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This horrible event really hits home. We were out to dinner with our newly married son and his wife. I had just read MINDHUNTER (a must read for all women) by John Douglas,FBI profiler and started discussing the book. One of the tips that was given was (if you are attacked in a public area, fight, scream, do whatever you have to do and be PREPARED TO DIE WHERE YOU ARE, you will have a better chance of survival,because if you are taken you will suffer beyond anything imaginable.

Just a week later our DIL was carjacked at a Home Depot parking lot about noon. She was putting garden pots in her trunk and was driving a convertible. As she shut the trunk a black man came up behind her and offered to take her cart which he did. She thanked him thinking he worked at the store. As soon as she got in the car, he jumped in and told her to “DRIVE”. She was in absolute shock unable to move and he screamed it again. So she backed out and directed the car to the front of the store, deciding she would ram the store if she had to but she was not going to be taken. As she got closer she said she “screamed for help,”. A worker said he barely heard her but knew she was in trouble. He ran to the car opened the driver side and pulled her out and she ran. The perp jumped to the driver side, there was a struggle and then he pulled a gun on the worker who ran. The guy peeled out of the parking lot took off to the freeway. Several miles later he wrecked the car, jumped out and hid in the weeds. Helicopters and cops were everywhere around the car. Then he ran to a running cop car and took it, wrecking it several miles later, he was injured and arrested.

We have no doubt that had she left with him she would have been injured or killed. The way she reacted when it was happening, was because of our discussion at dinner several days earlier which is a miracle. Seriously, the book possibly saved her life. Another tip in the book is NEVER park next to a white van without windows or if you return to your car and there is a white van next to your car, DO NOT GO TO YOUR CAR, return to the store. I follow this advice every day since.

Horrible and shocking. Think about being too scared to utter anything or so scared you scream but nothing comes out. It isn’t normal for a normal person to go into rage defense mode. We think we might crash the car or something but that is not in the midst of the event. You have to at least think about it before hand and rehearse your response or at least part of your response.

Yeah, the book probably saved her life. The insurance aftermath of all that will take ages to clean up. I’m sure the perp has all kinds of money to help out with the bills...of course not.

These vermin need to be exterminated for the blight on society and destroying the lives of decent people. I’m sure the POS is still an “alleged” kidnapper and a bunch of other things. How can anybody be scum enough to defend these people and twist the law to their advantage. Hear the evidence and make the judgement... guilty, BANG! Nothing but a corpse should leave the court room.

Create a massive scene has always been my plan. A security guard in Colombia tried to shake me down when I was flying to Venezuela and I responded as loudly as I could. It brought supervisors and people from every corner of the gate area. Minor event but it worked. I’ll try to stick with what works. I’ve had other experiences traveling the world but situational awareness and planning kept me safe. You never know where trouble will come from though.

In traveling the world I felt most uneasy in LA airport arriving from across the Pacific at night and returning to Houston to get my car and drive home.

I lived uptown in Houston for a bit and walked just three blocks to the train station for the ride downtown early in the mornings...treacherous just barely covers it. Pretending to not be scared was helpful and acting like I was keeping my hand on a gun helped but sadly I could not carry in the office or get past the office security scanner with a gun. The big problem along the walking route was a homeless mission. I pretty quickly gave up the reasonable idea of walking and drove the short distance to the office paying the ursuous rate for parking. Even at that, I had to warn off bums morning and evening since I often work late.

I’m done now, retired. It is 1/4 mile from the front gate to the house and anyone in that field of fire or anywhere else between my property line and the house unannounced or uninvited had better have a very good reason for being there. Anyone in that area at night frankly needs to be prepared to die because I will kill them. No question.

I worked at a bank downtown where parking was a major issue. A nearby parking deck gave bank employees a discount on a monthly rate and many employees parked there. Typical deck, multiple levels, a bit on the dark side.

A bank employee, beautiful woman, 7 months pregnant, went to her car to leave. She had a few shopping bags (she’d been out at lunch to nearby stores) she was getting ready to put in the car (keys in hand, not unlocked yet) when she noticed two guys approaching her (the ‘usual’ suspects, if you know what I mean). They demanded her keys - she handed them over, told them to take her purse & the car if they wanted it.

They demanded she get in the trunk. She knew if she did, she would not survive .... she also knew DO NOT LET THEM TAKE YOU ANYWHERE. She said ‘no’, she couldn’t do that, she was claustrophobic, got a little hysterical and kept refusing, making a scene. They realized they were not getting her quickly/easily into the trunk so they told her to get in the back seat. Again, she was making excuses, refusing, making a scene. She delayed them long enough that they were getting nervous other people would be coming into the garage and they gave up and ran. One was armed with a knife.

Our bank security director had several meetings with the women in the bank to have her tell what happened and to give us safety tips. He was a former police officer, very street wise (had done undercover stuff - boy did he have some stories!). Anyway. he said she did exactly the right things to string it out long enough they got nervous and to not let them get her in the car was absolutely critical to her outcome - do not let them take you anywhere. Fight for your life where you are ... “make them kill you where you are” (a quote from him) - hopefully, that doesn’t happen, but it likely will if they take you away. Women (and men) tend to comply, thinking surely they’ll have an opportunity to get away or something else will happen to change their circumstances. It doesn’t work out that way - typically the kidnap victim is taken to a secluded place, there could be even more people at that location, they have time to do what they want & then kill/dispose of the body.

Your DIL was very smart and fortunate. Glad she ended up ok. Good for the worker who rendered aid, too - often, that doesn’t happen ... people are afraid or don’t realize quickly enough what is going on.