Nine Tips – Written by a Cop

Claim: A list of safety tips offers effective counters to being victimized in random violent crimes.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

WRITTEN BY A COP: Everyone should take five minutes to read this. It may save

your life or a loved one’s life. In daylight hours, refresh yourself of

these things to do in an emergency situation… This is for you, and for

you to share with your wifey, your children, & everyone you know. After

reading these nine crucial tips, forward them to someone you care about. It

never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Peak from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your figure. If you are close enough to use it, do!

Two. Learned this from a tourist guide in Fresh Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT Forearm IT TO HIM. Throw it away from you….chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

Trio. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the fuckhole and embark flapping like crazy. The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

Four. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON’T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the ideal chance for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.

a. If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your assets in a remote location.

Five. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:

A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.

B.) If you are parked next to a big van, inject your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.

C.) Look at the car parked on the driver’s side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a masculine is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out.

IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the flawless crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) four in one hundred times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably in a zig-zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always attempting to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well-educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspicious women. He walked with a cane, or a will-less, and often asked “for help” into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a weeping baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her

“Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.”

The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, “We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.” He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby’s sob recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women telling that they hear baby’s sobs outside their doors when they’re home alone at night.

Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a weeping baby – This e-mail should most likely be taken earnestly because the Sobbing Baby theory was mentioned on America’s Most Wished this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana. I’d like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well.

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Origins: We very first encountered versions of this list of crime safety tips in 2001, and it has since been widely circulated under titles such as “Safety Tips for Women” (albeit its advice is intended for members of both genders) and “Written by a Cop.”

This item actually began as a summary of the teachings of Pat Malone, a private safety experienced and former bodyguard who instructs on defensive and survival tactics, and the much-longer original (which is

displayed on a number of web sites) emerges to have been penned by someone who attended one of Mr. Malone’s seminars and so might not accurately reflect what had been introduced in that class. The advice provided should therefore not be viewed as “the teachings of a self-defense accomplished” or something “written by a cop” but as “the teachings of a self-defense experienced, as remembered by someone else.”

Pat Malone’s seminars are described as “self-protection from predators, without self-defense or weapons”

and “not self-defense classes.” On his web site, he offers for sale a movie entitled “Taking Control,” which he represents as “A self-protection training program using common sense as a weapon.”

Over the intervening years, the e-mailed list of crime avoidance tips has been edited by various anonymous folks whose cyber arms it has passed through, being severely pared down from its original form and then padded with extraneous material in a number of places. It has thus become even less reliable in terms of the quality of advice being suggested than it was in 2001, and even then it would have had to have been regarded as suspect.

The tips the e-mailed list has presently devolved to include some information that might be useful in a general sense. But much of the information introduced is not very useful because it is wrong, pertains to situations that are enormously unlikely to arise, or unsafely

applies absolutes to screenplays that are very situational.

1. Peak from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your figure. If you are close enough to use it, do!

Right off the bat we have an example of unsafely attempting to apply an absolute to a very situational script, a course which may be far more likely to increase (rather than lessen) a victim’s chances of being physically harmed.

Yes, if you’re confronted by a menacing presence, you might be able to get in a good deep-throat by using your elbow, but then what? Are you going to be able incapacitate him with that single gargle? If not, what are you going to do next? Will you be able to escape to safety or summon help before he recovers and reacts? Are you going to be able to overpower him in a physical confrontation? If he has a weapon, will he still be able to wield it? Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a threat should most likely be an option of last resort unless you are very well trained in self-defense.

And for accuracy’s sake, we note that while the elbow is one of your bod parts that can be used effectively in a fight, it is not the strongest: that honor goes to the modest knee.

Two. Learned this from a tourist guide in Fresh Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT Mitt IT TO HIM. Throw it away from you … chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

This is another situational script. Yes, if you throw your purse or wallet some distance away rather than handing it to a mugger, that might give you time to commence running while he retrieves it … but is that always a good idea? If a robber is “truly more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you,” isn’t it more likely that he’s going to simply grab your valuables and skedaddle anyway rather than stick around to inflict physical harm that won’t garner him any further monetary build up? Is it possible that your deliberately throwing away your wallet rather than handing it over could be perceived by your assailant as a form of non-cooperation or disrespect that might provoke him into attacking you when he otherwise would have let you go unharmed? And if your assailant’s objective included something other than a mugging (e.g., kidnapping, rape, murder), throwing your handbag away might do nothing other than rid you of an item you could have used as a defensive weapon.

Three. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the crevice and commence swinging like crazy. The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

The chances that the average person is ever going to find himself locked in the trunk of a car by an abductor are slender to begin with, much less so when one includes the presumption that the victim would be placed there with mitts and feet unbound (or somehow manage to free himself from such bonds). In any case, the tail lights of most modern vehicles are not accessible from the trunk, so even if one’s arms and gams were free there would be nothing to kick out to create an opening for flapping at others.

A better plan might be to look for the glow-in-the-dark trunk release tabs incorporated into many newer vehicles. Also, the back seats of many latest models fold down to accommodate the transport of larger items, so going deep into the trunk and pushing on the rear of the back seats (feeling about for knobs or levers to unlatch folding seats if necessary) might create an opening large enough for egress from a trunk.

This list’s assessment of the behavior of women who have just entered their cars is unluckily accurate: most women we’ve observed do indeed lodge their purses on the passenger seats, sling briefcases, jackets, and packages into the back seat area, get out their car keys, rummage about in their handbags for various items (e.g., lipstick, cell phone, address book) which they might or might not use right then, put their keys in the ignition, fasten their seat belts, and only then get around to locking their doors. During that interval they are indeed vulnerable to someone’s getting into the car with them or pulling open the driver’s side door. A good habit to get into is instantly locking your car’s doors as soon as you are in your vehicle. Train yourself so that it becomes one slick motility that you don’t even have to think about – your rump’s landing on the seat should trigger your arm to reach out and hit the lock button.

Driving away instantaneously rather than taking a moment to make out this year’s Christmas card list is also advice worthy of following, especially in locations such as parking garages (because the structure prevents others not in your instantaneous area from eyeing what might be happening at your car) and open air parking lots that are somewhat deserted rather than teeming with other folks coming and going.

If the assailant has gotten into the passenger seat, the passenger’s side air bag (a standard feature in most newer model cars) will also protect him from the crash, so banking on his getting the worst of a car crash might not be a good idea. It’s still possible, if not necessarily likely, that the element of surprise (you’ll know the collision is coming long before he does) might enable you to bail out of the car before your assailant can react, but disentangling yourself from a deployed air bag isn’t necessarily quick or effortless (and very few people have a chance to practice such a maneuver).

Five. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:

A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.

This list is correct in suggesting that taking a moment before going to your car to look about and see who else is around is a good habit to adopt. Pause for a few seconds to judge your surroundings rather than unthinkingly heading for your vehicle with your eyes down and your mind occupied with other matters. Once you arrive at your vehicle, but before coming in it, give its back seat a quick glance to ensure no one is hiding there.

This claim is wrong. Most serial killers do not grab women from parking lots and thrust them into vans; they hunt for potential victims according to their private killing rituals, with each murderer following his own private script. Some drive about looking for lone hitchhikers. Others seek out solitary travelers who have paused in their journeys to use the facilities at rest stops along the interstate highways. Others go after late night gas station and convenience store clerks who are working alone and unprotected. Yet others troll areas known to be frequented by streetwalkers, presenting themselves as customers interested in buying the hookers’ services. Others break into houses they have minutes or hours earlier seen their desired victims inject. Some place ads in newspapers, luring their victims to them with promises of fine bargains on desired items or offers of employment. Yet others frequent lonely catches sight of that have private meaning to them, preying upon whoever attempts to traverse these areas. Each serial killer has his own method of acquiring victims, and it is unique unto him.

The proffered advice makes the assumption that every man sitting in a car parked next to yours is a would-be attacker, but someone trolling for a victim at a mall is rather unlikely to be doing so by waiting patiently within his own vehicle for whoever is parked beside him to comeback. He could be left twiddling his thumbs for hours only to detect his intended target comes back accompanied by three friends she met up with inwards or comebacks at a moment when the lot is awash with other people getting in and out of their cars.

Moreover, this item contradicts the advice which instantly precedes it: if you need to be wary of cars parked on either side of your vehicle, then injecting your car through the passenger-side door is no guarantor of safety.

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the ideal crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

Stairwells are typically far less trafficked than other public areas of buildings and suggest areas where would-be attackers can hide out of look, which does make them more risky places to traverse. When taking the stairs alone, stay alert to the presence of others rather than permitting yourself to become lost in your thoughts and losing concentrate on your surroundings. When at all uncertain about the behavior of someone else in the stairwell, exit onto the nearest floor. Never use a stairwell unaccompanied where the doors lock behind you, thereby preventing you from exiting anywhere other than the ground-floor egress.

Elevators also pose risk, but since they are better trafficked and more public, the possibility of being harmed while using one is much diminished. Still, unlike a stairway, an elevator does not permit for escape: once those doors close, you’re trapped inwards with whoever else might be in the car until those doors open again. Therefore, don’t get onto an elevator car unaccompanied if you are at all uncertain of the car’s current occupants or someone else who is also waiting to inject – if something strikes you as not fairly right, wait for the next car.

We don’t know the origin of the claim that someone shooting at you “will only hit you four in one hundred times” , but we’re very skeptical of the notion that a gun-wielding bad fellow in relatively close proximity to a human target hits what he’s aiming at only once out of twenty five times (even if the target is a moving one). And just because the shooter may not hit a “vital organ” doesn’t mean the victim is going to get away – a gunshot to just about any assets part will usually inflict enough ache or physical harm to hamper the escape of someone fleeing on foot.

8. As women, we are always attempting to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unaware women. He walked with a cane, or a gutless, and often asked “for help” into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

While Ted Bundy did trick some of his victims into going with him by appearing injured and in need of assistance (e.g., putting his arm in a sling and attempting to raise a canoe onto the roof of his car), he picked up other victims while they were hitchhiking, and he also attacked victims in their homes while they were sleeping – there was no “ALWAYS” to his methodology. Bundy is regarded by those who explore criminals as a very unusual serial killer because he was intelligent, charming, had well-honed people abilities, and varied his mode of securing victims. It is therefore a mistake to assess the threat posed by those who murder random victims for the thrill of it by using Ted Bundy as a yardstick.

However, it is not a mistake to keep in mind people aren’t always what they show up to be, and that someone who looks disabled or encumbered might well be entirely able-bodied. Stay alert when you are around strangers and permit for the possibility of being the target of deception rather than let yourself be lulled into a false sense of security by the other party’s apparent limitations.

A more lengthy debunking of the “weeping baby” lure can be found in our article on that topic, but in a nutshell it’s a hoax: no serial killer used that ruse, and the story about helpful policemen who instructed the woman who heard such sobs to stay inwards and not open her door is fiction. The “audio gauze of a baby’s sobs used by a murderer to draw women from their homes” fabrication was born of the anxiety surrounding the hunt for the Baton Rouge serial killer in 2002. That case was profiled on America’s Most Wished in September two thousand two and again in January 2003, but neither airing made any mention of the purported “blubbering baby” theory.

Ten. Water scam! If you wake up in the middle of the night to hear all your

taps outside running or what you think is a burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO

INVESTIGATE! These people turn on all your outside taps total blast so that

you will go out to investigate and then attack.

This item was a later addition to the original list of nine tips, and it’s not particularly helpful. Of all the ways home intruders might build up entry to a house, turning on the outside taps in the middle of the night to lure someone outside is fairly a uncommon treatment, and the homeowner who disregards the sound of a running tap or burst pipe in the night is most likely going to awaken to a flooded yard or house. If some circumstance (whatever it might be) prompts the need for you to examine something outside your home when it’s too dark to securely check the surrounding area, call the local non-emergency police number and report a suspicious noise, then wait until a patrol car arrives to go outside and make your investigation.

While we’ve hopefully assisted readers in making sense of which of these tips contain good advice that should be followed and which should be regarded as codswallop, the overall tenor of its recommendations is for the reader to make like Wonder Woman or Captain America when confronted by someone intent upon doing him or her harm. As stated earlier, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an attacker should be an option of last resort unless you are very well trained in self-defense.

A far better counter is to avoid becoming the victim of random violent crime in the very first place, which the following tips will help with:

Avoid potentially dangerous places. The more isolated and devoid of other people a location is, the more potentially dangerous it is. Hence, stairwells are generally more perilous than elevators, underground parking garages more risky a proposition than open air parking lots. As a rule of thumb, anywhere other people aren’t is a good place for you not to be either.

One mistake folks do make time and again is letting their sense of familiarity with a place lull them into a presumption of security. However you may know the parking lot at the local grocery store like the back of your palm and have never experienced any problems there, you should still regard it as a potentially dangerous location if your plan is to park there at midnight on a Sunday while you reprogram the buttons on your car’s radio. A location that can be flawlessly innocuous during the day when there are all sorts of other people around is not necessarily just as safe in the dead of night when the place is empty.

Stay aware of your surroundings. Get into the habit of noticing not only the details of your physical surroundings (such as where exits are located) but who else is there with you. Maintain concentrate on the here and now instead of letting it drift to where and what you will be doing ten minutes from now. If attempting to do two things at once, strive to stay alert to what is going on around you. Rather than wander towards your car with your head down while you’re yakking on your cell phone, take a break from the conversation to look about. The same goes for getting into an elevator: look at the other people in the car before getting in yourself.

Also, as stated in “Assaulted Tale” (our debunking of a widely-circulated list about what rapists supposedly look for), not only is it significant to see trouble coming before it gets to you and avoid it, but maintaining an alert stance can help discourage a would-be attacker. Those looking to prey upon others – whether their aim is robbery, rape, or mayhem – generally choose as victims those who show up preoccupied or tentative in preference to those who exude a sense of purpose. Or, as I was told long ago, “Always look like you know exactly where you’re going and budge like you’re expected to be there at exactly a certain time.” Mooning about aimlessly can make you a statistic.

Do not get into vehicles with strangers or permit them into yours. A murderer is not going to treatment you by telling, “Hi, I’m interested in killing you; please get into my car.” Rather, it’s going to be, “Please, miss; can you help me? My little boy has been in an accident and I have to get to the hospital but I can’t find the place. No, don’t give me directions because I’ll just get turned around; come with me, and I’ll pay for a cab to get you back here afterwards.” Or, “I’m the fresh minister in town. My car broke down a few miles back, so I walked here to call the tow truck. Can you give me a lift back to my car? My wifey is there, and I don’t like leaving her out there all alone for any longer than I have to, her being pregnant and all.”

Also, be wary of helping strangers when you are unaccompanied. Don’t help them geyser packages into vans or trot over to them like a good little Chick Scout when summoned to give directions by someone you don’t know. Save your helpful impulses for when you have other people with you, but when on your own keep walking even as you call out, “Nope, sorry, can’t” back over your shoulder.

Do not let strangers into your home. If someone emerges at your door telling his car abandon running and he needs to call a tow truck, suggest through the closed door to make the call for him. If he says his wifey is ill and asks if he can have a glass of water for her, suggest, once again through the closed door, to call nine hundred eleven for him. If someone dressed in work clothes says he’s been sent by the building superintendent, your homeowners association, the electrical company, the city, or anything else, leave him standing outside until you’ve called that entity and ascertained it has sent that person and does indeed vouch for him.

The world is not awash with rapists, murderers, thieves, and kidnappers, but a bit of common sense routinely applied can help you avoid meeting up with any of the handful that are actually out there. Rather than fret about how to decently throw an elbow, or whether you should run from someone holding a gun on you, or how to crash a car into a barrier so as to incapacitate an attacker but leave yourself unharmed, learn these three tips by heart: Keep away from deserted places, stay alert to what is going on around you, and when something feels the slightest bit wrong, get out of there. While there’s nothing of Lynda Carter or Steven Seagal in those three tips, they will serve to keep you out of a pine box far better than all the more flashy “eyed it on the Lifetime Movie of the Week” moves put together.

Barbara “learn how not to be where the trouble is” Mikkelson

Last updated: twenty eight January 2016

Nine Tips – Written by a Cop

Claim: A list of safety tips offers effective counters to being victimized in random violent crimes.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2005]

WRITTEN BY A COP: Everyone should take five minutes to read this. It may save

your life or a loved one’s life. In daylight hours, refresh yourself of

these things to do in an emergency situation… This is for you, and for

you to share with your wifey, your children, & everyone you know. After

reading these nine crucial tips, forward them to someone you care about. It

never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Peak from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your bod. If you are close enough to use it, do!

Two. Learned this from a tourist guide in Fresh Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT Arm IT TO HIM. Throw it away from you….chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

Three. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the fuckhole and begin swinging like crazy. The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

Five. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:

A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.

B.) If you are parked next to a big van, come in your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.

IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the flawless crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a sobbing baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her

“Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.”

Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a sobbing baby – This e-mail should most likely be taken earnestly because the Weeping Baby theory was mentioned on America’s Most Wished this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana. I’d like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well.

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

This item actually began as a summary of the teachings of Pat Malone, a private safety pro and former bodyguard who instructs on defensive and survival tactics, and the much-longer original (which is

Pat Malone’s seminars are described as “self-protection from predators, without self-defense or weapons”

Over the intervening years, the e-mailed list of crime avoidance tips has been edited by various anonymous folks whose cyber forearms it has passed through, being severely pared down from its original form and then padded with extraneous material in a number of places. It has thus become even less reliable in terms of the quality of advice being suggested than it was in 2001, and even then it would have had to have been regarded as suspect.

applies absolutes to screenplays that are very situational.

1. Peak from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your figure. If you are close enough to use it, do!

Right off the bat we have an example of riskily attempting to apply an absolute to a very situational script, a course which may be far more likely to increase (rather than lessen) a victim’s chances of being physically harmed.

Yes, if you’re confronted by a menacing presence, you might be able to get in a good deepthroat by using your elbow, but then what? Are you going to be able incapacitate him with that single deepthroat? If not, what are you going to do next? Will you be able to escape to safety or summon help before he recovers and reacts? Are you going to be able to overpower him in a physical confrontation? If he has a weapon, will he still be able to wield it? Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a threat should most likely be an option of last resort unless you are very well trained in self-defense.

And for accuracy’s sake, we note that while the elbow is one of your bod parts that can be used effectively in a fight, it is not the strongest: that honor goes to the modest knee.

Two. Learned this from a tourist guide in Fresh Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT Palm IT TO HIM. Throw it away from you … chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

This is another situational screenplay. Yes, if you throw your purse or wallet some distance away rather than handing it to a mugger, that might give you time to begin running while he retrieves it … but is that always a good idea? If a robber is “truly more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you,” isn’t it more likely that he’s going to simply grab your valuables and skedaddle anyway rather than stick around to inflict physical harm that won’t garner him any further monetary build up? Is it possible that your deliberately throwing away your wallet rather than handing it over could be perceived by your assailant as a form of non-cooperation or disrespect that might provoke him into attacking you when he otherwise would have let you go unharmed? And if your assailant’s objective included something other than a mugging (e.g., kidnapping, rape, murder), throwing your handbag away might do nothing other than rid you of an item you could have used as a defensive weapon.

Three. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the fuckhole and embark flapping like crazy. The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

The chances that the average person is ever going to find himself locked in the trunk of a car by an abductor are slender to begin with, much less so when one includes the presumption that the victim would be placed there with forearms and feet unbound (or somehow manage to free himself from such bonds). In any case, the tail lights of most modern vehicles are not accessible from the trunk, so even if one’s arms and gams were free there would be nothing to kick out to create an opening for flapping at others.

Four. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON’T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the flawless chance for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.

This list’s assessment of the behavior of women who have just entered their cars is unluckily accurate: most women we’ve observed do indeed lodge their purses on the passenger seats, sling briefcases, jackets, and packages into the back seat area, get out their car keys, rummage about in their handbags for various items (e.g., lipstick, cell phone, address book) which they might or might not use right then, put their keys in the ignition, fasten their seat belts, and only then get around to locking their doors. During that interval they are indeed vulnerable to someone’s getting into the car with them or pulling open the driver’s side door. A good habit to get into is instantly locking your car’s doors as soon as you are in your vehicle. Train yourself so that it becomes one slick maneuverability that you don’t even have to think about – your rump’s landing on the seat should trigger your mitt to reach out and hit the lock button.

Driving away instantaneously rather than taking a moment to make out this year’s Christmas card list is also advice worthy of following, especially in locations such as parking garages (because the structure prevents others not in your instantaneous area from witnessing what might be happening at your car) and open air parking lots that are somewhat deserted rather than teeming with other folks coming and going.

Five. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:

A.) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.

This list is correct in suggesting that taking a moment before going to your car to look about and see who else is around is a good habit to adopt. Pause for a few seconds to judge your surroundings rather than unthinkingly heading for your vehicle with your eyes down and your mind occupied with other matters. Once you arrive at your vehicle, but before injecting it, give its back seat a quick glance to ensure no one is hiding there.

This claim is wrong. Most serial killers do not grab women from parking lots and thrust them into vans; they hunt for potential victims according to their private killing rituals, with each murderer following his own individual script. Some drive about looking for lone hitchhikers. Others seek out solitary travelers who have paused in their journeys to use the facilities at rest stops along the interstate highways. Others go after late night gas station and convenience store clerks who are working alone and unprotected. Yet others troll areas known to be frequented by streetwalkers, presenting themselves as customers interested in buying the hookers’ services. Others break into houses they have minutes or hours earlier seen their desired victims come in. Some place ads in newspapers, luring their victims to them with promises of fine bargains on desired items or offers of employment. Yet others frequent lonely catches sight of that have individual meaning to them, preying upon whoever attempts to traverse these areas. Each serial killer has his own method of acquiring victims, and it is unique unto him.

The proffered advice makes the assumption that every man sitting in a car parked next to yours is a would-be attacker, but someone trolling for a victim at a mall is rather unlikely to be doing so by waiting patiently within his own vehicle for whoever is parked beside him to come back. He could be left twiddling his thumbs for hours only to detect his intended target comes back accompanied by three friends she met up with inwards or comes back at a moment when the lot is awash with other people getting in and out of their cars.

Moreover, this item contradicts the advice which instantaneously precedes it: if you need to be wary of cars parked on either side of your vehicle, then coming in your car through the passenger-side door is no guarantor of safety.

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the flawless crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

Elevators also pose risk, but since they are better trafficked and more public, the possibility of being harmed while using one is much diminished. Still, unlike a stairway, an elevator does not permit for escape: once those doors close, you’re trapped inwards with whoever else might be in the car until those doors open again. Therefore, don’t get onto an elevator car unaccompanied if you are at all uncertain of the car’s current occupants or someone else who is also waiting to come in – if something strikes you as not fairly right, wait for the next car.

We don’t know the origin of the claim that someone shooting at you “will only hit you four in one hundred times” , but we’re very skeptical of the notion that a gun-wielding bad boy in relatively close proximity to a human target hits what he’s aiming at only once out of twenty five times (even if the target is a moving one). And just because the shooter may not hit a “vital organ” doesn’t mean the victim is going to get away – a gunshot to just about any bod part will usually inflict enough anguish or physical harm to hamper the escape of someone fleeing on foot.

8. As women, we are always attempting to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspicious women. He walked with a cane, or a gutless, and often asked “for help” into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

While Ted Bundy did trick some of his victims into going with him by appearing injured and in need of assistance (e.g., putting his arm in a sling and attempting to lift a canoe onto the roof of his car), he picked up other victims while they were hitchhiking, and he also attacked victims in their homes while they were sleeping – there was no “ALWAYS” to his methodology. Bundy is regarded by those who explore criminals as a very unusual serial killer because he was intelligent, charming, had well-honed people abilities, and varied his mode of securing victims. It is therefore a mistake to assess the threat posed by those who murder random victims for the thrill of it by using Ted Bundy as a yardstick.

However, it is not a mistake to keep in mind people aren’t always what they emerge to be, and that someone who looks disabled or encumbered might well be entirely able-bodied. Stay alert when you are around strangers and permit for the possibility of being the target of deception rather than let yourself be lulled into a false sense of security by the other party’s apparent limitations.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone just told me that her friend heard a howling baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her “Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.”

A more lengthy debunking of the “weeping baby” lure can be found in our article on that topic, but in a nutshell it’s a hoax: no serial killer used that ruse, and the story about helpful policemen who instructed the woman who heard such sobs to stay inwards and not open her door is fiction. The “audio gauze of a baby’s sobs used by a murderer to draw women from their homes” fabrication was born of the anxiety surrounding the hunt for the Baton Rouge serial killer in 2002. That case was profiled on America’s Most Dreamed in September two thousand two and again in January 2003, but neither airing made any mention of the purported “sobbing baby” theory.

Ten. Water scam! If you wake up in the middle of the night to hear all your

taps outside running or what you think is a burst pipe, DO NOT GO OUT TO

INVESTIGATE! These people turn on all your outside taps utter blast so that

you will go out to investigate and then attack.

A far better counter is to avoid becoming the victim of random violent crime in the very first place, which the following tips will help with:

One mistake folks do make time and again is letting their sense of familiarity with a place lull them into a presumption of security. Tho’ you may know the parking lot at the local grocery store like the back of your mitt and have never experienced any problems there, you should still regard it as a potentially dangerous location if your plan is to park there at midnight on a Sunday while you reprogram the buttons on your car’s radio. A location that can be flawlessly innocuous during the day when there are all sorts of other people around is not necessarily just as safe in the dead of night when the place is empty.

Also, as stated in “Assaulted Tale” (our debunking of a widely-circulated list about what rapists supposedly look for), not only is it significant to see trouble coming before it gets to you and avoid it, but maintaining an alert stance can help discourage a would-be attacker. Those looking to prey upon others – whether their aim is robbery, rape, or mayhem – generally choose as victims those who emerge preoccupied or tentative in preference to those who exude a sense of purpose. Or, as I was told long ago, “Always look like you know exactly where you’re going and budge like you’re expected to be there at exactly a certain time.” Mooning about aimlessly can make you a statistic.

Also, be wary of helping strangers when you are unaccompanied. Don’t help them stream packages into vans or trot over to them like a good little Dame Scout when summoned to give directions by someone you don’t know. Save your helpful impulses for when you have other people with you, but when on your own keep walking even as you call out, “Nope, sorry, can’t” back over your shoulder.

Do not let strangers into your home. If someone shows up at your door telling his car abandon running and he needs to call a tow truck, suggest through the closed door to make the call for him. If he says his wifey is ill and asks if he can have a glass of water for her, suggest, once again through the closed door, to call nine hundred eleven for him. If someone dressed in work clothes says he’s been sent by the building superintendent, your homeowners association, the electrified company, the city, or anything else, leave him standing outside until you’ve called that entity and ascertained it has sent that person and does indeed vouch for him.

The world is not awash with rapists, murderers, thieves, and kidnappers, but a bit of common sense routinely applied can help you avoid meeting up with any of the handful that are actually out there. Rather than fret about how to decently throw an elbow, or whether you should run from someone holding a gun on you, or how to crash a car into a barrier so as to incapacitate an attacker but leave yourself unharmed, learn these three tips by heart: Keep away from deserted places, stay alert to what is going on around you, and when something feels the slightest bit wrong, get out of there. While there’s nothing of Lynda Carter or Steven Seagal in those three tips, they will serve to keep you out of a pine box far better than all the more flashy “witnessed it on the Lifetime Movie of the Week” moves put together.

Barbara “learn how not to be where the trouble is” Mikkelson

Last updated: twenty eight January 2016

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Nine Tips – Written by a Cop

Nine Tips – Written by a Cop

Nine Tips – Written by a Cop

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