Enjoy this excerpt from one of our published books.
Amanda kept a close eye on the two unknown individuals that had now been fol- lowing her for several blocks. She noticed that they were closing in on her, and that one of them kept holding his hand on the beltline of his pants, as if he was trying to hide something or hold something. She felt her heart start to race and her palms get sweaty, so she quickened her pace and turned left at the next block. “Jordan!” she screamed, as she ran towards her and hugged her.
Jordan was with several people Amanda didn’t recognize, but she couldn’t be hap- pier. “Dude, Amanda, you don’t even like me. What’s your deal?” said Jordan. As she looked up, she noticed the two creepy looking individuals who had been following Amanda. They had stopped, turned around, and started walking away. “Oh,” she said. “That could’ve gone bad. Let’s get you to where you were headed. Stick with us.” Amanda may not have been friends with Jordan, but boy, was she thankful to run into her.
Up to this point, you have learned a lot of new information about how to manage your space and how to keep yourself safer within that space. You have learned:
Now, we are going to further discuss what to look for in various situations you will encounter on campus. First, we need to understand the difference between threat assessment and risk assessment.
At its most basic level, “risk assessment” can be understood as a systematic process of evaluating what risks
Threat assessment in a given situation, or of a specific person, is a continuous process. It isn’t something you do “just one time,” and then you automatically assume since something was safe a few minutes ago, that it is safe now. For example, let’s say you needed to cross a busy street. There is the risk that you could get hit by a car. So to prevent yourself from getting hit by the car, you seek out a cross walk, and wait for a red light, which helps you minimize the risk of getting hit by a car. Then you look both ways before stepping into the road. By looking both ways before you cross the street, you made a threat assessment of the situation and decided either to cross the street, or wait for cars to pass. But let’s say last week you had to cross the same intersection, and you looked both ways and it was safe to cross, so you did. That doesn’t mean that this week you’d just blindly walk up to the intersection and step into the road. You would look both ways again to determine if it was safe, and even as you continued to cross the road you would continue to look both ways to make sure a speeding car doesn’t run a red light and hit you. In a nutshell, this is how you should approach the ongoing threat assessment process in every situation.
So now that you know what threat assessment is, I’m going to go into more detail about how to do it. One of the first things you need to think about is how vulnerable you are in a particular situation. If you needed to get home late at night after studying, you’d be less vulnerable to robbery or assault if you were in a car rather than walking. If you needed to walk, you’d be less vulnerable to robbery or assault if you were practicing good 540 Degree Proxemic management, had your valuables hidden, and were wearing practical footwear, rather than walking alone, intoxicated, texting on your smartphone, and wearing flip flops. All of those little things contribute to your overall vulnerability in a situation. To assess vulnerability, you also need to consider, “What is the source of the threat I am vulnerable to, and why?” If you can answer those questions, you will be well equipped to protect yourself against it. Remember, the more distracted you are within your environment, the more vulnerable you are to it!
There are many threat assessment opportunities for you to consider. Again, if you walk into a situation and something or someone just doesn’t feel right, listen to it. Your gut instinct is telling you to go from Condition Yellow to Condition Orange, and whatever it was that set off your radar deserves your attention. Some of the things you should consider when conducting a threat assessment of a person include:
In the example above, Amanda started to take notice of several of these things. She noticed that it was late at night (dark), she was alone (outnumbered), the subjects pointed at her (were more focused on her than what they were doing), and started heading directly towards her (unexpected change in direction). Do you remember what else Amanda noticed? That’s right. One of the subjects grabbed the waistband of his pants as if he was holding something up. Could it have been a handgun? It very possibly could have!
People who are about to attack you will also give away other clues. You should be able to notice a change in their body posture— they will assume a more “athletic” stance, also known as a “boxer” stance, and you may even be able to see them start clenching their fists and shifting their shoulders in an effort to get into a more powerful position to attack you. These are all indications that you should be managing your space, and doing everything you can to create more distance between you and that individual.
You have learned many new skills up to this point. At the very least, you should be seeing your world differently and learning how to take your safety into your own hands. Let’s put some of your new knowledge to the test and pretend it is your first day on campus, a brand new environment. You are still with your parents; they’ve helped you unload your stuff, set up your room, and want to take you out for dinner before they head home many, many miles away. Your mom, a lifelong police officer, smirks and asks you, “So, have you figured out the safest way to get to all of your classes yet?” You laugh, but you suddenly realize that she isn’t kidding, and you start to look around. “Don’t worry mom, I already have my whole safety plan laid out!” Your mom smiles, “Ok then, let’s hear it.”
Using the skills you have learned, take a quick risk assessment of your campus. Try to outline situations or circumstances where you’d be the most vulnerable to crime. This would be a great exercise to practice with your parents and your friends too.
Since it’s your first time, I will help you out. Here is a checklist of some of the things you should do as soon as you get to your new campus:
I realize that these things may seem trivial or unnecessary, but in the event of something happening to you or your belongings, this small amount of preparation could be a matter of life or death!
“There are things you can do to keep yourself safer. Don’t go through life just hoping that bad things won’t happen. Hope is not a tactic.”