Crime-Safety-Security.com
Newsletter
08 July 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 naďveté of the prey.

HOME INVASIONS
Yushi Shimada answered his apartment door last Saturday to find a man asking to use his phone because his car had broken down. When the man stepped into his apartment, a masked gunman followed – the men beat and robbed him. ... The crime was among a string of violent home invasions that struck New Tampa, a suburb where people leave their car doors unlocked and then are shocked to find items missing the next day. ... In most cases, visitors came to doors saying they were fleeing an abusive boyfriend, or had a broken-down car and needed a phone. They would return moments later with armed men who pistol-whipped victims while they ransacked the home. "These bad guys preyed on the good nature of their victims," police said.
Excerpted from The Saint Petersburg Times – 21 June 2008

See Scam-In

Contact Us with your comments or questions for this newsletter.

Think of all the crime victims throughout history who would’ve benefited from what you’ve just learned in this newsletter.

A killer who boasted he drank his victim's blood and ate his skull to become a vampire has been jailed for 18 years. Allan Menzies, 22, turned to cannibalism after making a pact with a film character, Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, to win immortality as a vampire.
Excerpted from The Glasgow Evening Times (UK) – 09 October 2003

These idiotic officials will release a cannibal at age 40 rather than at 140? Why?

Contact Us with any questions, comments, or requests. I’ll answer as many as possible in the next newsletter.

On Tue Jun 10 15:33:36 2008, the following results were submitted from the Contact Us on crime-safety-security.com:
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First Name: Sheila
E-mail Address: wingedhourglass@ [deleted]
Country: United States
Comments: Your website is excellent. I've been spreading it to everyone I know since I found it -- I started looking online for information about avoiding rape ever since hearing about a woman in Santa Cruz, CA, who was kidnapped from a store and did basically everything wrong.

I had a specific experience that I am always interested in hearing opinions on. I work in a store that provides custom fabrication services, as such, the business space is divided between the sales floor and the shop, with very limited visibility between the two. Most of our time is spent in the shop, and we have an infrared doorbell to alert us when a customer comes in.

One day, the owner and I were working in the back. At around 10:30, a customer came in and we were alerted by the doorbell. Around 11:45, a subsequent customer had to seek us out in the shop, because the doorbell didn't go off and we had no idea she was there.

When I investigated, I discovered that the doorbell mechanism had been turned off completely. I determined that it could not have happened by accident, and that it would have been possible to do from outside -- reaching around the door jam to hit the switch without tripping the sensor.

The owner thought I was overreacting when I said it was certainly a lead up to something worse.

Later that day, we were visited by a man who said he was selling advertisements in a coupon book to raise money for "sick children." He was asking only $12 -- an amount far too low -- in cash or check up front. I told him, "We can't do this kind of thing right now." He continued to demand a check, at which point I lied and said that only the owner could write checks on our business account. He left abruptly.

The opinion that I got from my boyfriend, who has been preaching the same self-defense techniques that you have on your site for years, is that the doorbell was both a setup and a test. A would-be thief will have shut it off, and if, upon returning, it was turned on again, he'll know we were wary and alert.

At the time I didn't connect the doorbell with the advertising scam, but now I'm convinced that they were the same person. The advertisement sale was his back-up, an excuse to get money (and checking account information) out of the store if he could not take the store by surprise after all.
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Thanks, Sheila. I agree that, in all likelihood, he was bogus. Apparently, he was trying to get some money from you one way or another. Your boss is lucky you work for him but probably doesn’t realize it (naďve people don’t realize that they’re naďve).

Your subsequent e-mail included the “advertising salesman’s” many other suspicious details that fall into the endless variety of scams, cons, and lures described in Mind Games. Fortunately, they didn’t escape your healthy skepticism as described in Intuition.

Also see "NOT ALL THREATS ARE QUITE SO OBVIOUS" at Posturing.

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

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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.

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