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AussiePam
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Post by AussiePam »

Thanks Clancy. You're awesome. You too, Snoozie.
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Post by koan »

I disagree. As a victim of such crimes myself I made a point, when I was about 20, of going for a walk in Toronto by myself as a woman between the hours of 1 and 2 am every night. I did this for a month. The reason was that I refused to live in fear. It occurred to me one night that I was expected to take extra precautions and accept that I was a walking target. The idea so upset me that I created this exercise so I'd prove to myself that it wasn't true.

I've only ever been raped or otherwise attacked by people I know. Not once was assaulted during my "midnight walks". I only stopped because I realised I was better off going to bed earlier and waking up at a more reasonable time.

I've just now returned from a walk that began at 2:14 am. I met 11 people. 10 of them were men. One of them wished me a good evening. Wasn't that nice of him? I was out for about 40 minutes and made a point of walking slouched over with my head bent. I looked around often as if I was scared and took an empty handbag which I carried casually, actually swinging it low to the ground about every 10 minutes.

There is no cause to live in fear. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
lady cop
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Post by lady cop »

good lord! I CONFESS!!! i only posted the thread to scare the snot out of people!!! :wah:
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Post by koan »

Pinky;468354 wrote:

My wafflings just go to back up what LC is saying in the OP...confidence works.


But it doesn't. A person does not control whether they are attacked or not. The only thing you control is whether or not you live your life in fear. By all means! Be confident! But not because you think it will bring control. Just because it means you are confident.
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Post by koan »

a thread by DG inspired this....i would like to talk about womens' safety. from rapists, from muggers, from carjackers. first thing....walk TALL and confidently! don't look like victim material. look people in the eye. don't carry any weapon that can be taken from you and used against you. don't buy that crap walmart pepper-spray. it's totally ineffectual. keep the car doors locked when you are driving. do NOT pick up even the most innocuous looking hitch -hiker! hold your purse close inside your body.( i won't even carry one.) don't leave it in shopping carts.
here's what we are talking about. Let me first say, Pinky, that I agree with the idea that something that helps make women feel safe is a good thing. That is the best idea I've seen given in defense of the OP yet.

In the actual OP we see women being warned that certain peppersprays aren't good enough. This already defeats your proposal as the intent of the thread. The suggestion that a purse has to be carried in a certain way is borderline. The addition that she doesn't even carry one herself pushes it over the edge. I do agree with you, Pinky, that if women feel safer taking certain actions that it can be a positive thing. I can not, however, find the OP innocuous.

Specifically against the concept of making one feel safer. I was told once that carrying my keys between my fingers gave me a quick weapon if attacked. I thought it a simple addition to my routine. I recently stopped doing this because I became aware that by carrying my keys in such a way I was constantly reminded of the reason why and it made me feel less secure. I did not carry my keys between my fingers tonight when I went for my 2am walk. I'm quite content with the decision.
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Post by lady cop »

Clancy;468369 wrote: I agree. Confidence does work. I know.....I 've had to dig so far down for it in certain situations .....









.i lifted one sentence from your post Clancy...i have had to dig for it too, many times. i've had men challenge me to physical fights, a gun pointed at me, many other similar situations....i had to bluff through my fear more than once.
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Post by koan »

SnoozeControl;468378 wrote: Do you have any idea how completely pretentious you sound by giving your "approval"? I know I certainly don't need a pat on the head that you think my post meets what you think is appropriate.

Really, what do you think you're accomplishing here?


I pay a compliment to Pinky and you say I'm pretentious. Buh bye.
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Post by lady cop »

more treacherous advice from the OP.... ineffectual pepper spray that gives a FALSE sense of security, when used on an assailant, will just make the assailant angrier and more likely to harm a victim.
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Post by koan »

Clancy;468381 wrote: I don't. Did I ever give the impression that I do? or what I wrote in my post?.

As far as where I live, Glasgow has seen a big reduction in crimes to person(s).....or maybe it's because I hear of less incidents.....?

Anyway, it's mostly down to heavy, CCTV surviellence on our streets



.


This thread targets women, Clancy. But I'm glad you agree.
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Post by koan »

lady cop;468384 wrote: more treacherous advice from the OP.... ineffectual pepper spray that gives a FALSE sense of security, when used on an assailant, will just make the assailant angrier and more likely to harm a victim.


Thank you for proving my point. :rolleyes:
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Post by koan »

SnoozeControl;468387 wrote: Your "compliment" shows what utter disdain you have for every other member that's posted in this thread.

Should Pinky be flattered that you agree with her? No, I don't think so.


That's really up to Pinky to decide. I've been criticized for never saying other members are right then when I do it I'm being pretentious. Snooze. Why do you insist on making your case worse every time you post?
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Post by lady cop »

koan;468390 wrote: Thank you for proving my point. :rolleyes:Koan:"

In the actual OP we see women being warned that certain peppersprays aren't good enough. This already defeats your proposal as the intent of the thread." no, i maintain my initial comment as to the lack of efficacy of commercially sold pepper sprays.
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Post by CARLA »

Well I guess you were lucky tonight Koan. Foolish on your part in my opinion, but then again I have a bit more common sense than you. No one is living in fear period what we are doing is using our heads and being cautious if we feel it necessary nothing more.

I must remind you Toronto and the Streets of England can't compare to downtown LA, or Chicago, or New York. I suggest you try it in Central Park about 2am, or LA at midnight. My guess is you will be scared to death in 5 minutes maybe less. Quit being so naive your asking to get hurt not a smart thing to do. :thinking:

[QUOTE]I disagree. As a victim of such crimes myself I made a point, when I was about 20, of going for a walk in Toronto by myself as a woman between the hours of 1 and 2 am every night. I did this for a month. The reason was that I refused to live in fear. It occurred to me one night that I was expected to take extra precautions and accept that I was a walking target. The idea so upset me that I created this exercise so I'd prove to myself that it wasn't true.

I've only ever been raped or otherwise attacked by people I know. Not once was assaulted during my "midnight walks". I only stopped because I realised I was better off going to bed earlier and waking up at a more reasonable time.

I've just now returned from a walk that began at 2:14 am. I met 11 people. 10 of them were men. One of them wished me a good evening. Wasn't that nice of him? I was out for about 40 minutes and made a point of walking slouched over with my head bent. I looked around often as if I was scared and took an empty handbag which I carried casually, actually swinging it low to the ground about every 10 minutes.

There is no cause to live in fear. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.[/QUOTE]
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Post by lady cop »

Clancy, your posts have been the fair breeze of reason. :-4 ..as for other police here, diuretic, mustang and karaze papa...(whom i just asked to please come back!)
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Post by CARLA »

Agreed LC your advice is always good and given with the upmost respect to the posters here at FG, Thank You. ;)

[QUOTE]thanks for your advice LC, I know I appreciate it.[/QUOTE]
ALOHA!!

MOTTO TO LIVE BY:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming.

WOO HOO!!, what a ride!!!"

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Post by Sheryl »

My grandmother used to say there are folks out there who would argue with a fence post, if it could argue back. After reading this thread, I now understand what she meant.

LC the advice you offered was very good and I'll remember it. It didn't cause me to suddenly quiver in fear at the thought of going outside. And honestly I'm absolutely stumped at how a person can say that your OP encourages paranoia. :rolleyes:
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Post by spot »

lady cop;468401 wrote: i maintain my initial comment as to the lack of efficacy of commercially sold pepper sprays.I'm sure you're right that police sprays carry more clout. Perhaps police tasers can have a longer-lasting effect than those sold to the public too. I can see very few reasons why members of the public should feel the need to carry either.

The Washington Post produced a couple more details about Kathryn Johnston's mistaken shooting of what turned out to be narcotics agents who broke down her door. They had a "no-knock" search warrant for her home. These are defined (as best I can tell) as "warrants authorizing officers to enter certain premises to execute a warrant without first knocking or otherwise announcing their presence where circumstances (such as a known risk of serious harm to the officers or the likelihood that evidence of crime will be destroyed) justify such an entry" (Memorandum Opinion, For The Chief Counsel, Drug Enforcement Administration, http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/noknock.htm ).

To bring the reported background up to date in this thread (which is, you'll remember, about women living in fear and what they can do to best protect themseves), I add this abstract:The FBI will lead the investigation of the shooting, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said Monday. Seven narcotics investigators and a police sergeant have been placed on paid leave until the inquiry is complete. A family spokesman, the Rev. Markel Hutchins, said an informant's statements to reporters that police told him to lie gave Johnston's family hope that the truth about the shooting will come out. A man who said he was the informant whose tip led to the warrant said in an interview aired Monday on WAGA-TV that he had never purchased drugs at Johnston's home. The man, whose identity was concealed, also said that police had asked him to lie about providing the information. Pennington said the informant is in protective custody and would be a key part of the investigation.

After the shooting, officers said they found marijuana inside Johnston's home, but the chief said it was not a large amount.

Johnston was described by neighbors and relatives as living in fear; there were burglar bars on the windows of her one-story brick home and she rarely let anyone inside.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00822.html

The OP, early in the thread, advised people that criminals might impersonate police officers and that disobedience to their instructions, when they are undercover and out of uniform, is not only sensible but would be understood by a legitimate officer: "if an unmarked police car tries to stop you, signal that you see them, and drive to a populated area, if it's a real cop they will understand!".

This thread is about safety for women. The continuous precautions recommended by the OP, which I regard as building up womens' fear of their surroundings and which advise proactive lifelong precautions, are those mistakenly adopted by Kathryn Johnston. The unfortunate consequences to undercover police officers who did "everything by the book" are evident. Kathryn Johnston's perception of the extent of her danger was mistaken. Had she been reliably advised by the media of the statistical likelihood of murder, or of rape, or of serious injury, instead of the pervasive crime stories which the media seek out and thrive on, the picture in Atlanta might be far different.
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Post by spot »

SnoozeControl;471880 wrote: Alright Spot, since you love researching topics so much... can you find some sort of study with percentages graphed and charted, to show how insidious this sort of thing is? I'd be interested in knowing how prevalent this kind of incident is since I believe it's the exception, not the norm."This sort of incident"? I already came up with those figures earlier in the thread, though there seems to be a groundswell of opinion in certain quarters (mistaken, I think) that producing relevant and focused statistics is bad form when trying to make a valid point in a discussion on ForumGarden. "The chance for each woman in the USA each year of being forcibly raped by a stranger as about 1 in 7000" and "There were 800 women murdered by strangers in the USA in 2005". As a fear-basis for deciding to regulate one's day to day existence it seems far less effective than (as I gave as an example) reducing the risk of death or injury in a traffic accident.

Both murder, and forcible rape, by strangers are as you so rightly point out "the exception, not the norm". That fact underlies my approach to this thread. The last thing I'm doing is "fearmongering", as you put it.
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Post by spot »

SnoozeControl;471916 wrote: Not those statistics Spot, I'm talking about the numbers for 'accidents' that happen due to this paranoia you keep on about. Let's see the statistics for those.You mean the proportion of third parties hurt as a consequence of women reacting to situations by reason of their fear? I have no idea how anyone would start to measure that. I imagine, if you'd like me to guess, that it's miniscule. I'm concerned with the quality of life of the women who live in fear as a result of the pervasive misplaced media hype over crime, the labelling of districts as "high crime" as though that prevents people from living in them without personal harm. Shooting anyone who breaks into one's home is a different issue, of course - it's become an archetypal act of heroism in the USA - but I don't think that applied in the fear-induced case under discussion.
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Post by lady cop »

women! be afraid! very afraid! and the next time you shoot real bullets at police officers expect to get your arse shot. a no-brainer, that. sorry if you're mentally ill....a bullet is a bullet. God i love obsession! :rolleyes:
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Post by spot »

ArnoldLayne;471947 wrote: I'm more concerned about the quality of life of women in general and the well being they would feel, armed with, say, pepper spray.We're entirely in agreement on that. I could have written it too, though possibly with less elegance.

I'll propose a truism. The attacker always has the element of surprise. The extent to which anyone can arm themselves is the extent beyond which the attacker will in turn be armed. You'll recall David Sterling's demonstration of the idea.

The need is for effective detection and successful prosecution of violent criminals. That reduces the level of violent crime. The level of violent crime should be as low as society can get it. Fearing crime and changing the way one lives isn't going to affect who gets attacked or whether one can successfully defend oneself in such circumstances.
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Post by spot »

lady cop;471950 wrote: women! be afraid! very afraid! and the next time you shoot real bullets at police officers expect to get your arse shot. a no-brainer, that. sorry if you're mentally ill....a bullet is a bullet. God i love obsession! :rolleyes:Ah. Portia finally speaks. Saruman emerges from the Tower and Grima can stand down for the moment.

At a technical level, how does one distinguish three undercover cops from criminals if they break the door down armed with a no-knock warrant "without first knocking or otherwise announcing their presence"? Is a citizen entitled to defend her property against unknown assailants, to the extent of wounding the attackers if nothing less would fend them off?

Would a 92-year-old, reasonably described by those who knew her as living in a state of fear, be more likely to react that way than if she were better informed about the danger such a reaction posed to her immediate health? You're the Garden's self-acknowledged expert on these matters, I'd hoped you'd have addressed these questions in person earlier but better late than never.
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Post by lady cop »

actually i do feel sorry about the poor old dear. i DO have a heart. but if someome shoots me, i am going to shoot back. i don't know why they had a no-knock warrant, but some judge evidently felt it warranted via an affidavit. i suspect at some point someone tried to deal with the instant problem and she ignored it. ergo---no-knock.
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Post by spot »

ArnoldLayne;471981 wrote: Sex offenders of all descriptions are let loose to offend again, hence women will never feel safe.

I have a feeling, and it is only my opinion, that sex offenders are probably the most likely of all criminals/offenders, to do it again when given the opportunity, ie released back into the community. I think it has been shown, for example that paedophiles are beyond rehabilitationI'd refer you to http://www.helping-people.info/articles/grubin_96.htm and, without quoting at length, take "These findings would appear to support West's (1987) claim that the typical sex offender appears in court once and then never again, at least for further sex crime" into the thread. I'd rather not divert the thread into paedophile-bashing, given the title and the intent of the OP.
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Post by spot »

lady cop;471993 wrote: actually i do feel sorry about the poor old dear. i DO have a heart. but if someome shoots me, i am going to shoot back. i don't know why they had a no-knock warrant, but some judge evidently felt it warranted via an affidavit. i suspect at some point someone tried to deal with the instant problem and she ignored it. ergo---no-knock.There's not a word of response there to my questions, you know. I really would like the self-acknowledged expert to address them. The questions are indicated by question marks.

At a technical level, how does one distinguish three undercover cops from criminals if they break the door down armed with a no-knock warrant "without first knocking or otherwise announcing their presence"? Is a citizen entitled to defend her property against unknown assailants, to the extent of wounding the attackers if nothing less would fend them off?

Would a 92-year-old, reasonably described by those who knew her as living in a state of fear, be more likely to react that way than if she were better informed about the danger such a reaction posed to her immediate health?
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
When flower power came along I stood for Human Rights, marched around for peace and freedom, had some nooky every night - we took it serious.
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Post by lady cop »

this is getting old. i don't even know why i reply to your grilling...i am not responsible for what happened there. and there is an investigation in progress.
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Post by spot »

lady cop;471998 wrote: this is getting old. i don't even know why i reply to your grilling...i am not responsible for what happened there. and there is an investigation in progress. The questions relate directly to your own OP. Threads don't get old, we're refining the original suggestions. Your entire position of fearful behaviour improving the lives of women is wrong.
Nullius in verba ... ☎||||||||||| ... To Fate I sue, of other means bereft, the only refuge for the wretched left.
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