Doug M. Cummings's Blog

To M's Former Friends,

The fact I'm writing this should tell you something. What you've done to M has had its first unintended consequence. It's been noticed by an adult you have never met.

What's that mean to you? Hard to tell. If I've heard about it, I'm sure others at your school know. Your other friends, for example. And their friends. Random parents. Your teachers. Other teachers and staff. Gossip gets around. You should know, right?

The word's out. You're a bully. People know that you very nearly pushed a friend...not just "another girl" but a friend who trusted you...to hurt herself.

You may not notice the different way they look at you. You may not hear them whisper about you behind your back. How they point you out to their friends and colleagues and say, "I always thought she was pretty cool but then she bullied M . . ." How people who you like and respect suddenly start avoiding you. "How can I trust her? She might treat me the same way."

What's all this mean to you? Maybe nothing right now. Maybe you'll get away with what you did. Maybe you and your parents will laugh it all off and forget about it.

But you know something? Every time you treat a friend the way you treated M . . . and you will do it again because bullies seldom change as they get older (it's pathological, you see) . . . more people will notice. They'll realize the kind of person you are. They'll talk behind your back.

"How can we hire her? She's not trustworthy." and "I love her but she bullies people . . . I can't marry someone like that."

You're a bully.

And one of these days, that's going to bite you in the ass.

When I got a news alert text this morning that said two journalists had been murdered while reporting live on-air, I thought it must have happened in another country. Perhaps Mexico where the drug cartels do their best to terrorize the news media.

Thirty years spent dealing with brutal events has dulled my shock reaction but these killings nailed me. It's the "coulda been me" thing. I've done TV live shots. I know the concentration they require. Perhaps at a scene of some breaking news, where I spent most of my career, the circumstances would have been different but I doubt it. You focus on your subject, the directions coming over your earpiece and the questions you plan to ask. So while I preach situational awareness, I've stood in their shoes. It's understandable why these young journalists didn't see the threat approaching. They had no reason to worry and their attention was on the task at hand. As with so many crime and terror victims, they were taken before they had a chance to comprehend the evil that stalked them.

There's something else that strikes me about this tragedy. I've watched WDBJ's anchors, reporters and even bosses cover what happened to their colleagues. It's a small-market station but this is a news team that stepped up to cover the story in the most professional way possible. These aren't seasoned anchors and reporters, either. Many appear to be not long out of school. What resilience and what love they've shown to Allison and Adam by telling the story the best way they possibly can.

About the shooter . . . I don't care. Much will be said. Fingers will be pointed at the "heartless, selfish, vicious (insert the descriptor of choice) gun advocates who allowed this to happen." Maybe we'll even hear calls for regulation of cameras like the one he used to create his horrendous snuff film. That's all meaningless to me.

This sort of evil can't be stopped unless it's by pure random chance. Whether by gun, knife, fire-axe hammer, or motor vehicle, vicious people will continue coming out of the woodwork to do their deadly deeds.

All we can do is try to remember these wonderful young people, feel the sadness of their loss and, if so inclined, pray for peace for their families and friends.

And for ourselves.

A woman in suburban Chicago was stopped by what she thought was an unmarked squad car earlier this week but, instead of being ticketed for an infraction, the "officer" robbed her.

She's actually very lucky that all she lost was her purse (and peace of mind). Police impersonators can be a deadly threat. The problem is . . . we've always been taught to "pull to the right and stop" for flashing lights in our rear view mirror.

There's no question: you must stop for the police, whether they are in a marked or unmarked car. Don't ever try to speed away. If you are worried about being victimized by an impersonator, follow these steps.

Always know your location. You'd be surprised how many people are clueless about their surroundings.

If the lights come on behind you, call 9-1-1. Tell the dispatcher that there is a car trying to pull you over and you're not sure they are the real police.

Provide your exact location including the name of the town. The town name is important because mobile 9-1-1 calls are not always routed to the nearest police jurisdiction. The dispatcher you're talking to can transfer the call immediately but you must provide precise location information.

Put your hazard lights on and continue driving (slowly) to a well-lighted thoroughfare, busy parking lot or even the closest police station. Tell the 9-1-1 dispatcher what you're doing and that you are willing to pull over as soon as you verify the stop is legitimate.

Once you stop, if you are still concerned you're dealing with an impersonator, even if the officer is in uniform, keep your door locked, lower your window just enough to converse, and ask to see his or her official identification. Of course if several officers arrive, especially in multiple cars, you can be assured you're safe.

If you act reasonably and comply with all of the officer's requests once you confirm the stop is legitimate, the fact you called 9-1-1 will provide a record that you were willing to comply with the law but that you were attempting to do so safely.

(Reprinted and Updated)

There's a heightened terror alert this Fourth of July weekend. Even if you consider it absurd that you or a loved one could be victimized by a terrorist act or other mass violence, why not keep an open mind for as long as it takes to review these tips about what to do if the unthinkable does happen?

*Don’t block your intuitive sensors by covering them with headphones or distracting them with text messages.
*Stay alert to your surroundings, especially on the street, in shopping malls, sporting events . . . anywhere a crowd gathers.
*Watch people. Does something catch your eye about specific individuals? Clothing? Manner? What are they carrying? What are they doing? Watch their hands and movements.
*Pay attention to the noise level. Ambient noise will change dramatically if there’s danger. You may not hear shots but you may hear screams. The shriek of a child is one thing. Consider sustained screaming at escalating volume as a warning.
*Keep track of the nearest exits and how to reach them. Note places to take cover along the way. In an emergency, knowing the exits and moving swiftly toward them may save your life.
*Consider shopping at non-peak hours. At concerts or theaters arrive as late as possible and leave before the show ends. Attackers tend to target venues when the largest numbers of potential victims are present.
*Be aware that an initial attack may be followed by others as first responders race to the scene. Get out as fast as you can.
*Don’t get caught in a stampede. At the first sign of trouble, move to a wall and stay there until the crowd passes or you spot a closer exit. If there is gunfire, or you can’t reach a wall in time, find a fixed barricade or object that's anchored to the floor and get behind it.
*Always choose a gathering place outside the venue for the people in your group.
*As hard as it might be to do, make a conscious effort to stay calm. Breathe in for ten seconds. Hold it briefly. Breathe out for ten seconds. The higher your pulse rate the more difficult to make fast, rational decisions.
*For more on staying safe, check out my website and new book Escaping the O-Zone.
http://www.amazon.com/Escaping-Zone-I...

http://ow.ly/Mhyy8

This video was purportedly shot in Baltimore. The question asked is...what would YOU do if caught in that situation?

First: Don't get "caught." If you want to stay out of trouble, stay out of places where trouble is happening.

Second: Situational awareness begins before you leave home. Starting your day by checking/watching the news is always a good tactic. Know what's happening in your world, your neighborhood and any place you plan to visit.

Third: It's especially essential to be aware of what's going on when traveling. For example, in Spain, make sure they aren't running the bulls on the street where you're planning to stroll. If you have no access to news, ask locals if there are places you should not go.

Fourth: Leave headphones at home. Stay off your phone. Pay attention to the look and sounds of the neighborhood. Are crowds celebrating or causing a disturbance? Is there an unusual police presence? Do the cops seem calm or on edge? Regular uniforms or riot gear?

Fifth: Every time you enter a new establishment, find the exits. Plan where you will go in an emergency. If violence erupts outside, get away from the windows. Don't hesitate or question yourself. Pay attention to directions from employees.

Sixth: Get to an interior safe place, whether it's behind an overturned table, counter or bar or even a back room. If there's an exit that will take you away from the disturbance, use it.

Know where you're going, stay aware of your surroundings and always have a plan for how you'll react if the unthinkable occurs.

Domestic abuse often starts on the first date. Sometimes it's obvious . . . sometimes not.
Here are some of the signs that may indicate you’ve encountered an abusive person – male or female:
1. Does he sound too good to be true when you first speak to him? Ernest Hemingway offered this advice: “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
2. Listen completely to his story. Sometimes, if you let them talk long enough, liars will reveal the truth inadvertently. Pay particular attention to what he jokes about. If his sense of humor is crude or vulgar or shows negativity or disrespect to women, especially if it’s during your first conversation, that’s your clue to listen more closely…but at a distance.
3. Does he ask questions that make you uncomfortable? Try to get you to reveal more about yourself than you want to share? Does he ignore your wishes if you ask for a change of subject? Similarly, does he seem evasive when you ask the questions?
4. If you’re talking online or by phone, does he insist on meeting in person immediately? If he does, and you resist the idea, does he attempt to make you feel guilty or tease you about being uptight?
5. Does he seem immature? Jealous? Possessive?
6. Does he engage in “forced teaming” or start talking in terms of “we” and “us” sooner than you would expect?
7. If you agree to meet him for a first date, does he try to set the place and time and insist on being alone with you? If you’ve met him at a bar, club or party, does he try to separate you from your friends?
8. If you choose to spend time with him, notice how he interacts with servers, cab drivers, valet parking attendants and other service professionals. Does he treat them courteously and tip appropriately or does he have a short temper and little patience? How does he interact with women, especially?
9. In the stories he tells, does he always seem to place blame on others or be the victim of some sort of abuse?
10. Does he react negatively if you speak to other men, or your female friends, while you’re with him?
11. Does he ignore your physical boundaries, especially in public? Does he react with anger if you tell him no?
12. Does he slap and/or twist arms?
13. It’s always wise to let friends know that you’re meeting someone for the first time. It’s not a bad idea to snap a photo of your date and even the license plate on his car. If you try to do so, does he react with anger or respect that you are concerned for your safety?

If you fear for your safety, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

Excerpted from; Escaping the O/Zone, Intuition, Situational Awareness and Staying Safe.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

I do entire presentations about watching out for bad guys. Unsafe places are just as dangerous. For example, predators hang out in, and near, drinking establishments because they provide a target-rich environment but club managers can put you at just as much risk by failing to properly train their employees and by ignoring safety regulations. That can quickly lead to overcrowding, blocked exits, and fire hazards.

Cases in point: in February 2003, security guards used pepper spray to break up a fight at Chicago’s E-2 nightclub. The fumes caused many in the crowd to believe the club had been attacked by terrorists using poison gas. Panic ensued and fifteen-hundred people stampeded for the exits. Twenty-one people died in a pile-up at the foot of a flight of stairs leading to the closed front door. Less than a week later, a nightclub fire in Rhode Island killed 100 people.

Thankfully, such tragic events are not common but even a fist fight in a crowded establishment can escalate and, if weapons come into play, injure far more than the original combatants. Therefore, it’s imperative you stay tuned in to your surroundings. That should begin when you walk through the front door.

First, assess geographical details of the place you plan to party.How does the neighborhood look? Do the premises feel secure to you? Is the establishment’s main entrance wide and do the doors open outward for easy exit? (The front door at the E2 nightclub improperly opened inward.) Does the interior of the club appear to be in good shape or is it run down? Are tables crammed so closely together that movement between them is restricted? Are there side and rear exits? Are they clearly marked and well lit?

Locate every route to the outside. Check to make sure exit doors are not chained or blocked by furniture or other obstacles. If they are, notify management. Leave immediately if the folks in charge aren’t willing to address the issue.

If possible, sit near an exit you’ve verified is accessible and plan the route you’ll use to get to it in an emergency. In the event of a fire or power outage, you may have to make your way in the dark. For that reason, it’s always a good idea to carry a small flashlight in your pocket or purse.

At the first sign of trouble . . . an alarm, fire, smoke or a violent disturbance . . . react without hesitation. Get out and stay out, no matter what.

((Excerpted from: Escaping the O/Zone: Intuition, Situational Awareness and Staying Safe https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...))

Do you feel safe where you worship? Two years ago, I helped put together a health and safety team for our church in suburban Chicago. We had several minor incidents, mostly involving panhandlers, prior to the team’s creation. We have been blessedly trouble free since the team has been in service.If your place of worship has experienced car break-ins, panhandlers bothering your leaders, or even threats to members of the congregation, statistics complied by the National Organization for Church Safety and Security Management (NOCSSM) indicate you’re not alone. Sadly, violence is no stranger to places of worship.If you’re considering ways to keep your congregation safe, here is some of the takeaway from our experiences over the past two years:
Have a plan. As with most human endeavors involving more than two people, it’s wise to create guidelines. In our case, church elders wanted paperwork in hand before they would allow us to proceed. A policy statement also helped the church’s insurance carrier when we requested an additional liability rider. One rule we wrote immediately was that team members who are not law-enforcement officers would not carry weapons. Another that took a little longer to realize was inclusion of our health professionals and a name change from safety to health and safety.Choose members wisely. We look for regular attendees who have law-enforcement, safety or medical backgrounds and those who may serve in a similar, or volunteer, capacity at their place of employment (divisional safety monitors, building fire marshals). Students are often eager to step forward. The goal is to attract prayerful, serious, but friendly individuals who easily interact with the rest of the congregation. What we don’t want is “church cops.” Good observational and people skills are excellent qualifiers. So is medical training.Decide appropriate staffing based on your neighborhood risk assessment, the size of your facility and the number of attendees. We’re fortunate that a number of our ushers are also safety team members and that allows flexibility in scheduling. Our goal is to be unobtrusive but always available.What equipment is required? While we don’t arm our personnel (some larger places of worship do and the conversation is worth having), we ask that everyone carry a cell phone and a durable flashlight. We also assign each member a two-way radio. The radios, along with their “secret service style” ear buds and microphones may seem unnecessary in a small facility but we decided to use them because they free us from fumbling with phones when moments count. Radios allow us to stay in immediate touch with one another. We can also alert the office and Sunday School classrooms with the push of a button in the event of an emergency. The ear buds make it easy for members to participate in the service, if they wish, and still hear and communicate with the team. The radios serve a more subtle function, too. Along with our ID badges, they identify us both to the congregation and to any outsiders with a non-spiritual agenda.Establish a routine and stick with it, no matter how unnecessary it may seem. Assume anything could happen. It probably won’t but, if it does, you’ll have a plan in place to deal with it. We check all doors and all rooms, especially rest rooms, constantly. We monitor exterior doors nearest the children’s church. Team members stroll the parking lot to assist arriving and departing worshippers, especially the seniors, and to make sure we intercept strangers with ill intent. Members are on duty in the foyer as long as the church’s doors are open. We have procedures in place for fire, weather and intruder emergencies and to protect our pastors.Cooperate with public safety officials. We met with local police shortly after we formed the team. We shared the names and phone numbers of pastors, elders and safety leaders as well as facilities information critical for first responders. We also provided blueprints of the building. We work with the fire department on maintaining our alarm systems and conducting emergency evacuation drills.Meet regularly and train together as a team. Our members are CPR and AED certified and have attended workshops on a variety of topics relevant to our mission with instructors that include police officers and former federal agents. Our health volunteers include a doctor, nurses, eldercare specialists, a physical therapist and a combat medic. A health professional is seated in an easy to reach pew in the sanctuary each Sunday. A well-stocked first aid kit is available in the office with smaller kits in each classroom.
Flexibility is crucial to any health and safety operation. To cover all the bases, think like an outsider, imagine everything that could go wrong on any given Sunday and how you’ll respond if it does, keep smiling and stay in touch with the Lord!

I started a safety ministry at my church. I worship in a Chicago suburb. Unlike the village of Wisaka that I created for my Harry Cork crime novels, it’s a relatively quiet community. Our church is surrounded on three sides by trees and behind them are upscale homes on wooded lots. In summer particularly, it feels like we’re in a forest. Standing in the parking lot, in fact, it’s hard for me to believe we’re only a couple of blocks from a major thoroughfare and not much farther from the busy Illinois Tollway.Our location is one reason I started thinking about protecting our property and our people. You never know who might stop by to prey.An encounter with a wannabe-burglar helped me decide to move forward with the idea. I was ushering one Sunday when our church administrator told us the police had notified her of some vehicle break-ins at nearby churches. Sure enough, I was standing outside the front door during the service when an unmarked white van entered the parking lot, drove slowly up and down the rows of cars, and finally stopped at the curb near me. The individual who got out was so obviously intending to do wrong he could have had a cartoon arrow pointing at him from above with the caption: “Not here for the sermon.” I intercepted him with a smile. He grinned back, checking me out like a vacuum cleaner salesman, and started his spiel. That digressed into a brief argument, followed by him shoving me, then him landing on the ground. We negotiated his quiet departure. We later learned he had been banned from every other church in the village.Other less volatile visitors appeared over the next few months: a marijuana-addled driver, a panhandler (and her “daughter”) and a crew attempting to distribute leaflets on cars. After consulting with the associate pastor, I asked a police officer member of the congregation to work with me and we formed a small group of concerned church colleagues into a safety committee. Subsequently, we added most of the congregation’s medical folks and changed our name to the Health and Safety Team. It’s “safety” and not “security” because our mission is as much to prevent slip and falls in an icy parking lot and make sure all the kids walk, not run, through the halls as it is to keep bad people from crossing our threshold. We expect to deal more with bloody noses and diabetics needing a cup of juice than gun wielding thugs. At least, we pray we do. Thankfully, so far that’s all it’s been.
In tomorrow’s blog, I’ll give you an idea of what we’ve accomplished . . . and some ideas to consider for your own place of worship.

I'm far from an expert but I enjoy shooting and go to the range regularly. As a gun enthusiast, I don't like seeing easily avoidable gun mistakes in the crime novels I read.

Suppressors, for example, are not used with revolvers because they require the closed chamber of a semi-automatic to muffle the noise of the shot. You'll note the device is not called a "silencer" except in Hollywood. That's because they suppress but do not silence. Check YouTube if you'd like to hear the sound they actually make. It may surprise you. I liken it to the noise of a screen door slamming.

Modern revolvers do not have external safeties which can be clicked on and off. Some semi-automatics do. The Beretta 92F is one of them. If one of your characters needs to manipulate a safety, I suggest you Google the make of weapon he or she will be using or, better yet, go to a gun store and ask if that weapon has a safety that can be manipulated.

Revolvers are no longer commonly issued to U.S. law enforcement officers. That said, check with the police department you're writing about; they may be the exception. Semi-automatics have a larger magazine capacity, often fifteen or more rounds compared to the six chambered in revolvers.

Where do police officers carry their weapons? While the agents on shows like NCIS-LA and NCIS-New Orleans whip guns from holsters at the back of their belts, the most common spot for real cops is on the belt on the officer's strongest side. Some officers carry two guns: for example one on their strong side, one in a shoulder holster on the opposite side. Backup weapons can also be carried in a pocket or an ankle holster, though I've found ankle holsters unwieldy when running.

As always, if you have gun questions, the best way to get answers is to ask the experts whether they be at a gun store or a police department. Whatever you do, don't depend on what you see on TV. Researching fiction by watching fiction . . . never a good idea.