The last post I wrote I mentioned that I still hoped that Amber Dubois would be found safe. Sadly she wasn’t. The crimes committed by convicted sex offender John Gardner rocked our community and shook us to our very core. I never had a plan to write about violent crimes, but how could I ignore the profound impact that something like this makes on our very psyche?
Today we have another man, convicted predator Leonard Earl Scroggins, scheduled to answer charges today in San Diego’s South Bay for multiple attacks on women.
Since we first learned about the murder of Chelsea King and subsequently learned that John Gardner had confessed to the kidnap, rape and murder of Amber Dubois, my heart has been heavy
Unrelated, but somehow interconnected for me is that I am dealing with the personal sudden loss of my eldest brother Laurence. I miss him terribly and have yet to come to terms with his early demise. He had retired less than 2 years ago and his passing on December 28, 2009 shook me to my core, it was so unexpected.
That is a different story about two innocent defenseless young girls, in my community but it serves to illustrate my sensitive state of mind. I offer up a prayer for my brother nightly and I add both girls; Chelsea and Amber into my prayers and thoughts and think of them as a shining star sharing their pure light and blessings as they make their way to the infinite light.
Use this link for in depth news on Gardner Sentencing
I admire what both families are doing to re-claim a feeling of control and to insure that their daughter’s loss can bring about a change for the good to protect others in the future.
The Kings and Amber’s father Moe Dubois are advocating and working with law makers to see that laws are changed and strengthened to protect society from violent sex predators.
Amber’s mother, Carrie McGonigle, got to interview Gardner briefly to get some answers she needed about the crime. What she learned was that Gardner hadn’t stalked Amber personally, but as he was out looking for victims, saw an opportunity. He noticed Amber was walking unwittingly into a trap by using a walk way that had no homes, no other people and no means to escape because there was a high fence on both sides of the block impeding any escape route.
Carrie, Amber’s mom has been giving interviews in order to stress to parents everywhere that they need to be aware and to take more precautions to insure their children don’t become crime victims. That sentiment is echoed by Marc Klaas, the father of Polly and it brings me to what I want to emphasize in the strongest possible way, which is that everyone needs to learn how to be more aware of personal safety and prevention of crimes of opportunity.
We can’t afford to stick our heads in the sand, and pretend that the world is a safe and worry free place. We need to realize that it is our responsibility to become aware and alert. There are steps we can take to really decrease the odds of being targeted for a crime. The best defense is a good offense and that means learning about risky situations, and always being aware of your surroundings and having a plan.
My 12 step plan for increasing safety is below this video.
12 Safety Tips
1-Form a group or den of parents or other neighborhood adults that volunteer to walk with the neighborhood children to and from school daily. Besides safety a community group for walking to school would get the kids and the adults out walking, keep track of where kids are and get a little exercise as well.
2-Get to know your neighbors so you have a safety network and can notify each other when needed. Exchange phone numbers and email and know each other by name.
3-Send kids to a class or group to learn self defense. There are many organizations and businesses that give free classes. Additional benefits are the exercise and empowerment. I’ve included links below to find self defense classes.
4-Have a community service officer or safety expert speak at a function and discuss ways to protect yourself.
5- Consider buying a GPS tracker for children to wear. (People buy these for their pets, so why wouldn’t they for their children?)
6- If your child is old enough to use a self defense device like pepper spray, consider it but make sure they are thoroughly trained in using it.
7-Talk with your kids and discuss possible dangerous situations and the best way to handle the situation. Again an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Headsets and cell phones are a distraction. Make sure your child is aware of his/her surrounding and looks and listens to see if anyone looks suspicious or seems to be following them. If they feel threatened, they should quickly walk into a store and tell the clerk or go inside the store and call a parent or 911.
8-When your teen is driving, teach them to use their rear view mirror to observe if anyone seems to be following. If they think they’re being followed, never make a beeline for home. Safely and quickly pull over, let the suspect pass and then turn and quickly go another way toward home, checking and making sure that they aren’t being followed.
9-Try not to walk alone, buddy up. If it’s necessary to walk alone and if someone does try to accost them tell them to run away as fast as possible towards people, yelling “help, call police” at the top of their lungs.
10-If you’re walking down the street on the sidewalk and there is a long, truck or large mobile home parked on the street go around it on the street side, Don’t walk along the side of it where you’re trapped from view. I was walking the dog the other evening had to pass a long Motor Home parked on the street. I thought “it’s not a good idea to walk on the sidewalk” where I would be completely blocked from view and trapped between the mobile home and the embankment on the other side. You need to think safety.
11- Invest in a life or medical alert system device in the home. They really work are not cost prohibitive. It is so loud and responds quickly that it would probably scare away any home intruder. As soon as the alarm is triggered, a response is forthcoming and a call to 911.
12- Rescue a large or medium size dog from a shelter and have your kids take him to dog obedience and training. A large, Lab, Shepherd or mixed breed will make a person think twice and their bark is very discouraging. Make sure you realize a dog is a lot of work they need play time and walking, but we all need the exercise so it’s a win win.
Here’s a link to the Southern Californian German Shepherd Rescue.
Use this link to go to socalrescue.org
You can use this link to learn more about self defense training.
The Krav Maga Women Only Program, teaches women how to defend themselves
As summer approaches and we feel the pant of the summer heat at our heels I came across an interesting article I felt compelled to comment on.
You can read the article here: Golden Hill Residents Worried About Their Canyon
As a native Southern Californian I find this article interesting. I lost a home to wildfire in the 1970′s in La Crescenta, and as a resident of inland north county, I’ve needed to evacuate twice in the last 6 years from wildfire threat.
If the city met with the neighborhood-citizen/volunteer-resident group, and everyone voiced their concerns and talked about their mutual goals and solutions, possibly something viable could come out of the city’s proposal to cut back the brush.
I’m sure the resident’s don’t want to see their neighborhood impacted by a wildfire. The city had mandated cutting back brush to reduce damage to homes in the event of a wildfire.
The group had already cleaned up the area and planted native plant species, an important and positive move towards restoring native habitat and reducing invasive species.
Of course I hope that the neighborhood gets to keep all of their native habitat intact that is safe to keep providing it isn’t too close to homes. I know how passionate a person can feel towards the environment and how painful it can be to see nature disturbed. But we do have a real and present wildfire danger to life and property here in Southern California and we also have to mitigate the danger from combustible plants.
Maybe the city can consider selectively approaching the area possibly preserving as much chaparral as is safe, and not use a “cannon to kill the fly” strategy undoing all the progress that was done to restore the canyon.
On the other side of the coin read the article here: Maritime chaparral fuels more than fire in Big Sur, from the Capitol Weekly a few years ago. Residents of Big Sur area were frustrated with officials from the California Coastal Commission who wanted to protect the chaparral while the residents sought to reduce the chaparral to decrease the danger of their homes burning in a wildfire.
One of the most compelling quotes in the article states “On June 27, The Pine Cone newspaper in Carmel, often critical of the Coastal Commission, noted in an editorial that the chaparral was widespread throughout the region and that the fires “destroyed in an hour or two more maritime chaparral than all the residents of Big Sur could clear if they worked for 100 years.”
So if everyone keeps a level head; hopefully a solution will be found balancing the considerations of the residents to keep the beauty of the canyon while improving the area to reduce the risk of a wildfire decimating the canyon and the homes surrounding it.
I’m seriously disgusted and disappointed about the new health care bill. It is “weak as water”, and doesn’t present substantial change affecting the vast majority or those that need affordable health care.
I thought this short guide on the changes on what we can expect to see is handy unfortunately it’s too little, too late and still leaves most people out of the loop.
For example parents can now add in their children up to age 26 that are in college. Great, that’s still cherry picking by insurance, they’re the youngest healthiest of the population so the lowest risk to insure.
Here’s where we’re at now and we have so much farther to go. Click the link for the summary on the new health care bill.
10-ways-the-new-healthcare-bill-may-affect-you: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance.
In depth report on Health Care Reform from MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann . Excuse the 30 second commercial that runs first.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
It’s a trying time in Rancho Bernardo and Poway. We mourn Chelsea. We pray for her and for her family in their time of bereavement. So many questions and concerns circle through our minds and we long to turn back the clock to before Chelseas last fateful jog in Rancho Bernardo Park. And yes we long for justice for her and her family.
We want to know why there isn’t notification around the park to walk or run in pairs or groups that it isn’t safe and that there has been suspicious activity there. We want to be safe we want to enjoy our beautiful open spaces for hiking without fear.
I walk my 90 pound German Shepherd on trails in the back country. They are beautiful at this time of the year and lead to pretty springs, stands of Oaks and areas with birds singing and celebrating nature’s beauty. I will now only do so when with other people and am also considering a legal self defense deterrant like, mace or a stun gun.
Why in the world was John Gardiner ever let back on the streets and why didn’t he serve a longer sentence from his previous conviction?
Why doesn’t Megans’ Law also include all the residences the registered sex offenders have been known to stay at?
To see if any known registered sex offenders are in your neighborhood click here go to the site and scroll down to the very bottom of the page to the locator site.
Megan’s Law Home
And we hope that a predator is off the street. We wonder is he the man also responsible for Amber Dubois who went missing a year ago?
We hope and pray she will be found alive and safe.
And yes we wish John Gardner swift and and sure judgment. We hope he rots in prison hope he receives what he deserves. We want to see him punished. We feel there is enough evidence that he is the perpetrator, not “just a suspect.”
Yet want I want to remind all of us. We simply can’t take justice into our own hands. We can lobby and group together to amend laws to create changes to protect us as a society more. We can find ways to make it safer for our children and ourselves.
But no matter how angry and fed up we are we can’t commit crimes and justify that we are angry or we’re doing it for the victims.
We need to instill pride and dignity into the system and let the world know that we’re a good and worthwhile neighborhood and city.
If we vandalize the accuser’s parent’s home or act out our rage and frustration we simply make it harder on the victim’s families and the neighborhood that is already wounded. It is very painful to the neighborhood and our community when someone lashes out against Gardner’s families’ home. Think about how the entire community is affected. This is the same neighborhood that suffered horrible losses a few years back from the Witch Creek wild fires.
It is natural and normal to feel frustrated and want to strike out. But it just thwarts the system if we do. We must take the harder more laborious and difficult steps to overturn bad laws, change systems and help make our society better.
Let’s learn what we can do to make it safer.
We owe it to Chelsea and the King family to be as calm, mindful and supportive as possible now. The Kings are now facing the most difficult and trying time, we can scarcely imagine. They have so much work and planning to attend to to put their lovely child to rest. Please let’s all make an effort to help them and see what we can do to help our community and San Diego to recover and move forward to a brighter future.
I am posting a video of a confrontation today at the home of John Gardner’s family. We must try and remain calm and think and take action on behalf of Chelsea, for Amber and their families and for all vulnerable people who are at risk of predators.
