home safety

I ran into a friend today at church. He related about an incident earlier this week that is rather concerning to me and most likely to many people once you hear the story. V is a good kid. He is kind caring and tries to see the best in people. He is a Lt in the US army and has 3 tours to the sand box.

Early one evening while he was bathing on of the kids there was a knock at the front door. He went to answer the door. Looking out the window, seeing a mid teenager he opened the door. The teen appeared alone and looked nervous. The teen’s next move startled V [and me too when he told me about it]. The teen shot him square in the face, blinding him, with a squirt gun filled with alcohol and peppers. The teen then ran off. V could only see a blur of the teen but did make note of direction of flight and other details which he promptly called into the police. The police did respond rather rapidly and during the interview commented that it appeared to be a ‘gang’ initiation stunt and that at least one other person had been attacked in a similar manner that same night.

Some of the things that come to mind is that this easily could have been the start of a home invasion. Some people that I know would have been tempted to shoot the kid – COM [crazy old man] or Raven both are older and disabled & are in no condition to take a butt kicking and so would have defended themselves – rightly so. V may have been tempted, however he keeps a cool head and said that he could not see good enough to be sure where a bullet would end up and so ruled that out…. On the other hand if he could have gotten to a baseball bat he may have used it.

V was lucky in that it was only peppers and alcohol instead of oven cleaner ect. His eyes are still bothering him but the eye doctor says that will clear up with time.

Things are not getting better with the economy and society in general. I would expect that things will continue to go down hill at least for a while yet.

Some of the ideas to deal with this sort of thing that have been discussed today were to beef up the neighborhood watch programs. Setting up gated communities also comes to mind. What are your thoughts on this?

The bottom line is that we have to Prepare to Survive and Thrive.