Penny Dean and Your Rights

The “Run, Hide, Fight” campaign doesn’t adequately address the reality of an active shooter attack

With the tragic events in Orlando still weighing heavily on the nation, it’s important to review our policies and practices for active shooter and mass casualty incidents and look for areas to improve. Here’s what requires immediate attention: the public safety campaign which encourages potential victims to “Run, Hide, Fight.”

The “Run, Hide, Fight” campaign is a multi-agency effort, promoted most prominently through a widely-distributed training film produced by the City of Houston, with federal funding.

The film and model encourage a “soft” response to violence, preconditioning the victim to escape or hide as the preferred means of survival, rather than confronting the attacker with immediate counter-violence. Potential victims are taught that the risks associated with fighting an attacker are much greater than the risks from running away, so violence should only be used “as a last resort” when all of the other options have been tried, and failed.

Police in Oklahoma are deploying an electronic scanner that can drain currency from prepaid credit cards seized at the roadside using civil asset forfeiture laws.

The Electronic Recovery and Access to Data (ERAD) handheld scanner was developed at the request of the Department of Homeland Security for use by US border guards. But the gadget's maker is now marketing it to local and state police, and Oklahoma has bought 16 of the scanners for its highway patrol.

The reader can record data from any magstripe card – even down to hotel keys – and works with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, as well as Best Buy, Costco, Macy's and Walmart gift cards. Any funds found can be frozen or transferred directly to a law enforcement bank account "to protect the integrity of the evidence and ensure the funds are available for trial or forfeiture," ERAD's advertising states.

CHICAGO — Violent crimes — from homicides and rapes to robberies — have been on the rise in many major U.S. cities, yet experts can't point to a single reason why and the jump isn't enough to suggest there's a trend.

Still, it is stumping law enforcement officials, who are seeking a way to combat the problem.

"It's being reported on at local levels, but in my view, it's not getting the attention at the national level it deserves," FBI Director James Comey said recently. "I don't know what the answer is, but holy cow, do we have a problem."

Month after month after month we note that NICS background checks—a proxy for gun sales in the United States—keeps setting new records. Every single month, we have hundreds of thousands of more firearms in circulation, tens of thousands of more first-time gun buyers, more repeat buyers, and thousands of new concealed carry permits issued across the nation.

If the logic of gun control groups that “more guns equals more crime” held true, then this nation should be in the middle of a near civil war.

But we aren’t.

If 22-year-old Andre Smith thought he had found an easy target in 69-year-old Eddie Frank Smith, he was dead wrong.

(pun intended)

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed Friday the disabled Vietnam veteran shot and killed the home intruder after he broke into his home in Jasper County.

Investigators said Eddie Frank Smith, a Vietnam veteran who is confined to a wheelchair, heard the rear door breaking, and went to investigate the noise. They said Andre Smith (who has no known relationship to veteran) had forced his way into the home through a rear door.

DETROIT (WXYZ) - It was a harrowing encounter on Detroit’s west side, when a homeowner shot the intruder who was holding him and his wife at gun point.

It happened before 6:00 Monday night at a home off Beaverland Rd. near Eaton.

Detroit police said two men ordered the homeowner and his wife into their house and then into the basement.

Daniel McNamara is the homeowner. He told his incredible story only to 7 Action News.

 Notable quotes from CFIF (www.cfif.org)
 
"In one of the most devastating critiques I have ever read of the misbehavior of lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department, a federal judge has issued an order imposing sanctions in U.S. v. Texas, the immigration lawsuit filed by 26 states that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Andrew Hanen of the Southern District of Texas, which is the federal trial court where the lawsuit was originally filed, released a 28-page opinion on May 19 that takes the Justice Department and its lawyers to task for violating multiple ethics and court rules by intentionally misleading and lying to the court. ...

Venezuela has brought a new gun law into effect which bans the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition.

Until now, anyone with a gun permit could buy arms from a private company.

Under the new law, only the army, police and certain groups like security companies will be able to buy arms from the state-owned weapons manufacturer and importer.

Help didn't arrive at Taunton home for 20 minutes

TAUNTON, Mass. —New questions have been raised about the response time to a frantic 911 call during a fatal stabbing rampage in Taunton last week.

First responders failed to respond for nearly 20 minutes after a woman called 911 reporting that she and her mother had been stabbed inside their home.

Last Friday, someone called 911 to report a crash on Myricks Street. That crash then set off a chain of 911 calls that became incresingly alarming.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — The owner of a Colorado movie theater could not have prevented a 2012 shooting that killed 12 people, a jury decided Thursday after victims argued that lax security allowed for the attack.

The six jurors concluded that Cinemark was not liable for the rampage, siding with the nation’s third-largest theater chain in a civil case closely watched by the country’s major theater companies.

They deliberated for about three hours.