Refuse To Be A Victim - Awareness, Avoidance, Confidence

Knowing how to defend yourself is great, and it is something that everybody should learn how to do. Avoiding being attacked altogether, however, is even better, and of course, it is safer.  When it comes to potential crime there is one essential rule -- refuse to be a victim. The fact is that if you look like a victim, you are more likely to become one. So, how can you avoid looking like and becoming a victim?

Many of us spend our spare moments looking at our tablets and smartphones, talking on the phone, or even relaxing with our MP3 players and headphones. While all of these devices are wonderful, they can distract us from what is happening around us. When you are out and about, your surroundings need your attention more, and if you have headphones on, you won't hear any "out of the ordinary" noises. Put off using these devices until you are in an area where you really are safe and can relax.

Changing a few habits, and doing without distractions can save your life!  Awareness, avoidance, and confidence are a few of your best self-defense tools that you already have and won't cost you anything except time to adapt and let them become your second nature.  Here are some additional tips to help you to avoid becoming a victim:

First, avoid places where an attack may occur without notice by others. This includes dark streets and alleys, abandoned parking lots, and other under-populated areas. If you must venture into such areas, make sure that you do not go alone.

Be aware of your surroundings, and listen to your gut instincts. Safety is not always convenient.  Criminals don't like to be noticed, and if they realize that you are paying close attention to your surroundings, they are more likely to go away and look for another victim. If you must go out of your way to avoid putting yourself in danger -- do so! No appointment or destination is more important than your safety and your life.

Women: If there is a great deal of walking involved to reach your destination, wear shoes that you can run in, and carry those slingback heels in your bag. It's hard to get away from an attacker in high heels.

Avoid flashing things that may be of great interest to a thief. This includes electronic devices, purses, wallets, and jewelry. This doesn't mean that you can't carry these items; it just means that you should be discreet with them. You don't want these items to attract unwanted attention.

Look people in the eye and acknowledge them. Again, criminals don't want to be noticed. If you've looked them in the eye, they know that you can identify them, and they are most likely not going to attack. Furthermore, when you look someone in the eye, you have a better perception of what they are looking at themselves.

Always have a destination and a purpose in mind -- or at the very least, look like you do. Those who display self-confidence and purpose, instead of walking obliviously along and looking down at their shoes,  are less likely to be attacked. Walk with your head held up -- not looking at the ground.

Always know your options. While you don't want to look like a victim, you can't ever really let your guard down. When you are walking along, always have an escape plan in mind.

Trust your instincts. If your instincts tell you that danger is near, it most likely is. Never ignore your gut instincts or assume that you are just being paranoid.

By changing a few habits and being more aware of your surroundings, you can avoid being a victim.  Overall, use your common sense. If you feel like you are venturing into dangerous territory, turn around and go back. If you feel like you are being followed, get to a safe place as fast as you can. If you are being watched, call for help or change locations. Don't feel like you are being paranoid or foolish. You are simply trying to avoid being attacked!

Refuse to Be a Victim: Beware of Solicitors!

It’s late afternoon.  You are finally at home after a long day, and are relaxing on the couch. Someone comes to your front door.  You answer the door and this normal looking young man is there, and says that he represents a window company.  They are looking for homes in your neighborhood to install new energy saving windows, and then showcase your home as part of their advertising.  In return for allowing your home to be a showcase, you will get a significant cost savings on the project.  Nice looking guy.  Official looking clip-board, ID badge hanging from his neck, clean cut.  And this is such a good deal!  How can you pass this up?

This may be a legitimate sales call.  Or this may be a scam.

 

You are a little hesitant because perhaps you don’t want to start this type of major project right now, or maybe money is a little tight.  The sales pitch is now being laid on thicker and thicker to convince you that you really need to consider this. 

So the solicitor says:  “Can you give me a landline number?  My company will get in touch with you and explain the deal further.”

Did you catch the scam?  Before I tell you what it is, let me give you a hint and tell you that these scams are kind of like “sleight of hand” gimmicks in that one thing is used to distract you from the real purpose of the “mission” that this person is on.  And yes – I used the word “mission” on purpose to give you a hint.  Any thoughts yet?

The Scam:

OK – here it is.  This is possibly a reconnaissance mission.  Reconnaissance to look for targets for home invasion and/or burglary.  The thick sales pitch was a distraction from the other subtle things being asked, such as for you to give them a landline phone number.  And if you’re thinking about your house windows and energy savings, you aren’t thinking about looking for what other pieces of information this person is collecting during this visit.

First, by going door to door, our “salesman” gets to write down street addresses and house descriptions.  That official looking clipboard is for taking notes, after all.  A salesman writing down notes looks perfectly normal. 

They get to see if anyone is home at that time, they get to see who answers the door (man, woman, child), they can now tell which houses have dogs (as alerted by the doorbell), and they can also see which houses have alarm signs in their front yards (and/or stickers on the door).  If a person answers the door, besides seeing if an adult, man or woman, they can see what “type” of person it is: Stern, timid, mad, happy, geeky, forceful, easy to convince, skeptic, gullible, etc. 

All of these characteristics can help the thieves decide if that person will present a threat to them even if they are home during a potential home invasion.  They now also know what other threats to their success exist at that house.

Secondly, they asked specifically for a landline phone number.  Why do you suppose that is?  Well, if they have a street address, and can then associate a landline (hard wired) phone number to that address, they then have some pretty concrete exploitable information about your physical residence. 

Then the next part of the reconnaissance begins.  Several calls can be made to that landline to see if anyone is home at various times of day, find out who is home at those times (did an adult or children answer the phone?), and start putting together a pattern of the most opportune times for an invasion or burglary.  If someone answers, it is easy to fabricate a story for why they are calling.  It is also extremely easy to spoof the phone number for the caller ID, or simply make it appears as "Unknown." 

Associating a landline with a home with an alarm system also gives the thieves an opportunity to figure out which methods they need to use to defeat or circumvent the alarm.

Here's What You Can Do:

For starters, you are not obligated to answer your door.  But to help you decide whether or not to answer, consider installing a wide angle peep hole in your door so that you can see a wider area of your front entry area.

Only allow the adults in your house to answer the door.  Tell children that under no circumstances are they to open the door to anyone.

If you are going to answer the door, take a moment to compose yourself, put on your game face, and prepare yourself to question everything about this person standing at your doorstep.  You don’t need to verbalize every question, but don’t get so caught up in the sales pitch that you forget to keep asking yourself why they are here, what red flags should be going up, and what general suspicions you have about them.

Put a “No Soliciting” sign on your front door.  Where I live, it is against the law to make unannounced house sales calls like this if there is a “No Soliciting” sign posted.  Maybe this will keep them away and help avoid the whole situation entirely.  If it is a legitimate sales person, they know about the laws, and will probably honor it.  Criminals don’t know or care about laws.  If they won’t honor that “no Soliciting” sign, that should be a red flag.

Do NOT give them your home (landline) phone number under ANY circumstances.  I personally would be hesitant to even give them a cell phone number.  Ask for the company's phone number and tell them that YOU will initiate any call for service. 

Ask for more official identification (such as a driver’s license) to compare to that neat looking little ID badge they have hanging from their neck.  Write down who they are, what company they claim to be from, and even ask for a business card.  If they have no business cards, that should also be a red flag for you.

Answer their questions with conviction.  Don’t waffle or look like you are unsure of yourself.  But keep your answers short and direct.  Don’t give out information about you or your household.

If you are not interested in the sales pitch, state as such directly.  Again – tell them YOU will initiate contact with their company if services are desired, and after you have verified the legitimacy of their company.

After you close the door, write down everything you can remember about them.  Time, date, height, weight, race, hair color, clothing, what they were carrying, name from identification.  Were they on foot, or did they drive up in a vehicle?  If a vehicle, write down a description and license plate number, if able.  Did they seem nervous?  What was their general demeanor?

If you have an alarm system, explore whether or not cellular technology is available for the monitoring portion of the alarm, or consider switching to an alarm company that does offer cellular technology.  I have looked into the “SimpliSafe” alarm system, for example, and will be switching to that from ADT. (I will write a separate review once installed).

It may be a legitimate sales call, or they may be sizing you up for burglary or home invasion.  Absent your crystal ball or superpowers for predicting the future, you have no way of telling.  If it is for criminal purposes, you have to remember that they are sizing you up and doing risk analysis on you and your home.  They don’t want to get hurt “on the job” and they don’t want to go to jail.  It is your job to size them up also, try to see the red flags, and do your own risk analysis and threat management.

Ultimately, you need to do whatever is possible to make your home an undesirable target for them.  If you can get them to move on and eliminate you as a target quickly, then that is a very good thing.

Refuse to be a victim!

The War-Gaming Sheepdog

 It’s a normal sunny day.  You and your spouse decide to go shopping.  You pull into the parking lot at the local “Wally World” and experience the normal amount of bad driving and rude motorists that occurs in a shopping center parking lot.  The store is bustling today with all the shoppers picking up school supplies for the fast approaching school year.  You go in, grab a shopping cart, and wander around the store.  You’re trying to remember what it is that you needed to get from the gardening section before they close out all the gardening supplies for the year.  Nothing unusual really seems to be going on today.  It is just a lazy day of browsing and trying to figure out what to pick up to make for dinner.  

Then, all of a sudden:  “What’s that noise?”  “Is someone lighting off fire crackers in the store?”  You hear screams.  You see people running in every direction.  Then it dawns on you – there is an active shooter in the store.  It could be someone robbing the place, or perhaps just some poor misunderstood lunatic who came in to cause some random chaos.  You just see the confusion in their eyes, overwhelming the people around you.  “Where do I go?  What do I do?”

Same “Wally World,” but this time it’s a bit overcast outside.  The clouds are building, and the wind is picking up.  You heard there might be rain in the forecast, but that is really nothing out of the ordinary for a late summer day.  You are in the store when all of a sudden the lights go out and you hear severe shaking and loud snapping coming from the rafters above.  People are running looking for cover from the falling light fixtures and ceiling pieces that are raining down.  The tornado sirens are going off.  Once again, confusion sets in.  “Where do I go?  What do I do?”

In this day and age, even going to the store is a risky undertaking.  Albeit that the risks are usually small, there is still a certain amount of anticipation that goes into our everyday lives.  Whether we know it or not, risk analysis is something that even everyday citizens do naturally in order to make decisions about where to go, what to do, and when to do it.  If I don’t go to the store right now, my risk is that I won’t have anything for dinner.  But if I do go to the store right now, the place might get robbed while I am there.  If I don’t go to work promptly at 6:30am on Monday, the risk is that I’ll get fired from my job.  But if I do go to work on time, one risk is that a disgruntled employee will go ballistic and tear the place up.  If I walk down that dark alley to get to my car more quickly, the risk is that I’ll be robbed and hurt.  

Shopping centers, schools, and places of worship are all prime targets for acts of intentional violence.  Natural disasters can happen anywhere and at any time.  But what separates total chaos and disaster from survival is your ability as a sheepdog to know what to do in those situations to get people to safety and minimize casualties.  This is where proactive risk analysis and purposeful awareness really play a part in your ability to survive and get others to safety.  I’d like to take you through a journey in this article to show you a technique known as “war-gaming,” which is really just a partnership between proactive risk analysis and purposeful awareness.  War-gaming has been used in many different situations to play through some potential crisis scenarios, and to help responders figure out what to do in response, and help predict possible outcomes.  As a sheepdog, you too can take advantage of war-gaming as a method to add to your preparedness toolkit and be the difference between chaos and comfort.

Proactive Risk Analysis and Purposeful Awareness:

Part of having a normal risk analysis mindset is asking the “what-if” questions.  And it’s this risk analysis mindset and asking the “what-if” questions that can be a huge asset in surviving an unexpected crisis situation.  Proactive risk analysis, then, simply means that you are asking these “what-if” questions well in advance of a possible event, and beginning to formulate in your mind some possible reactions to those events.  Proactive risk analysis also means that not only are you thinking about the most likely risks, but that you are thinking of a few “off the wall” risks as well.  

Awareness is also an important aspect of being able to anticipate and quickly react to an emergency situation when it happens.  You have to be aware of your surroundings and what is going on around you at all times, and be able to focus that knowledge in order to take the proper action.  This is something I like to refer to as having a “purposeful sense of awareness.”  Having a purposeful sense of awareness does not mean that you are living in the land of paranoia, nor does it mean that you have to make the act of shopping into a well-planned combat mission.  So while having an elevated sense of awareness just means that you have to keep your mind out of your SmartPhone while you are walking around, purposeful awareness means that you know what is going on around you AND you are using this awareness to recall what you mapped out during your proactive risk analysis processes. 

The Sheepdog and the “War-Gaming” Mindset:

If we couple proactive risk analysis with an improved and purposeful sense of awareness, we then have the ingredient’s for what I refer to here as the “war-gaming mindset.” And it is this mindset which is a vital tool in the sheepdog’s toolbox, and necessary in order to anticipate solutions to a problem.  In proactive risk analysis, you are thinking of some likely things, and possibly some not so likely things, that may happen in a given environment.  In war-gaming, you are taking what you thought of during those possible risk scenarios, and now thinking about what you would do if they happened. And just as with risk analysis, where you were thinking of different possible scenarios, you are now also thinking of different possible solutions and outcomes. With purposeful awareness, you are completing the war-gaming mindset by actually putting yourself in the particular location or environment that you had envisioned, and injecting real-time observations to narrow down the likely risks.  In other words, you are using what you see NOW to inject information into those “what if” questions to narrow down possible reactions.  This is also a way to keep your risk analysis and response information top of mind so that you already have a plan even before the chaos happens.

The War-Gaming Toolkit:

Know Location Layouts and Features:   Be familiar with the places you frequent in order to think through your risk analysis and response for a crisis situation.  Do you know where the emergency exits and storm shelters are in that “Wally World” store?  How about store rooms and other secure areas to which you can direct people and keep them safe in your favorite grocery store?  Have you become familiar with all the exits, hiding places, and even the severe weather shelters in your church?  Do you know where the most likely place is where the emergency first responders will arrive, and can you safely get someone reliable to that location to direct them and describe the emergency?  Knowing all these things can help you to more effectively and more purposefully direct others to safety and minimize casualties.  Explore and take note of emergency exits, safe areas, storm shelters, and other egress routes in the places that you frequent most.

Training in Emergency Best Practices:  Before you can effectively war game responses for many of the scenarios for which you are trying to prepare, you must first have some idea of what are considered to be “best practices” for dealing with an emergency situation.  This is no time to “wing it” and hope your ideas are going to work.  Your responses need to be based in sound principles and tactics.  It’s important to realize that not only are you trying to help the people who are in immediate danger, but you are trying to assist law enforcement and emergency responders by doing the things that they would ideally expect you to do to prevent further casualties, and to prevent endangering them also.  And we’re not talking about lengthy, or even expensive advanced emergency responder training here.  Much of what you can learn that will help you a great deal can be done by taking short online or live instruction courses.  Many of these courses are low cost or even free.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for example, has developed a number of very good online training courses through their Independent Study Institute, and these courses are all available for free to the general public.  Below are some links to these courses that you may find valuable in helping you to learn some of the fundamental concepts of emergency response:

• IS-22, Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness
• IS-360, Preparing for Mass Casualty Incidents: A Guide for Schools, Higher Education, and Houses of Worship
• IS-906, Basic Workplace Security Awareness
• IS-907, Active Shooter: What You Can Do
• IS-915, Protecting Critical Infrastructure Against Insider Threats

Scenario Based Training: This will help a great deal with needed skill development, and then helping you to visually see some things in 3-D action so that you can more effectively visualize and think through what skills will be useful in which environments and in which scenarios.  Much of this type of training would ideally be live, instructor based training, in which you would actually role-play various scenarios.  In many cases, live fire and what we refer to as “force on force” training is appropriate to the scenarios for which you are trying to prepare.  Standing in front of paper targets just doesn’t prepare you the way that actual live scenarios will prepare you.  Many firearms instruction organizations (including Northern Colorado Firearms Safety Training) have training to help you meet this need.  Don’t stop at the basic training.  Seek out the training that will help you to practice actual scenarios.

Keep Studying, Keep War-Gaming:  Every trip to the store can be a “lessons learned” experience.  In all of your proactive risk analysis, you may not have thought of some things that finally dawned on you this last time at “Wally World.”  Add those new ideas to your war-gaming scenarios, and ask yourself what you would to if that thing happened.  Keep a journal, if that helps you retain information.  Look at your notes from time to time and revisit those thought processes.  Keep up on current events, and use those “lessons learned” that you are able to infer from the incident descriptions.  Many publications, such as those from NRA and USCCA, present reports from various incidents, and give information as to where the events occurred, and what was done in response.  Use that to help with your own war-gaming efforts.

Wrapping It All Up:

Being a sheepdog is a lot of work, if you expect to be able to make a difference.  You are most likely not law enforcement or emergency medical personnel.  Most sheepdogs are just average people, with average lives, but some not so average skills.  You may be the first one on scene in an emergency, and you have no idea how long it will be before emergency services arrive to help.  In the meantime, you need to be able to get others to safety and prevent further casualties.  It may be a violent attack.  It may be a natural disaster.  But either way, if you want to be effective at helping others, you need to have some ideas about what could possibly happen and how to respond BEFORE those things happen.  Proactive risk analysis and purposeful awareness combine to help you “war-game” these potential scenarios so that you are already armed with knowledge and a plan when the time comes.  Additional training is a plus, and applying critical thinking to your environment is a must.  Knowing some best practices in dealing with these types of situations is vital.  And practice, practice, practice. 

Be safe out there, be proactive, and be purposeful.  You may be the sheepdog who is called upon to save others someday.