Crime-Safety-Security
Newsletter
08 January 2008

Folklore and fables – from vampire and wolfman legends to tales of The Brothers’ Grimm – tell us of ogres, fiends, and monsters. Today we call them violent criminals. They’ve always plagued us and – as long as passions, madness, and evil exist – always will. Let’s blow away a predator's biggest advantage: the naïveté of the prey.

shhh! the Petit’s door was left unlocked...
The News Media Whispers the Truth about Crime

3 DIE IN CHESHIRE HOME INVASION
Two paroled burglars followed a mother and her daughter when they left a supermarket, then entered their Cheshire CT home via an unlocked rear door. They severely beat their husband/father, Dr. Petit, and then spent six hours raping, torturing, and finally killing the mother and two daughters. ... Their deaths shattered the sense of security in this upper-middle class neighborhood of professionals and colonial-style homes with well-kept lawns. A neighbor said, "It's just awful to think it would happen to a family like that in this community. You don't think about those things happening."
Excerpted from the Danbury News-Times, Torrington Register Citizen, and New Britain Herald reports – 24-26 July 2007

Three guests on Larry King’s July 30 TV show droned on about reforming parole regulations to prevent such home invasions in the future. Fine, reform the system. But remember that not all predators are paroled felons – they might well be felons already released from parole or up-and-coming young monsters with clean records. What about them?

Inexplicably, the unlocked door the killers had entered was never mentioned on Larry King (and just barely mentioned four times in hundreds of media reports). The glaring flaw in basic home security that led to the fiendish destruction of a family was glossed over as though it was a minor detail. The elephant sitting in the middle of the room was nearly invisible.

Now, had the door been locked, the invaders likely would’ve looked for other ways in (see Home Security Products - Intro), and if that failed, likely would’ve moved on to look for unlocked doors elsewhere (few doors in that naïve “safe” neighborhood were locked – as one report mentioned) and a different family likely would’ve been attacked instead.

The media also had their eyes wide shut during the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping in Salt Lake City in 2002. The kidnapper had entered through an open window (after quietly cutting the screen), yet the danger of leaving a window open, as usual, got scant attention in the massive media coverage. Since then, the father, the ironically named Ed Smart who’d recruited the Charles Manson-like panhandler/kidnapper to shingle his roof (and also left windows wide open through the night) sometimes guests on TV panel discussions (as an expert, no less) where his spectacular security blunders go politely unmentioned. How could his opinions on crime prevention possibly matter when he’s never owned up to his blunders? (Learn how to protect yourself at Window Reinforcement.)

Of course the media doesn’t want to “blame the victims.” It would almost seem cruel to add insult to injury – to blame those unwitting naïf’s for contributory negligence. But, as a result, the one possible silver lining in the Petit tragedy – explicitly warning the public of possible horror from leaving doors and windows unlocked – was squandered, lost forever. We’ll never know how many future victims of such crimes might have been spared. But just the possibility of sparing even one innocent soul from such a hideous fate would be well worth the tiny effort.

Five months later, the state legislature is still trying to forge new laws to “curb” such massacres in the future, yet NO mention is made of the UNLOCKED door! And now all subsequent news media reports refer to the invasion as a “break-in” rather than the harsh truth that the primary facilitator of the massacre was a “walk-in” through an UNLOCKED door! The old adage is true: “None are so blind as those who refuse to see.” The elephant in the middle of the room is now completely invisible.

Know this: roughly half of the 8,000-plus home intrusions daily in the US (that’s 2.9 million annually, per the US DOJ) are Walk-Ins through doors and windows blithely left unlocked until bedtime or until leaving the home unoccupied. Is the invisible elephant starting to come into focus now?

Of course nobody wants to blame the victims. Those innocents were lulled into the same false sense of security that seduces most people living in the Sleepyvilles of the world. They just didn’t realize that predators far outnumber the police – and that predators have all heard how Sleepyville has poor security – where people actually brag about not locking their doors or windows!

Some particularly innocent victims leave their doors unlocked even after they’ve been invaded through unlocked doors! It’s not always easy to find sympathy for such wanton carelessness, but we must remember, after all, that they are indeed innocent victims – in both senses of the word.

Yet when some poor souls end up butchered, their murders will be bemoaned in the media – with barely a peep about their unlocked doors or windows. And on and on it goes.

Actually, it’s hard to blame and shame the news reporters for sugarcoating the cold reality. In fact, the surviving victims themselves usually are in blind denial of the blatantly obvious and brutal truth – that their contributory negligence led to such anguish. It happens more often than not in heinous crimes – it’s human nature, a coping mechanism. They probably can’t bear to admit it even to themselves – the angst would be too great.

The news reporters shudder when they see it up close and personal thus they opt for mercy on the surviving victims. Nevertheless, wouldn’t the public’s ignorance and their blasé safety attitude diminish (at least a bit) if the media regularly mentioned a brief, tactful security precaution at the end of each crime news report? Is the media too polite and too charitable to save future victims – even if it’s just one?

It’s a shame that those who’ve suffered a crime due to unlocked doors and windows had to learn such a harsh lesson the hard way. The news media could have – and should have – done a better job of warning them. Isn’t it ironic to see charity causing such inadvertent harm?

Rather than whispering the truth, the media should shout it for all to hear.

Be honest now. Do you keep all your doors and windows locked at all times? If not, re-read the above. Gamble in Vegas, not in your life.

See Home Security - Overview.

Contact Us to send your comments to this newsletter.

DREW PETERSON’S MISSING WIFE

If I tried to leave him, he said he’d kill me.” Those were the words allegedly spoken by 23-year-old missing mother of two, Stacy Peterson, to a friend and neighbor about a threat her 53-year-old husband Drew Peterson made. ... On Oct. 26, Stacy told Drew she wanted a divorce. Two days later she was gone. Her policeman husband suggests that she has left for personal reasons in the past, and that he suspects she has either run off on her own or run away with an unnamed man. No evidence of either scenario has yet been discovered. ... What is it, though, in Sgt. Peterson’s background that would make him any more of a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance than the statistical probability ascribed to any other spouse or partner of a missing person? ... Stacy Peterson told relatives she was afraid of her husband. Sgt. Peterson had allegedly monitored and limited his current wife’s telephone and social contacts, “watching her every move,” even to the extent of allegedly following her as she went to class at a local college. He previously refused to allow her to visit her sister in a nearby community and had allegedly threatened her on more than one occasion.
Excerpted from MSNBC – 13 November 2007

Up to half of all women treated in hospital emergency rooms are there because of violent relationships; one-third of all women murder victims are killed by an intimate partner; and one-quarter to one-half of all women's suicides are linked to relationship violence.

Countless women have ruined their lives by thinking their tender, loving care can mend a disturbed man. You cannot change him, but you can rescue yourself by getting away from him as soon as possible.

Are you at risk? See Domestic Violence for warning signs, profiles, behavior patterns, and escape routes.

Contact Us to send your comments to this newsletter.

Think about it: the cases above likely never would’ve happened if those innocent souls had known what you’ve just learned in this newsletter.

Convicted killer Amit Livingston walked out of a courtroom in February with the promise to return in April to begin serving a 23-year sentence for killing substitute teacher Hermila Hernandez. Judge Abel Limas granted him 60 days of freedom to get his affairs in order. The day came, and Livingston was nowhere to be found. He has remained on the lam ever since, despite appearing on “America’s Most Wanted” TV show.
Excerpted from The Brownsville Herald (TX) – 29 December 2007

Do you have any newsletter Hall of Shame Award candidates for judges, shrinks, or parole boards? Contact Us.

Contact Us for Michael Edward Loftus Sr to speak to your group.

Newsletter Privacy Statement: this newsletter will never give your e-mail address to anyone. Promise.

Please forward this newsletter to anyone you know who needs it.

PERMISSION TO REPRINT if you include the following: Reprinted from the free www.Crime-Safety-Security.com newsletter.

Pointing out a victim's possible missteps before she fell prey is not always a bad thing, according to Linda Fairstein, renowned author and former New York City sex crimes prosecutor. "If we can learn something from it, we can give her back some dignity," she says. "If we see what the risks are and what would prevent this from happening to someone else, then there's something that benefits the memory of that victim."
Excerpted from The New York Daily News – 24 August 2006

We’d be wise to learn from the little mistakes of victims. Usually, they didn’t know that predators are always hunting for carefree prey. As Dr. Anna Salter wrote in Predators, "Normal, healthy people distort reality to create a kinder, gentler world than really exists."

You don’t need a bulletproof vest, a bodyguard, or to sleep with one eye open – just a new attitude toward being S.A.F.E.:

Skeptical of anyone trying to get near you or trying to isolate you,
Aware of danger zones and escape strategies,
Flexible: being tricky, changing strategies as needed – and if worse comes to worst:
Exploding like a mad dog to fight for your life. Stun & run. See Fighting Options.

Whenever you’re tempted to be careless, ask yourself, "What could possibly happen?" The stories throughout this newsletter and web site show what could possibly happen – and how to avoid being easy prey.

Return to
Newsletter Archive
Home Page