Combating Crime and Being Enviromental At The Same Time!

Last evening my wife and I were taking a leisurely walk around our lovely tree lined suburban neighborhood, knowing full well that just a few weeks ago a woman was kidnapped and abducted just a mile away at Brentwood Square. And several days after that Megan Boken was murdered in the middle of the day in the heart of the Central West End, and several medical students robbed nearby, and  then some people robbed outside Busch Stadium. And now just yesterday we heard a woman was abducted right here on the Danforth Campus of Washington University at 9:30pm and another woman was attacked outside Saint Louis University. These assaults in unexpectedly "safe" places have a lot of people alarmed, and we were discussing what can be done about it. It is especially scary that the criminals seems to like to target young college aged women, who they probably think are good prey. With the semester just starting at Wash U and other colleges, it is again open season on and near campus. Just looking at the police reports on campus are pretty frightening, with some type of robbery or larceny reported every few days.
Typically all the thugs want are cash, credit cards, and cell phones. The cash is no big deal, the cards can be canceled and replaced, but the cell phones are a big pain to lose, due not only to their cost and the hassle of getting a new one, but also due to all the lost information stored on them (contacts, media, personal information, etc.) That made me think about the millions of old discarded cell phones that are no longer wanted or used and I came up with an idea. Why not have people tote around an extra, not working dud cell phone just to give to the muggers when they attack you? Instead of giving them your iPhone 4 or Samsung Galaxy, hand them over some old Motorola Razr with nothing on it! Think how mad they will be thinking they had a new smartphone they could pawn for $100 or $200 when all they receive it some old junky flip phone! Once you give it to them they will just run off without checking it, and your more valuable smartphone can remain safely in your pocket. That made me think what could we put in some old Razr body like a GPS chip to track the crooks, or a small explosive you can trigger remotely or maybe just some pepper spray that gets them when they open it.

 I googled for "cell phone pepper spray" and I did find a product from 2005 that looked interesting, a pepper spray device shaped like a clam shell cell phone. Why did this thing not sell? Were manufacturers afraid of the liability if they did not protect the buyers sufficiently? (I can see someone trying to spray a mugger and getting shot if the mugger was not incapacitated)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Consider a concealed weapons permit. Many instructors offer classes just for women. There is holster called the Flashbang (as see on you tube) that can carry a revolver on a bra.
11:37 PM
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