Criminals You
Know and Love - by Carla Base
One of the saddest and latest things that security
professionals are now seeing is the uptick of drug related crime. People who
are former friends, are relatives and loved ones who are addicted helplessly to
a host of dangerous drugs are breaking into the homes and businesses of their
own family. Maybe you think you know just what you would do if you suddenly
heard a thud and a shatter of your living room window or door breaking off the
hinges. A father goes for his shotgun, at the ready. A mother goes for her
pistol in the bedside table. But when it is discovered it is a criminal they
know--and love--and when seconds count, they hesitate. Hesitation in this
situation is critical and sometimes deadly. Don't ever think that anyone with
enough nerve and lack of regard for personal property would come unprepared.
Theives come prepared to cut chain, wire, ram doors, have flashlights, knives,
guns, chains, and carry no ID many times. They wear clothes hard to identify
because they are so common; jeans and sweat shirts, t-shirts all the same vague
things everyone wears. They cover their faces or not. But one thing is sure.
They don't want you to identify them. If you realize who is burglarizing your
home, you are suddenly in way more danger than you would have been if you'd
have been away for the day or evening. When a set of eyes returns your stare
you have loved before, known before, you hesitate and you don't know what to do
now. They may now fire on you. Don't think they won't, since they are no longer
the little boy or girl you once knew. They are possesed now with hard drugs
that have altered their perception of time and space, of who matters and who
doesn't because now they are concerned only with their own needs and cravings.
They need money for their habit and they need it now. If you stand in their
way, they crave more than they know who you are. Don't forget it. But if an alarm
sounds, it will automatically limit the amount of time they can now spend in
that home. Now they must hurry more than they were going to already. And with
their face on a camera they know they will be identified, not only by the faces
looking back at them. If video verification is recording and emailing clips of
their very face to police now, they will leave now.
Don't think you
will just take care of intruders yourself. You may just know them. You may just love them.