Awareness for the professionals

Being totally aware of one's surroundings at all times is most important when it comes to personal safety and personal security, and this is not only so on unfamiliar ground.

In our sister publication, the “Safety & Security Review” online, I have tackled this earlier in 2007, from the aspect and angle of individual, non-professional personnel, level. I shall now repeat this, so to speak, with some advice for the professionals, having noticed that amongst those similar problems seem to be present.

Your security is only as good as you are. You must always remember that. This applies to your home security, base security as well as and especially your personal security.

Nothing, not even the best technology, can ever substitute for your own vigilance.

I have seen security officer dawdling about, engaged in conversation with a partner, or on a cell phone or radio – and not just standard industry security officers – being nigh on oblivious to their surroundings, like so many civilians.

Step out of your vehicle only when you are sure there is no one lurking around in such a way that he or she could be a threat to you when exiting your vehicle. The same when you step out of a building or complex that you are guarding when going to check on the outside. It would, I am sure, not be the first time that, unbeknown to an officer, someone was lurking outside and, by pushing a guard back into the building, for instance, gains entry to a, supposedly, secure area. Check and double check your surroundings before you do anything.

You are more in danger, in my view, in surroundings that are familiar to you, such as your “home turf”, what the villains in England would call “manor”, at your place of work, than in a strange neighborhood or even town or country. This also applies to the officer on the beat. Why is that? Because on your home manor, the area that you move in every day you are more relaxed, as a rule, and your personal security perimeter is closer and you let people come closer to you than that would be the case if you were moving thru an area unfamiliar to you. On our home patch we very often let our guard down and don't perceive the threats that may be lurking as quickly as we would in other instances. But this guard must not slip. Towards people you know personally and with who you are on friendly terms even if as acquaintances only the guard can be lowered, probably, for even friends and family can and will betray you, but anyone in your own area that you do not know must be perceived as a potential threat.

For the professional vigilance in your own garden, on your landing, if you live in an apartment, in your own roads, has to be as acute and sharp as in unfamiliar territory and/or when on duty. The professional law enforcer, security officer, doorman, and the like, can be a target, because of his job on the job as well as off the job, and the family of such can be targets for the villains too. Many know that only too well, especially those that served in the then Ulster Constabulary, now Police Service of Northern Ireland, who found themselves and their families and homes targets for bombs and attacks by small arms, rocket launchers and targets for kidnap. We can never allow our vigilance to slip, not even for a moment.

Always watch your six o'clock!, as they say. Make it a habit to look behind you every so often, develop good peripheral vision and learn to be totally aware of your surroundings at all times.

I have personally made it to a habit, whether on-duty or off-duty, to come to a semi-stop and to turn around rather sharp and abruptly frequently, though in an unpredictable manner and pattern, to ensure than I am not being followed, stalked and targeted, and that not only in unfamiliar surroundings but even in places that I know and where I live. I probably do this more so when it is getting darker or in the mornings before it is fully light but I also do do that rather as a norm during daylight hours. I am sure people must think me rather strange for doing this but, if I do it for my protection and security; not to please people and I am not concerned as to what they may think.

Too many people who do become victims of a crime are not aware (enough) of their surroundings and especially nowadays are rather distracted, mostly by the fact that they have earphones on listening to their MP3 players, which are often turned up way too loud with the high volume making them deaf to their surroundings, or are chatting on the cell phones. Not only are those people deaf to their surroundings but they are in fact most of the time entirely oblivious to what is going on around them and move, it seems, entirely in a little world of their own. Anyone behaving like that might as well be wearing a sign saying, “target” on their back.

Not only is anyone who is distracted by having an MP3 player plugged into his or her ears or engrossed in a cell phone conversation a potential victim of a crime, he or she is also an accident waiting to happen. Often one can see those people totally oblivious to their surrounding stepping into the road into the traffic.

I have seen this also with LEOs jogging off-duty in the parks. They too are “plugged in” and “wired for sound” and become then entirely oblivious to what is going on around then, just like ordinary “civilians”.

Do not make yourself a victim – and this also applies to the professional. Be aware of what is going on around you at all times.

Ambulance and Fire crews too must be aware of this. We have encountered situation before where they have been targeted simple because they were there and also because they were more concerned about the incident they were attending than there own personal safety when exiting their vehicles for instance.

The ordinary First Aider gets taught in training to first check his or her surrounding before going and dealing with the victim. Why? Because personal safety and security must be paramount. You cannot help the victim, in any way, shape or form, if you yourself become a victim.

So, let's be careful out there, as they used to say in our briefings.

© M V Smith, 2007