Good evening Folks. Hope all are well and staying safe. Please note that I now have a new Email address. That is njbelson1@aol.com. All telephone numbers remain the same.  Stay Safe!  Norm

Please forgive me for not writing last month. To be perfectly honest, it has taken over two months before I could write this with any degree of objectivity. My wife and I retired from the U.S. Army in February 1982. We moved into a rental in Pinellas County, Florida for six months while we diligently searched for a nice, quiet, friendly, safe neighborhood to settle down and complete the development of our four children into responsible adults. After months of searching, we located a home in Clearwater that exactly fit the bill and was the perfect location to finish raising our children. Since we moved into our home, the neighborhood has remained safe, secure and friendly. We had the usual; some theft of outdoor Christmas decorations, occasional parties that became a little too loud, a brief outbreak of auto burglaries and speeding young drivers. During this time as well as previously, we would comfort the children when they would have nightmares after the Halloween type movi! es and reassure them there were no monsters and it was all make believe. The children would all be comforted in their turn and go back to sleep secure that Mom and Dad never lie. Well, we lied! We lied about people like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Son of Sam David Berkowitz and "Pineapple Boy" (nickname). You may not recognize the name of 17 year old Pineapple Boy but he was the monster that visited our nice, secure, safe neighborhood on May 22, 2001, and changed our neighborhood forever. This scumbag walked down our nice safe street at 9AM that day, entered the unsecured backyard of our neighbors and good friends and then entered the home through an unsecured window in the rear of the house. He was able to prowl the house for hours undisturbed because the home was not alarmed. This was unfortunate because there were neighbors home in a 360 degree arc that could have, may have, would have reacted if the alarm had sounded. He was familiar with the home and residents, knew the! ir daily routines and that there were firearms in the home. During that time, he was able to locate the safe, locate the combination to the safe and then obtain the loaded firearms stored therein. The father, my good friend and neighbor of 16 years, was not supposed to be home until 5PM but unexpectedly came home for lunch and was taken at gunpoint. Shortly after that, my wife started for our neighbors so that she could harass him due to the strange way he parked his car in the garage. She was 10 feet away when she changed her mind and walked into our home instead. The sweet and innocent 14 year old daughter arrived home at approximately 2:30PM, walked into her home and noticed sleeping bags on the floor by the front door but before she could approach them, the scumbag felon, with 17 prior felony arrests, took her at gunpoint, terrorized her for over an hour and committed an assault (remember the definition of assault) on her. The mother then came home, walked into her house! and noticed the sleeping bags on the floor by the front door but she was also taken at gunpoint before she could investigate. The mother and daughter were then held at gunpoint for over an hour while being threatened with death. The mother and daughter successfully negotiated with the scumbag for their lives and convinced him that he could avoid capture if he fled. The mother gave him the car keys to the husband's car and he then fled. They then discovered the husband's body under the sleeping bags at the front door, called my wife who ran over to the home, went inside, removed the two victims from the scene, returned to check on the husband and then moved them to safety in our home. She called 911 and then me and then my son. I arrived home a few minutes later and noticed rescue units staged at the end of the block and two sheriff's cruisers in front of the neighbors. My wife ran into our yard and advised that our neighbor, my buddy, had been shot. I pulled my concealed we! apon, ran into the house, stood over his body and was confronted by the uniformed deputies who were clearing the scene looking for the killer. Then of course, my son ran into the home with his firearm to back me up. Fortunately, we both survived my major "Hat Rack" event without getting shot. Well, that was May 22, 2001. The event is still sharp and unsettling. These are the events that I always experience in other neighborhoods with someone else's neighbors. It is vastly different when it is your home, your neighbors and your wife. I always tell my students that violent, senseless crime can occur anywhere. That is no longer an intellectual statement! There are major lessons to be learned from this tragedy:
     1. If you have an alarm system, use it! If you do not have one, get one. I recommend Suncoast Security (Joe Pine  727-784-1717) (Goods & Services List Provider) because it is an excellent, effective and reasonably priced system. Just get one, if not Joe's. The major advantage is the tremendous uncertainty created in the mind of the scumbag when the alarm sounds. Remember the cockroach theory.     
     2. Consider Mylar Glass Gard (Tony Davis at Glass Protection Services (813-629-2109) (Goods & Services List Provider). The Mylar serves to significantly reduce the possibility of easy, silent forced entry as well as major protection in the event of storms and increased energy efficiency.
     3. Keep your fences in good order and locked. There is very little value in an unlocked gate. Keep shrubs, bushes and plants well trimmed to preclude concealment. Make sure that you have motion sensing lights in place and in good order.
     4. Conduct a thorough review of your home's security status to include the grounds, perimeter, and interior. Don't forget that the best security is "layered." Pay particular attention to securing those items and systems that you need to keep secured. These items would include safe combinations, passwords, cash, firearms, jewelry, bank books, credit cards, etc. Consider a security survey for both your home and business either by me, another professional or even by the crime prevention section of your servicing law enforcement agency. As a matter of interest, my wife and I have always been security conscious. However, after this disaster we did a complete review ourselves and found a number of areas that we needed to tighten up.
     5. Plan with your family for emergencies such as fire, natural disaster, intruders and other possible emergency situations. This planning should include home defense, escape and rendezvous points after escape. Remember this-the only really important possession in your home is your family. Property is only that!
     6. Finally, please remember that there is always a tendency to relax at home. That is your secure area, your castle, your refuge! That haven also has the potential to lull you into a false sense of security with possible disastrous effects. This "safe haven" effect was distinctly noticeable during the Viet Nam war. Most successful ambushes occurred within 100 yards of the base camp!
In summary Folks, it is OK to lie to your children about the absence of monsters, but please do not lie to yourself!  Stay Safe!

  STAY SAFE AND GOD BLESS AMERICA

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