Get out of the street!

For crying out loud! Didn't your mother tell you NOT TO PLAY IN THE STREET! Most people may not know this, but the Holiday Season is PRIME TIME for CRIME! Crime can happen anytime, anywhere, but from my experience as a cop in Southwest Florida, the Thanksgiving through Christmas holidays were always exceptionally active for the bad guys.

I am sure all the psycho analyzers will give you all the reasons, from poor socio-economic upbringing to some guys just want things and can't afford them so they take them. It's not really their fault, its society's fault.

Yes, we were swamped with burglaries too, the bad guys doing the "reverse Santa Clause". We had a lot of Armed Robberies too, mostly Restaurants! More about those next time.

Today I want to talk about Purse snatching. Some days we would work one purse snatch after another. During Christmas week, my department would assign all the juvenile officers to work the malls and shopping centers. Sometimes we would be on foot, sometimes in cars, and several years we were assigned bikes. One year a local scooter rental company loaned the sheriff a dozen red Scooters! It was better than getting flat feet and we could get around quicker, but boy did we get laughed at! Some of us, not me, looked like big teddy bears dressed in green riding little red scooters. At least the colors were in the right season!

OK, back to the crime at hand. Most purse snatchings went down like this. The lady would be walking to her car after shopping. She would be pushing a shopping cart full of Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas cheer. Her purse would be slung over one shoulder or WORSE, sitting up in the child seat of the shopping cart! And still worse, she would be walking right down the middle of the parking lot driving lane! The bad guys come cruising through and spot the victim. Mostly they work as a team, rarely by themselves. One drives while the other leans out of the car grabs the purse off the shoulder or from the shopping cart and takes off!

If the victim tries to hold on, and most did, they get a case of parking lot road rash, or worse. Now believe it or not, I am in this case telling you a stun gun will not help you. An AR15 assault rifle outfitted with a grenade launcher would do pretty good, but you might have some collateral damage.

Get OUT of the STREET! We see this in every parking lot! Young and old, rich and poor, they walk right down the middle, slow as possible, not a care in the world except how much they just spent on groceries.

Get OUT of the STREET!

If there is a way to walk between the parked cars, go there. If there is a way to walk as close as possible to the other parked cars go there. KEEP your purse out of sight or away from the potential reach of the bad guys. If you are walking to the right side of the driveway, put your purse on the right shoulder, again, away from the potential reach of the snatcher.

Better yet, wear youR coat OVER the purse. again Out of sight! Lets back up and ask, where was your purse while you were in the store? Was it in shopping cart while you looked around? This is a case of make it harder for the bad guys and they will go after easier pickings.

Think survival! Be prepared. Don't live in fear! You will not live in fear if you are prepared. Train yourself, work with a partner. Practice, think up scenarios then act them out so you will be prepared if you should ever be confronted.

With practice and preparedness, you will survive and NOT live in fear.

Paul Foreman