Wednesday, January 19, 2011

911? No. 1911.

Blogson Colin sent me a link to this story. Chilling, indeed.

Woman Waits 35 Minutes On 911 While Intruder Breaks In
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. - A Williamson County woman fought off an intruder with a vacuum cleaner. She was desperate for help, waiting for almost 35 minutes for law enforcement to arrive.

The single mom described that 35 minutes like the scene of a horror movie as she watched a man walk from windows to doors doing anything to break in to her home.
Thought#1: This is in TN. Why did she have a vacuum cleaner instead of a shotgun?
Thought#2: That would be a horror movie of sorts for me as well. If someone were casing my house, looking for a way to break in, and taking his sweet time about it? I'd drive myself nuts trying to pick which gun to use...
"Well, the Bushmaster has two 30-round magazines loaded with FMJ .223 Remington. On the other hand, the Mossberg has 8 rounds of 00 buckshot and a bayonet. Of course, I could load up the Mosin Nagant M44 - it has a bayonet *and* I can replace it for under $100 if it *disappears* in custody. Decisions, decisions!"
Kidding aside, it's unconscionable that it took 14 minutes to get a cop to her house when someone was breaking in. I don't buy the budget cuts excuse - in fact, it almost makes it sound like they let this woman dangle while they took their time; certainly a story this dramatic would amplify their request for additional manpower, no? This woman is extremely lucky that the person breaking into her house didn't have a weapon and was scared off by a vacuum cleaner - two women and a young girl at the mercy of some unknown stranger is a bone-chilling thought.

*YOU* are your first, last, and only line of defense. The police cannot and will not be available to protect you 24/7; the courts have ruled that the police have no obligation to even respond to your pleas for help. Not having a plan for a break-in is just as irresponsible for not planning escape routes in case of fire; not having a defensive arm available is no different than not having a fire extinguisher handy. You need the best tools available to you in the worst case scenario - this is not alarmist, or paranoid, or any other perjorative term the antis and nannies like to throw at is. Home invasions happen often enough that one should have a plan to deal with same.

And no, dialing 911 and praying that the cops get there before the unknown intruder bashes your skull in with a rock/slashes your throat with knife/beats you with a tire iron/shoots you and leaves you to die is not a plan.

That is all.

12 comments:

Andrew said...

To quote Instapundit: "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

Anonymous said...

I live in Williamson County, and can also attest to the long response times and skeleton crew maintained by the Sheriff's Office. Most of the law enforcement dollars spent here go to Franklin and Brentwood city police, and 911 dispatchers regularly botch which department has jurisdiction. It's a big county with Franklin making a giant Swiss cheese hole in the middle, and due to the interstates, north and south travel is easy but east and west travel is mainly on 2-lane roads. Police forces are fairly small because the county is relatively crime-free, and there are lots of guns here too. ;-)

On the flip side, imagine being the 24 year old in jail once it's known some girls beat you back with a vacuum cleaner... thank goodness for dumb criminals.

AughtSix said...

"And no, dialing 911 and praying that the cops get there before the unknown intruder bashes your skull in with a rock/slashes your throat with knife/beats you with a tire iron/shoots you and leaves you to die is not a plan."

Sure, it's a plan. It's the default case. "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice," after all.

Jay G said...

Rush quote FTW!

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

Even more chilling, as I noted on Friday, at some point in his attempt he had to realize someone was home - if she could see him through the windows, it’s pretty certain he could see her – yet he continued to try to force his way in.

Just what was he planning on doing with a young, not unattractive woman and her child, when he had to know that she had already called the cops?

wolfwalker said...

"*YOU* are your first, last, and only line of defense."

And foolish liberal pacifists aside, no one else can possibly care as much about defending you as you do, except perhaps for a family member or VERY good friend.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Jay, this ain't that rare. When I had to shoot during my home invasion back in January 1983 in Virginia Beach, one of the reason's the 17 year old punk was convicted was the fact that, although I had called 911, armed myself,and stayed on the phone (Thank You Mas Ayoob!), it took over TEN minutes for the police to arrive. The Judge was not too happy to learn that my lawyer and I WALKED from the front door of my duplex to the front door of the 2nd. Precinct Station in less than SEVEN minutes.

FWIW, due to me being a non-resident member of the Military and the Virginia Handgun laws at the time, (basically, Handguns were Reserved for Virginians ONLY, and they had to be registered, very few CCW's, yada yada yada) the only thing I had was a Ruger 10/22 in its standard format. I reasoned that if 10 shots at close range wouldn't stop a Bad Guy, it would slow him down enough for me to beat him with it.

The only reason the kid lived was, when I pulled the trigger, I was John Wayne-ing, and fired from the hip. The shot missed the kid (who was trying to climb through the bedroom window he had broken, even though I was screaming that I had a gun) and nearly hit the cop (who had finally showed up). Morale of this story? Be Armed, Use Enough Gun, Use the Front Sight.

Anonymous said...

This Commercial came to mind.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLxWXJkq1c

Sabra said...

This is in TN. Why did she have a vacuum cleaner instead of a shotgun?

Because she is a single mom who lives with another single mom, and women are conditioned from infancy to believe that guns are inherently dangerous to us and to our children. Hogwash? Yep, but still the overwhelming message in a lot of places. Even though my dad owned several weapons, I wasn't taught to shoot. 'Cause, you know, I'm a girl. It is TN...it is a Southern state and a rural area, and probably a good ole boy sort of thing where men are men and the women are to wait for the men to protect them.

A fourteen-minute response time isn't too bad. Last time I had to get with 911, total response time was about 30 minutes, and I'm something like 3 miles from the local police substation. (That call was because someone was knocking on my doors/windows at 10:30 at night.) Of course, being that I'm married to whom I am married to, I was sitting there with a .45 to wait on the police. But with my first husband, I would not have been armed, 'cause, you know...girl.

DonF said...

What Andrew said.

Lawyer said...

Linked. It's a great follow up to something I posted yesterday.

Anonymous said...

And Jay, in your weapon selection running interior monologue, were you channeling Black Jack Cutter from the mid-seventies movie "Hawmps"?

Hunter
Ketchikan, Alaska