Triple Homicide

Two men and a woman, all in their early twenties, are enjoying  a relaxing evening at home when they hear a knock on their front door.  Opening the door, as most of us would, two men burst into the apartment and order all three into the bathroom.  Minutes later, all three are gunned down at point blank range, their bodies falling on top of one another in the cramp confines of the bathroom.

Triple homicide, double homicide, murder suicide, these are just a few of the crime scene cleanup jobs tackled by the men and women of Bio-Trauma 911, Inc. during the past week.  Strangers killing strangers, friends killing friends and husbands killing wives, murder has no conscience.

As crime scene cleanup technicians, we see the aftermath of the atrocious crimes committed against innocent people.  It doesn’t take much of an imagination to see, as if we were right there during the violent attack, the struggle that took place and the death that soon followed.  As a police officer, working some of the same scenes that many of us clean up, I often wonder why?  Why did the three young victims allow themselves to be pushed into a bathroom?  Didn’t they know their lives were about to end?  Why did they open the door?  Did they know the two men who killed them?  Why didn’t they protect themselves?

I’ve given a lot of lectures over the years about personal protection.  As a former US Marine assigned to the Department of State, Office of Diplomatic Security and police officer for the past nine years, I know a thing or two about staying alive.  In all of the training that I’ve received for the past eighteen years, the one thing that will keep you alive has nothing to do with weapons or fancy arm locks or pressure point control techniques.  Your ability to stay alive isn’t measured by the size of your arms or the amount of weight you can bench press.  Living another day isn’t guaranteed by an alarm system or a vicious dog.  The one thing that will protect you more than anything I have or haven’t listed is “awareness”.  One who is not aware of his or her surroundings is complacent.  A complacent person will not know when death may be lurking around the corner.

My wife is in the medical field.  She once asked me if I get scared whenever I make a traffic stop.  Before I answered, she told me that one of her patients is a cop and he said he’s made so many traffic stops that he could do them with his eyes closed.  Traffic stops don’t scare him.  Imagine my wife’s surprise when I told her, “I’m scared anytime I approach anyone while on duty”.  Now is scared the right word to explain what I feel, probably not.  But to try to explain to a civilian what goes through my mind as a trained professional isn’t a conversation I really wanted to have.  So yes, I am scared!

At about the same time that the three young adults were pleading for their lives inside an apartment bathroom, another run came out that a homeowner had just shot a man who was standing on his front porch.  As the first officer arrived, he found a man laying dead across the door frame to the front of the residence.  The homeowner told the police that the man had previously threatened his family over a financial deal gone bad and had unexpectedly showed up at his house.  Knowing that trouble might ensue, the homeowner answered the door with a gun.  The decedent tried to take one step into the house and was shot dead.

We all have a right to protect ourselves.  Do not open the door to your house if you don’t know who’s on the other side.  If you do know the person on the other side, but expect there may be trouble, leave the door closed.  Tell them to call you on the phone.  Or, like me, you can answer every knock on the door with a gun in your hand.  I’m certainly not trying to advocate living your life in a constant state of fear, but you have to be ready to protect yourself at all times.  And, the first step is “awareness”.  Know who’s around you, know who’s coming at you and know where you can escape to if that’s your only option.

Many of the cleanup jobs we do are a result of someone dying an untimely death.  Take yourself out of the criminal equation.  There must be a suspect and a victim for every crime.  Don’t let yourself be the victim!