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Habit versus Fear…Home Invasion
At ten o’clock that night, Lindsay had checked that her doors were locked, as usual, before shutting the lights off and going to bed. She assumed she was safe within the protection of her apartment walls. A typical night coupled with a typical attitude. At four o’clock in the morning, Lindsay’s night drastically changed. Her worst fear had crept out of her nightmares and forced its way into her bedroom.
“Don’t make a sound or I’ll kill you…just do exactly what I say” — a ruthless command and a lethal threat on an innocent human being. This was not a practical joke carried out by a friend. It was real and it was happening to Lindsay — a tall, think, ultra-feminine woman who had always thought with confidence, “It (rape) won’t happen to me.” But there he was and there she was.
While Lindsay slept a man had broken into her locked apartment and moved silently into her bedroom. He woke her from a peaceful sleep with the forceful words, “Don’t make a sound, don’t move.” That statement would repeat over and over in her mind for years to come.
As this angry man, a man that she had never seen before in her life — stood over her in her bedroom; made one last reminder for her not to do anything. Lindsay’s mind raced back to her self-defense workshop that she had taken, she was reminded of the emphasis placed on fighting back in order to surprise the attacker.
- Don’t think of anything other than survival.
- Look for your window of opportunity – it may be as little as five seconds – when he is vulnerable and to use it to your advantage.
- Fight back.
And that is what she did. She knew she needed to remain calm, assess the best time for defense, and strike.
Lindsay did just that. As she watched his body fly across the room, Lindsay was amazed to see the shock on his face. He was caught physically and mentally off-guard by her blow that she landed him in the chest with both of her feet, using all the force she could gather. Lindsay had enough time to escape. As she ran out of her apartment to get help, he ran too…not after her, but away from her.
Lindsay experienced a life-threatening situation. It is our responsibility to ensure our own safety. You may be wondering why Lindsay didn’t hear her intruder as there were no noises of a break-in; the man had a key from the previous tenant who lived in the apartment….previous to Lindsay.
The landlord never changed the locks when Lindsay moved in!
Personal safety is a habit not a fear. I’ve had students tell me that their family members think that they are scared or paranoid because they lock doors even when they are home; when they go out to walk the dog and in their car. I’ve heard many parents say that having your children’s carton images with their age and name on your vehicle window was not dangerous. All of us in the personal safety arena agree, IT IS DANGEROUS! Ask any pedophile who wants an easy target.
The fact is, paranoia will freeze you with fear and fear is the most dangerous mindset of all.
- Trust your gut feelings, your instincts, intuition
- Be aware of your surroundings
- Establish and enforce your personal boundaries
- Exhibit confident body language
- Incorporate safety tips into your daily routine and life
The benefits of personal safety impact your entire life in a positive manner. “An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure.”—-Benjamin Franklin
The people who tell you or call you paranoid for being aware and safe are O-B-L-I-V-I-O-U-S!
The impact of being oblivious and not facing the fact that all type of crimes and assaults are happening on a daily basis is an individual with blinders on. Electing not be educated or taught how to be safe is just downright ludicrous.
ob·liv·i·ous = unmindful; unconscious; unaware
Synonym – absent-minded (so lost in thought that one does not realize what one is doing, what is happening, etc.; preoccupied to the extent of being unaware of one’s immediate surroundings)
There is nothing wrong with being the brightest light bulb in the room!
What do you think?
Take care and STAY SAFE!
Eve Carson Murder Suspect Pleads Guilty, Dodges Federal Death Penalty…
Eve Carson Murder Suspect Pleads Guilty, Dodges Federal Death Penalty…
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. — One of two men charged in the slaying of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder, avoiding a possible death sentence for his role in the March 2008 crime.
Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour sentenced Demario James Atwater to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Last month, Atwater also avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to five federal charges in the case, including carjacking resulting in death and kidnapping, in exchange for a life sentence without parole.
Under the agreement with the state, Atwater will serve his sentence in federal custody.
“Mr. Atwater, what you have admitted to doing was senseless, as it’s been said by two attorneys before me,” Baddour said. “It was wrong. It can have no place in our free society.”
Atwater also pleaded guilty to robbery with a dangerous weapon, first-degree kidnapping and possession of a firearm by a felon. Charges of felonious larceny, possession of a weapon of mass destruction and possession of stolen goods were dismissed.
Baddour sentenced Atwater to 275 to 349 months on the remaining charges, to be served concurrently with the life sentence.
Carson’s mother, father and brother, from Athens, Ga., were present for the hearing and offered a statement, read by Raleigh attorney Wade Smith.
“We won’t be talking to the court about how our lives are diminished without Eve. The effects of her death are both obvious and personal. We choose not to confront Demario Atwater. The selfishness of taking another’s life is incomprehensible, and this coward is unaddressable,” Smith read.
The family continued, saying the life sentence “is consistent with the wishes of our family and honors Eve’s love of life and all people.”
A representative for UNC-Chapel Hill said the university would not comment on Atwater’s plea.
“There’s been so much made that Eve was the president of the student body at UNC, and that was a great accomplishment, and she had done many great things,” Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall said. “But I think she was – she was a sister, she was a daughter – and to me, that’s probably more important than anything.”
“I just hope, by what we’re doing today, we can help the family. We can give them some sense of closure as it relates to this defendant,” he continued. “I wish we could do more. We can’t.”
Atwater had nothing to say, but his attorney, Jonathan Broun, extended sympathy to the Carson family.
“We knew that allowing a sentence that, while harsh and severe as it should be, will allow him to live. We know they are doing that, not as a favor to Mr. Atwater, but because of the love that they feel for Eve Carson, and we appreciate it.”
New details revealed
Police found Carson’s body in the early morning of March 5, 2008, in a neighborhood several blocks from the UNC campus while responding to reports of gunshots.
An autopsy found she was shot four times with a 25-caliber handgun and once – the fifth and fatal shot – with a sawed-off Harrington & Richardson 12-gauge shotgun.
“She had placed her (right) hand up to shield her head, whenever the shotgun was fired,” Woodall said, outlining the facts of the case. “The medical examiner believed that she would have survived for some period of time, as to the gunshot wounds from the 25-caliber handgun.”
Atwater and his alleged accomplice, Laurence Alvin Lovette Jr., went to Carson’s home, abducted her and took her in her blue Toyota Highlander to withdraw $1,400 from ATM machines before killing her, Woodall said.
“All the other evidence tends to support that Eve Carson was – they confronted and took her from her home – if not actually inside her home, just outside her home,” Woodall said.
Atwater later admitted to his girlfriend at the time, Shanita Love, what had happened, and he told about a dozen other people parts of what happened that night, Woodall said.
The crime was random, Atwater admitted, and he and Lovette, who is still awaiting trial, had been in Chapel Hill looking for people to rob.
What investigators were never able to determine was where Atwater and his alleged accomplice kidnapped Carson. There were a couple of different stories, he told, about how she was abducted, Woodall said.
“He told (Love) that they had gone into a sorority house through an open door and got Ms. Carson,” he said.
“There was never any evidence discovered, other than this statement, that anyone went into the house,” Woodall continued.
Other evidence also put Atwater and Lovette in Chapel Hill and near Carson’s home that morning.
Around 3:30 a.m., Woodall said, a woman reported seeing “two suspicious black males” in the area of Rosemary Street near the house where Carson lived on Friendly Lane.
Video footage showed the men, identified as Atwater and Lovette, walking and, a few minutes later, driving by in Carson’s SUV.
Lovette also used a cell phone that could be traced to Franklin Street, about a mile from Carson’s home, at 3:02 a.m., Woodall said.
After Atwater’s arrest, police also found Carson’s iPod in his truck and shotgun shells consistent with the murder weapon in his home.
DNA evidence in Carson’s SUV also linked Atwater to the crime, Woodall said.
“That is some of the evidence in this case,” he said. “This is a case where there is literally a mountain of evidence, and it seems clear that the defendant was the one who fired the shotgun on this occasion.”
Respectfully submitted via WRAL.com
She Called Me Her “Boyfriend”….
Unfortunately, the following stalking experience for a young man is extremely common. I commend him that he didn’t retaliate by lashing out nor physically take matters into his own hands, instead he used his head. Every victim has to use his/her head and be twenty steps ahead of their assailant.
I am a 15 year old guy in the 10th grade. Ever since the 6th grade, I have been harassed by a female student and a few of her friends, but mostly her.
I can’t remember when it started, but I do remember sometime in the 7th grade I had to work on a project with her. While working, she took my pen in placed it in her crotch and told me to get it. I just walked away and worked somewhere else and let it go.
In the 8th grade, while leaving the cafeteria, she and a friend grabbed me in the hall and cornered me. They groped me continuously, even as other students passed by and some saw. It was extremely embarrassing.
I told them to let me go but they wouldn’t let me.
A couple days ago, at a club meeting we both are involved in, while taking a break, she comes over and starts telling me how we go out and how I’m her boyfriend. Her friends laugh. Then she starts groping and rubbing on me. When I stand up to leave with my friend, she pinches my butt and laughs.These are only a few of many incidents, and I finally had enough. I plan on going to my assistant principal first thing Monday and reporting her. She has made going to school and the club something I dread, and now I have a witness.
As everyone knows, I focus primarily on female abuse and assault; teaching and training them mentally, emotionally and ultimately how SHE can PROTECT AND DEFEND herself. However, I do support males because males can be and are victims as well. I do not expect nor promote a male to “take a frying pan upside the head” and there are some really nasty females out there that are abusive. Unfortunately the statistics do not accurately represent male abuse because males simply did not readily come forward to seek assistance. But….the times are changing and I strongly encourage ANY male that is verbally, emotionally, financially, spiritually and/or physically abused to reach out. Our agencies are working extremely hard to offer males assistance – you are not alone.
- Approximately 380,000 men are stalked annually in the US
- 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime
- 64% of male victims know their stalker
- 30% of male victims are stalked by an intimate partner
- 10% of male victims obtained a protective order
- 81% of male victims had protection orders violated
If you are a male or you know a male that is being abused or victimized in any manner please reach out for support, guidance and advice. Contact your local and/or national agencies as well as the list below. Remember, you are not alone and NO DESERVES TO BE VICTIMIZED IN ANY MANNER.
If you are in immediate danger, you should call 911.
The PSA from CBS stalking advice pertains to female and male victims of stalking.
National Center for Victims of Crime
Take care and STAY SAFE!