Weathering the Broken Links

Apparently, they’ve “exhausted all the possibilities” (according the the Mayor in this video) and now their only recourse is a complete curfew on select neighborhoods. One council member, Eugene “Red” Johnson said:

“As far as I’m concerned, at 3 o’clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law, … Anyone out at 3 o’clock shouldn’t be out on the street, unless you’re going to the hospital.”

Ummm. The CNN article states that it’s a 24-hour curfew. While it can be debated that there are reasons to be out at 3am, you can’t justify a 24-hour curfew by pretending you’re only inconveniencing late night owls.

Further, watch the video where one resident says you can’t even go outside without being approached by police. Apparently, they’re telling people on their own property to go inside.

I know some residents are supportive of the effort as it really is a rough neighborhood with lots of problems. But I don’t care what your intentions are. I If you think your only option is to hassle everyone because you can’t think of a better way to crack down on the real criminals, you’ve gone too far.

Certainly the local police can do some real police work (i.e. without violating people’s rights) which makes it undesirable for the criminals to ply their trade there.

You don’t need to explode a barrel of fuel around the corner or pay an escort to play temptress in order to catch security personnel off guard.  There’s a much simpler way; bring along a wheelchair-bound acquaintance.

I went to a baseball game the other night with visiting family.  One of the visitors is elderly and unable to walk very far.  We take him in a wheelchair whenever we go on anything but the most trivial outings…such as attending a baseball game in a large arena.  Well most arenas ban pretty much anything: food, drink, motion photography, pets, laser pointers, offensively-sloganed apparel, noise makers, and weapons.

Hmmmm.  Weapons?  Check!  Gots me a knife.  Gots me a gun.

The fact of the matter, redneck joking aside, is that I do very regularly carry a knife and a handgun as self-defense tools.  And I generally carry them everywhere it’s not illegal to do so.  In my state, organizations can post signs saying that they don’t want people to carry weapons.  But failure to ignore those signs is not a crime.  It’s only a crime if you are asked to leave while carrying said weapons and then you fail to comply.  In these cases, concealed means concealed and what they don’t know won’t become an issue.

I really try not to patronize establishments that feel I should disarm because the mere posession of a tool of self-defense might lead me to, against my own will to be a good person, wreak havoc and harm upon others.  But sadly, most large-venue events these days have signs or ticket policies saying, “Thou Shalt Disarm!”  It’s just a forgone conclusion of the event coordinators that weapons = bad.

So many others like me go to these events armed, yet a little more well concealed.  We look for ways to game security.  Are they wanding?  Are they wanding everyone?  Are there pat downs?  Are they just “profiling?”  What are they really looking for?  Do they get more lax during busy times?

I won’t give away any answers/secrets.  But it’s pretty hard for most security forces at public events to do their jobs.  They don’t have x-ray vision.  They don’t have infinite time to deal with each customer passing by.  They have a lot of things to look for.  They’re rarely are equipped with metal detection tools (which consequently would produce too many false positives at large events).  Basically, they’re looking for the needle in a haystack.  And in many events, such as ball games where there are numerous people who may be intoxicated from tailgating activities, there isn’t a narrowly defined norm against which they can profile people.  Basically, if a weapons carrier can act reasonably normal, he is not going to have trouble getting past security.

Admittedly, there’s a lot of what-if’ing going on in that preceding paragraph that makes going armed to such events rather tedious.  But I have found a much, much, much easier way about it:

Take a feeble-looking, preferably elderly person, with you and enjoy virtually skirting any and all security measures.

This won’t exactly get you past TSA security (well maybe it might), but in less-secure environments, handicapped clientele really have an advantage.  Why?  Well, security personnel do a very routine task.  Introducing them with a person in a wheelchair diverts them from their normal task of checking for issues to one of helping someone in need.

In fact, at this ball game that I went to, my 90 year old relative plus 6 other able-bodied people were directed to a special wheelchair accessible entrance by a staff member who, in her effort to help, neglected to check any of the four large-ish bags we had with us (not that they were even checking our persons for concealed contraband).   Perhaps she just thought we looked trustworthy.  More likely, we interrupted normal mental operations with something out of the ordinary and she forgot to do her job as she was trained.

No loss for us….this time or the other numerous times this has happened.

When I travel I tend to put all my electronic gear in one spot in my carry-on.  The TSA doesn’t like this.  I don’t care.

On my most recent trips involving family I had:

• Mini table computer + AC and DC power adapters + spare battery
• Fold-up portable bluetooth keyboard + spare batteries
• Camera + two camera batteries and camera battery charger
• Extra camera memory
• GPS radio + DC charger for it
• USB Cables
• USB Ethernet adapter
• Straps to secure tablet PC to seat headrest for my son to watch movies in rental car
• Plus I think a few more odds and ends

I’ve got a nice bag that holds it all in a very compact space and I put that inside a backpack with other essentials for me and the family.  I remove the tablet at TSA checkpoints, but leave everything else in the compact electronics bag.  This never fails to get the TSA screeners’ attention.

About 50% of the time, they pull me over to a table to do a bag screening.  They always ask whats in that bag, but then never put eyes and hands on it.  I guess they’re profiling me and not really worried about whats in it.  It seems a little pointless in my opinion; it really wouldn’t be too hard to put a dangerous item in there masquerading as a legitimate device.

I really don’t mind the extra stop at the table.  It’s a small price to pay for the convenience of having all my gadgets in one compact spot rather than scattered everywhere or in checked luggage where they might just “disappear.”

What I do mind is that the TSA screener doing the table check invariably tells me it’s not a good idea to clump all this stuff together.  Apparently, they can’t see the value proposition of a passenger or two spending an extra minute or two in screening as a trade off for having convenient and organized gadget access….i.e. the ease of doing their job should trump my convenience.

I almost always stay silent and sometimes nod my head.  I once tried to explain my rationale to a TSA screener.  He seemed unable to act like a human being and concur and instead started in about procedures and rules and whatnot.  I know he shouldn’t be winging it and potentially giving out bad advice, but c’mon, be reasonable.

What am I going to do about it?  Nothing.  As long as the TSA continues to be so casual in their inspection of my bags, I’ll continue to pack my goodies the way I’ve been doing so.  If they ever decide to get serious about checking bag contents, I’ll concede and make it easier for them to do their search.

I was recently at a park that I had never been to.  It was in, apparently, not so great an area.  My wife and son were with me.  They wandered of together to some playground equipment some 100 yards away leaving me eating my takeout alone on some rocks.  Not too long after, a scruffy looking guy comes my direction and at about 50 ft asks, “Hey you here alone?”

Having spotted him before he opened his mouth, I was already on alert.  I said firmly and loudly, “No, go away!”  When he replied, “huh?” I reiterated, “go away, get out of here!”  He changed course about 15 feet from me and started muttering something about me being a “whacked chracka” and being nuts.

No sooner than 5 minutes later, another scruffy guy came toward me looking to talk.  I gave him the same treatment and he quickly vectored away while telling me to chill out.

When the wife and son returned a couple minutes later, we left that sad excuse for a public recreation area and I did my after action analysis with my wife.  She agreed that there was absolutely no reason other than trouble for these guys to be approaching me; I’m that big huge, but at 200lbs with longish hair, goatee and stubble, I don’t look particularly cuddly to anyone but my family members.  She approved heartily of my use of simple, assertive, yet conceivably rude instructions to immediately dispatch with these trouble causers.

I recently came about a interesting thread (membership required) on a forum I visit a lot: DefensiveCarry.com.  If you opt not to get a membership on the side in order to read the thread, the synopsis is that a guy who claims to be just out meeting people and acting a bit odd, gets a little close to the original poster in his garage.  The poster indicates how his spidey senses are all on full, and when the unwelcome visitor reaches for something behind him, the poster postures for the gun he carries (he didn’t draw), and the visitor eventually beats tracks.  He never found out if the guy was up to no good or just odd.

What was very notable is the poster’s wife told him, “You scare yourself sometimes,” and “You’re not friendly.”

Leaving the issue of when and why to reach for a defensive weapon out of the picture, the main issue to focus on in retrospective analysis, is why so many folks, this poster’s wife included, are afraid of being rude to a complete stranger who is giving you unwanted attention.

I have to guess is that people are either in denial that something bad is present or they’re afraid of embarrassing themselves.  The poster’s wife certainly sounded like she was both in denial and embarrassed at her husband’s response.  I certainly feel his frustration at her naivety.

It’s really simple.  You’ve got a complete stranger who’s approached you.  You’ve ruled out that they don’t belong (e.g. they’re not a neighbor, a rep for someone you do business with, etc).   Unless they are clearly a sales person and you want what they’re offering, they have no value to you.  Tell them as much, clearly.

A good sales person should be able to understand that and realize their time is spent better elsewhere. Anyone else is simply unwanted and if they ignore your first request they’re dumb or up to no good.

If they’re dumb, you need to be more blunt with them; that’s the only way they’re going to get it.  If they’re up to no good, you need to be blunt with them.  Your resistance will demonstrate that you aren’t just going to roll over and readily be their victim.  Hopefully, they’ll be bright enough to realize you’re a bad mark and move on.  If not, well that’s another topic of discussion…

Regardless, a stranger is gone, and since they’re a stranger, does it really matter if they’re irritated with you for being rude?  I’d rather overreact and occasionally make a mistake that I can talk with others about afterwards than to fall victim to a criminal because I was too embarrassed to be assertive.

I’m disturbed over this approach to policing.

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

It’s not that I don’t think it could have a positive effect if applied very judiciously.  But will it be applied very judiciously?

More importantly, is this being done at the request of the community?  Or is it being imposed upon them as an alternative to other crime fighting measures?  If the former, I can stomach it.  But if the law abiding folks who live there don’t want the imposition on themselves and their visitors, then it’s really, really wrong.

The city attorney qualifies the scope of the program:

Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”

“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”

I really, really hope that this is a very short term dragnet and not a long term solution.  Better yet, maybe pressure from us will get them to reconsider.

Of course, one of the D.C councilman who’s turf is affected and sort of supports the effort has his own reservations about the implications:

The proposal has the provisional support of D.C. Councilman Harry “Tommy” Thomas, D-Ward 5, whose ward has become a war zone.

“They’re really going to crack down on what we believe to be a systemic problem with open-air drug markets,” Thomas told The Examiner.

Thomas said, though, that he worried about D.C. “moving towards a police state.”

He readily admits his concern about becoming a police state.

I’d like to think that there are better measures for combating crime waves in violent neighborhoods.  Please don’t even raise the, “well just legalize drugs and the problems all go away” route.

What about simply applying the law as it’s written as agressively as is possible to all the criminals causing the problems?  Lock up some of them and make it too inconvenient for the remainder to conduct their crimes in those neighborhoods.  A few might stop; a few will move on; things will get better.

What to do?

If you agree, please consider voicing your concern to someone whose opinion matters.  Call or write the following people with your concerns:

• D.C Ward 5 City Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.
• Office of the D.C. Attorney General
• D.C. Chief of Police, Cathy Lanier (or the department here)