Basic training at the academy…If an officer gets into a hostage situation, or a life threatening situation presents itself unexpectedly, the officer calls his partner by a code name and the other officer immediately knows there is a life-threatening situation happening.
Example, if I make a car stop at 2:00am with my partner Walter, and I walk up to the drivers window of a car I stopped for weaving, I would probably be expecting the driver to be drunk. Although we are trained to not let this happen, there is always the possibility that the driver could present a weapon and attempt to disarm me while my partner is busy or distracted. A parolee who doesn’t want to go back to jail, A guy with warrants, A guy who just committed a robbery, A guy high on dope. It doesn’t matter why it happens, it happens!
If I make the choice to not over react and try to buy myself some time, the first thing I would do is call out to my partner Walter “Hey Jim, this guy looks alright, I’ll be right there”. Walter (if he were awake) would know by me calling him by my name, that I probably had a weapon pointed at me and was in a crappy position at the time.
Walter would draw his weapon and upon a nod of the head he would order the driver to put his hands up while I made an attempt to drop to the ground and roll for cover behind the car.
In 15 years I’ve used this maneuver 3 times which probably saved my rear end each time. I always made it a point to tell my partners of the significance of why I would ever call them by my own name, and if there happened to be another Jim on the team, then we would come up with a code name. It works.
Why am I sharing this with you? In California we recently had another one of those bizarre multiple murders over a motive of money. The delta duffel bag murders.
An ex-stockbroker and 2 loser accomplices attempted to swindle money from an older couple and when it didn’t work out, the couple was murdered as well as several other
individuals known by the suspect. One victim murdered was allegedly his own girlfriend who refused to be involved.
The victims were murdered, brutally cut up into pieces, and placed into duffel bags that were discarded into the waters of the delta. I read a chronological recap of the chain of events in the newspaper, where neighbors had reported seeing the suspects at the house of the victim couple, probably just before the murders occurred.
Another family member or friend had called the residence and the woman had answered the phone in a strange tone of voice while the suspects were at the house apparently trying to get the money. The caller reported that the woman had sounded “annoyed” as if she was resentful that the people were there, but of course the caller didn’t know what was going on.
What if the woman had called the caller by a different name, a code name, signaling the caller that an emergency existed in which the police were needed immediately? What if the caller knew to call the police and report a suspicious circumstance? What if 2 cops showed up at the door before the murders had taken place and we had a happy ending instead of more grim news to watch on TV?
What if during a home invasion robbery my brother Mark calls me, and the suspect tells me to answer the phone as if everything is normal? What If I call Mark by my name and tell him “Jim” I’m a little busy because I have to take “Bolo” (his dog’s name) to the vet. Mark would know that something was drastically wrong and call the police.
While the male suspects were inside the victim’s home, a female suspect was parked down the street as a lookout. She apparently saw that neighbors were watching her, so she approached the neighbors and said something along the lines of…
“I couldn’t help but notice you watching me. I just wanted to let you know my friends are buying marijuana from a house down the street, and the people sound a little “weird”, so I’m here to watch and make sure everything goes OK” Then this twit gets in a car and drives off down the street.
What’s “weird” here is this idiot telling the neighbors that her friends are committing a crime and she’s the lookout. “Oh that’s nice dear, thank you for letting us know, we were beginning to be a little concerned”. What didn’t happen, the police weren’t called right away. What should have happened is the police should have been called immediately to check out a suspicious female in the neighborhood who had just said “yada, yada, yada.”
A suspicious female who got into a (make and color of car) with the license plate number of “IMACROOK” and it was last seen driving westbound on Smith St towards Friutvale.
That’s what should have been immediately called in to the cops… But ya know what?
The bottom line?
Many people are naive.
Many people don’t want to “get involved”
Many people just don’t care…until they or one of their family members become “the victim”. Then the question becomes “why didn’t somebody do something”?
Hey, Do something! Stop pretending the neighbors have the plague, and get to know each other. You don’t have to like each other but you should at least get to know each other. If you happen to like each other, that’s an added bonus.
Have a block party barbecue and call the cops to come out and do a neighborhood watch presentation. Learn about the types of crimes being committed in your neighborhood and when you should be calling us. Learn about code words. Learn how to make your homes and your lives safer. Learn how to look out for yourself, your stuff, and the other guy. The family right next door.
Some nut killed 2 little kids in their own home without any provocation other than
“He was weird and didn’t like kids”. One child got out of the house and ran to a neighbor who called the police. The police got into a shootout with the suspect who was killed by police gunfire.
The neighbors later recanted on how strange the guys was, how he always made them nervous. He always walked the street in the dark at night. He was a loner. If all these neighbors had determined that this guy was a weird ass who made them nervous, no one thought it was strange for this idiot who hated kids, to march up to a neighbors house who had kids, and march inside like he owned the place?
Why were these kids home alone? If Mom and Dad are working and kids get home from school before Mom and Dad, then why isn’t there a “safe house” for them to kick back at as compared to being alone? Why didn’t the house have an alarm system that the kids could have activated if an intruder was breaking in? Or were the kids inside playing video games with the front, rear, and garage doors open, an opportunity for some sick twisted minded pervert to come in and slaughter them? Would an alarm have saved them? If all the doors were locked would it have saved them? No one really knows. But it could have raised the odds of the kids being able to escape out the back if the killer was busy trying to break in through a locked door. Maybe an alarm would have spooked the killer into fleeing. Maybe not. No one knows. There’s a lot of “what ifsâ€.
I’ve said it hundreds of times throughout our book, and I’ve said it a hundred times to people on the street. “Every action has a reaction.”
It’s time to do something.
It’s time to stop reading these hideous headlines in the newspaper and watching the gory details on the 11:00 news. Stop worrying about stocks and bonds, keeping up with the Jones, how many sales you made at work today, and start thinking about getting out from behind the computer and taking care of something that matters, The safety of you and your family. If you don’t do it, who will?
Now you have a choice.
You can say “that Jim guy is full of crap” and go back to watching the Jerry Springer show,
or
You can say “That Jim guy is right, we need to be more aware of our safety” and do something about it,
or
You can say “Whose Jim?”
But then again,
What’s in a name?
Hope this finds you all well and safe.
From Jim, I mean Mark, I mean Jim, Mark, and Brent. Keep Safe!
