it is. You can't really know which it is you've got there when you go off to spend time with somebody that you don't know very well so we can call that an especially modern element of danger due to psychological manipulation by people of bad intent. Surely 50 years ago we didn't hear about 10-year-olds being busted for sex offenses and now we hear about it all the time so I have to believe all the media rot has helped. Modern solution: don't 'date' unchaperoned till you and your relatives know everything you need to about the person who interests you - even if you are a legal adult. The chaperone needn't always be visible: a relative or two hiding in the shadows is okay. A boyfriend who doesn't want to socialize with your family should be viewed with suspicion anyway.

When my sister and I wanted to go out dancing, we very often danced only with each other. That used to be quite common: girls, if they didn't have a boyfriend around, danced together, because they felt like dancing and that wasn't something you always had to do as a boy-girl couple. Nowadays in the USA, people might think you're queer if you do that; Americans are becoming dismayingly nasty-minded. Only the country-western and cloggers, both as old as the country, seem to still understand that dancing is for the sake of dancing, not mating, so groups of girls and women can and do dance together, with no raised eyebrows. There are lots of ways to go out and have fun without having a date and without putting oneself in danger by going out alone. I seldom dated when young for I found it a bore. My predilection was to talk to everybody I saw, wander off into the kitchen to talk to the cooks, chat with the musicians and sometimes play with them too so my dates, as often as not, became exasperated with me. I could flirt just as easily being out with a group without my natural interest in people being tethered to one individual, so that was my usual M.O.

If you have to go somewhere and are the tiniest bit uncomfortable about going alone, maybe through 'certain areas,' always ask for an escort. Men really don't mind about this, and they're being reminded of their importance so why would they? Knowing we're needed in society straightens out more psychological issues than we ever give it credit for. Just knowing that somebody is glad we're on the earth can make us much nicer people, so we should never hesitate about asking a favor, for it's the best in people that'll come out to meet us. I've often picked out the biggest one I could find who felt okay to me somewhere I'd done business for an escort to my vehicle and nobody has ever refused. I'm not telling anyone not to be as paranoid as usual, just to have some faith in your own powers of observation. Reach for the best in the people around you when you see it and wrap that about you like a warm shawl against the wind. We decent folk need to try harder to find each other, else we're letting darkness take over the world without a fight.

 

X2. There are ways that go well past slow.

 

RH, great info so far. Thanks!
I was an up close witness to a situation this past weekend which has left me a bit puzzled.
Are you taking requests?

 

In this day and age, with cell phones that have their own cameras ,it's much easier to maintain a better level of security.
Many phones provide the you can send pictures, so that if a situation looks a bit unsettling, take pictures and use the voice recorder to document the event. send it to a loved one or a connection with the local PD.
30-years ago or more this technology was not available to every one , now it is , and now is the time to be getting use to using it.
If some one is uncomfortable with this action , they will usually move on .
When I see something suspicious going on I take pictures , if nothing happens I delete them. If something happens, the information has already been sent to some one the perp cannot touch. your hold card.
We are being photographed all the time like it or not , if your in public, there is no right to privacy . but the door swings both ways, so documenting can work for you as well.

 

Learn martial arts and be willing to use it. It has saved my life before.