Last week, I had the chance to talk to a women’s club about general safety and awareness. The talk went great and was well received. When I arrived, I asked how long they wanted me to talk. I have to ask this because I will talk for hours if someone doesn’t stop me. They president of the group said that a half hour would be good.
After a brief overview, I began talking about general safety tips and how to make safety a habit. As the talk went on, I’ll talk more about some of the great questions they asked in other posts, one of the ladies relayed the following story.
About 10 years ago, she lived in one of the sleepy beach communities, Indian Harbour Beach, in our county. One night she was sleeping around 1:00 am when her young daughter had opened the backdoor to let their dog out and must have forgotten to lock the door when the dog came in. Soon after, she was awoken by an unknown male crouching next to her, licking her shoulder. Thankfully she was able to talk the male in to leaving by telling him her boyfriend, who carried a gun, would be home soon. The male said he had been watching her for a while, and that he wanted her to like him. The male left without incident. She made a police report but no arrest was made.
There are a couple of points to consider in this story. First these types of incident can happen anywhere. The city where this happened appears to be like Mayberry. In reality, there is crime there just like everywhere else. It just doesn’t happen every day. Second, by staying calm, she was able to talk her way out of a very frightening situation. Lastly, telling him her boyfriend carried a gun probably convinced him to leave. Lastly, you never know who’s watching you. Apparently he was stalking her and following her, and she was unaware of his actions.
Hearing her story was great. I will definitely use it in all of my classes. As my talked ended, it lasted over an hour because the ladies were so engaged and asked a lot of questions; I talked about have a gun for home defense. I’ll write more about that later, but I told them that if they had a gun for home defense, it needed to be readily accessible. To this point, I told them that I have my gun next to me when I watch T.V. One of the ladies asked where I lived because it must be very dangerous to have a gun so readily accessible. I told her I lived in Cocoa, about 20 miles north of her. She replied “Well it’s not that dangerous here”. I explained to her that violent crime happens everywhere. In fact she lives about 5 miles from where the lady who shared her story lived.
I was amazed that she didn’t understand that by thinking that “it” couldn’t happen where she lived is what made her vulnerable to becoming a victim. As I explained that she needs to change her mindset, the rest of the ladies in attendance all started telling her that she could be attacked and that she need to be more aware. It felt very satisfying to hear all of the ladies reiterate what I had been saying. Hopefully, hearing her friends tell her why she should change her mindset will have the impact that I did not make.
Ladies, I had a great time, I hope to see you all again,
Stay Safe