Unpreparedness and Opportunity

05 Mar 08

When opportunity meets unpreparedness! From a friend in WA:

"A local resident was brutally beaten here Saturday afternoon. He owns a house that he uses as an office. It is in the high-rent district!

Saturday, he was working alone when a man knocked on his front door. The moment he opened the door, the man pushed his way in and immediately starting striking the resident in the head the beck with a metal tool, probably a hammer or wrench, all the time screaming, 'Where's the money!'

The resident, unarmed and untrained, put up no effective resistance and, as a direct result, suffered several severe cuts to his face and head and wellas broken facial bones. The suspect ultimately threw him out of the house and onto the front lawn, closed the door, and then ransacked the house, apparently looking for valuables.

When the suspect came back out, he took the resident's watch and wallet, and abruptly left. The resident had called the police via his cell phone, but they did not get there for over twenty minutes, and, even when first beat car arrived, he waited anther ten minuted for the second car to arrive, before either approached the bleeding resident, ultimately rendering aid and summoning an ambulance.

As of today, no arrests have been made. The resident did not know the suspect personally.

The resident sustained significant injury, but he is expected to recover, to the degree that he can.

Here is yet another example of a naive, clueless, unprepared VBC who could not bring himself to believe that anything like this could ever happen to him. He is lucky to have lived through it, but he is going to have to endure months of hospitalization and painful recovery and, in addition, is likelyto suffer permanent disfigurement/disablement."

Lesson: "Bad luck" is what happens when unpreparedness collides with opportunity!

Every police department in the nation puts out three patrol shifts every day (sometimes two). There are only so many police cars, and so many officers, available at any given moment, and we prioritize calls for police servicesas best we can. Even with the best-funded departments, the notion that a beat car will arrive at your doorstep within seconds, or even minutes, of being summoned, is largely delusional!

Bottom line: We'll get there as soon as we can, but our "response-time" is always largely outside of our control. In the interim, you had better have some personal capacity for dealing effectively with threatening circumstances, or, like the self-deceptive VBC in the foregoing, accept "victim-status," with all that implies!

/John