{"id":445,"date":"2011-07-08T08:42:36","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T13:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hammerheadcombatsystems.org\/?p=445"},"modified":"2011-07-08T08:42:36","modified_gmt":"2011-07-08T13:42:36","slug":"the-predators-among-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/08\/the-predators-among-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The Predators Among Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Predators Among Us<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the recent headlines of\u00a0Laycee\u00a0Dugard\u00a0and\u00a0the murder and mutilation\u00a0of 8-year-old\u00a0Leiby\u00a0Kletzky\u00a0in Brooklyn, New York in his own neighborhood,\u00a0I thought it appropriate that we discuss the issue of child predators and the skills we need as parents and our kids need\u00a0to protect\u00a0themselves from these animals.\u00a0Since the mission of HCS is to empower the average civilian to defend himself and their family\/loved ones from all types of enemies, for those of us with children, this type of enemy tops the list In My Opinion\u00a0and must be our top\u00a0priority.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is we cannot be around our kids 24\/7, 365 and the training we are going to discuss is going to involve you sitting down with your kids and explaining it to them in a way they can understand. It is also going to involve doing drills a few times a month to drive home the point and keep it fresh in their minds. \u00a0There is a lot\u00a0of talk out there in the mainstream media about not putting “fear” into our children when something like this happens. I have to disagree with this. I think Fear is a healthy, natural instinct that needs to be used in any\u00a0survival situation. The issue is how we instill it into our children. I think by being brutally honest and not “sugar-coating” the story\u00a0with your children about what happened to little Leiby\u00a0and other children who have been kidnapped\u00a0and murdered,\u00a0including all the grisly details that you feel comfortable\u00a0sharing, \u00a0that fear will come naturally and your kids will realize that monsters do exist, and they are not living in the closet or under their beds, but are roaming the streets in their own neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

The other big argument since all of this happened is “How young is too young for kids to walk home by themselves?”\u00a0I realize this happened in New York State, but If you look at what\u00a0Texas State\u00a0Law\u00a0states in relation to Child Endangerment or Child Abandonment,\u00a015 years of age\u00a0\u00a0is the “cut off” age\u00a0in the State of Texas. By “Endangerment” or “Abandonment” the legal definition is\u00a0“To Leave a child in any place without providing reasonable and necessary care for the child.” (Texas Penal Code 22.041).\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Granted, I do not think the Kletsky\u00a0parents were intentionally trying to endanger Leiby, but trying to give him the independence of being a “big boy” that\u00a0as parents we all want to try to instill in our kids around the ages of 8-10 and allow\u00a0them to walk home from school or\u00a0summer camp. Unfortunately, I think the days of letting kids (Under the age of 15) walk home alone and be anywhere in public alone or unsupervised\u00a0are over. There is no other way around it. Do Kids over the age of 15 get abducted and murdered?\u00a0Sure, but the statistics are much\u00a0lower than kids between the ages of 6 and 13 according to the\u00a0FBI National\u00a0Database for\u00a0Missing and Exploited Children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So let’s get down to the nuts and bolt’s of keeping our kids safe:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Never leave them unattended or alone in a public or other\u00a0place that you do not trust. There is no grey area here. You are the parent and in charge of keeping your kid’s safe, not your friends or babysitter and certainly not\u00a0the police.<\/li>\n
  2. KNOW your neighbors as much as you can, if\u00a0 they are “stand-off” type \u00a0people, if you can get a name and address, you can get\u00a0 a history\/criminal\u00a0profile online for $10. It is your right to know who lives around you and your kids. Remember:\u00a0A Majority of time, it is people who know the child or have interacted with the child that commit these crimes, people who see them every day. Always try to Trust but Always\u00a0VERIFY.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Stay updated on your states child’s sex offender database, In Texas, it can be located\u00a0HERE<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. Teach your Kids the basics of\u00a0Avoidance and Awareness.\u00a0AVOID<\/strong>\u00a0dangerous places and DANGEROUS people (a good time to discuss choosing their friends wisely), and\u00a0always be\u00a0AWARE<\/strong>\u00a0of their surroundings, wherever they are.<\/li>\n
  5. Have regular talks with your kids about strangers and what do IF someone tries to approach them or touch them. Have role playing\u00a0drills a couple times\u00a0a month where you play the “bad man or woman”. Make sure they know who to go to in an emergency.\u00a0Do not be afraid to teach them to be\u00a0VIOLENT and LOUD\u00a0(draw attention to the situation) to defend themselves, things that normally would be banned, should be encouraged: Yelling,\u00a0Biting, Kicking in the genital area, poking in the eyes, etc. Teach them to fight dirty, after all, they are fighting for their lives…\u00a0I train my kids twice a\u00a0week in Combatives, which are very simple yet brutal techniques for self-defense. Be cautious of SOME\u00a0Karate and Tae-Kwon-Do Classes, which mainly do not teach self-defense, but competition sparring for points, which is great for\u00a0competition, but does little for effective\u00a0street self-defense. I am a big fan of Krav-Maga, which is a form of\u00a0Combative “street” self-defense developed by a Jewish man to defend himself against Nazi attacks.<\/li>\n
  6. When there is a story on the news about a tragedy such as Leiby\u00a0Kletsky, use it a tool to teach your kids that there are people out there who DO Hurt and Kill\u00a0children.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The bottom line is we need to bring this issue\u00a0to our kid’s attention as often as we can. The world is getting worse, not better, it is just a fact of life that we need to accept. Remember:\u00a0Preparedness in All Things.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Predators Among Us With the recent headlines of\u00a0Laycee\u00a0Dugard\u00a0and\u00a0the murder and mutilation\u00a0of 8-year-old\u00a0Leiby\u00a0Kletzky\u00a0in Brooklyn, New York in his own neighborhood,\u00a0I thought it appropriate that we discuss the issue of child predators and the skills we need as parents and our kids need\u00a0to protect\u00a0themselves from these animals.\u00a0Since the mission of HCS is to empower the average civilian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13],"tags":[96,97,98,99,100,101,102],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}