After a nice evening and a nice walk home from having dinner at a local restaurant the young married couple entered the front door to their home. As they closed the door behind them they were met by a masked man holding a gun who immediately said, “Don’t move or even say a word or I’ll kill both of you.”
The couple were shocked to the core and the wife thought that her heart would pound right out of her chest. The masked man waved the gun at them as he told them to walk deeper into the house. When they got to the lower level living room, he turned and told the wife, “Take these and tie your husband’s hands behind his back. I won’t hurt you. I just want your money and valuables. If you don’t do it, I’ll kill you both.” The trembling young woman started binding her husband’s hands with plastic twisty ties that the man had shoved into her hands when he suddenly pushed her away and he tightened the ties himself. The husband cried out in pain as he pulled them tight. This is when it got ugly.
The masked man shoved the husband down onto the ground as he told the wife to take her clothes off. He said, “I’m going to have sex with you. If either of you scream or if you don’t listen to everything I say, I’ll kill you both. Your husband first.” The room became dead silent. Then he raped her. The rape lasted only a few minutes and when done, the masked man bolted out of the house. The wife was physically and emotionally raped. The husband too, was emotionally raped. That couple will never be the same.
This sort of criminal devastation happens every day in America. Some cases not as bad and some cases worse. Perhaps you don’t hear about the ugly in America or the ugly near you, but it happens, probably more than you know.
You and your family deserve to be safe. But how?
How do we keep safe from the kind of crazy that happened to this couple or other acts of off the charts outrageous crime? Keeping safe and the techniques used to protect ourselves pretty much stay the same year in and year out. You know—be aware, and lock your doors and the like. Well, in 2018, those two cornerstones are just as important for safety as ever and I want to quickly touch on them before I explain something new on the horizon.
Locking Doors
I’ve written extensively about locking doors in our homes for safety. I’ve talked about cases where crimes would not have happened if homeowner’s doors would have been locked. I know personally, where bad-guys went door to door to check whether doors were unlocked. If so, they’d do their dirty little criminal acts, if locked, they’d go to the next one until they found an open one. Locked ones, they left alone.
Layers
You see, security is all about layers. A locked door is a layer of security. It takes more time to get in, might be noisier, too. Bad guys don’t want to swim upstream when their doing their deeds. They want easy and a locked door is a layer in their way. So, lock your doors during the daytime as well as nighttime. We live in a mobile society and a terrible neighborhood can literally, be 20 minutes away from the best neighborhood in town.
When you go to a Home Depot, or a Loews, why do you think doors all come with locks or holes for locks? Yup, to lock doors! Here’s where I’ll offend some people. If you continue to keep your home doors unlocked, you’re a dumbo! Do me a favor, do your loved ones a favor, and lock up.
Awareness
Knowing what’s going on around us is always a great tool against crime. If we see suspicious people hanging out or watching us as an example, we can act appropriately. This is a no brainer. The problem with awareness though, is that life gets in the way. The kids are on our minds, or our jobs are in our thoughts, money or marital problems, etc. take a big chunk out of our mindsets and we don’t look closely enough when we get out of our cars or while walking into our homes. But the bottom line is that we must have, at minimum, a moderate level of awareness to protect ourselves and perhaps more importantly, our kids and other loved ones. Know what’s going on around you!
2018, what’s new?
It’s not exactly about something new in 2018, but more so, something new to many people. It’s actually been around for a few years. They’re systems that offer world class level security which now, are affordable to so many more people.
A Different Alarm System
Alarm systems are a good layer of home security. They offer security conscious women and men a couple of good things. First, they’re a deterrent. Remember that bad-guys don’t want a hassle, and an alarm system is at minimum, a hassle. At maximum benefit, they notify you that someone’s trying to break into your home which allows you to prepare for it. And, if you chose to have your alarm system monitored, that is to say, to have the police called when someone triggers the alarm, you now know the cops are in route, which is fantastic to know that help is on the way.
So why doesn’t everyone who has a security mindset have an alarm system? One big reason is cost. As an example, to have alarms monitored used to cost around 30 to 35-dollars and in fact, one of the biggest alarm companies, ADT, still charges about 35-dollars a month. Is 35-dollars too much to spend for our safety, our lives? Of course not, but the fact is that many of us get nickel and dimed to death by monthly charges. Ten bucks here, 25 here, 400 for a car, 200 for electricity, etc. It adds up and an alarm system, where you’re paying top dollar, like in the past, for the system itself (motion detectors, window sensors, etc.) then 30 or 35-dollars for monitoring, is too much for many people.
What’s new in the safety world has actually been around for a decade or so and it’s hurting the established big boy alarm companies. They’re companies like ‘SimpliSafe’ and a few more on the market that are similar to it. These are do it your self-installation companies that offer world-class equipment (very inexpensively) that even the most unhandy man or woman can easily, yes, easily install and have monitored for less than half the cost of the traditional companies. You can get a complete home system (the equipment), for around 200-dollars. And you do not HAVE to get it monitored, vying perhaps instead to have any triggered alarms notify only you when they go off. This would give you time to prepare for someone who might still chose to enter while the alarm is blaring. If you want monitoring, it’s less than 15-dollars.
If you work towards being aware, lock your doors regularly, and have a great alarm system you’re layering yourself very well security wise. You owe it to yourself, your kids and loved ones. No one has the right to harm you or yours. Make it your business to not let it happen. Stay safe.
Steve's a three-time survivor of violence in his youth, a former police supervisor and a graduate of The Police Executive Leadership College (PELC) and was also an award winning part-time college Criminal Justice instructor.
For several years, Steve did written and radio political and current event commentary and was the former host of the long running 'The Kovacs Perspective' Internet radio and TV talk show.
Steve presently owns a small businesses in Ohio--The Mayfield Academy of Self-Defense.
- The Teacher from the Past—A True Story - March 11, 2024
- How To Survive and Safely Enjoy Hiking in the Woods - September 1, 2023
- Winter in America—Thin Blue Line and Do Something - February 6, 2023
