Last year around this time I posted a tactical tip on Christmas packages containing contraband. This year as the holiday approaches my mind is focused on the people I tend to consider “Christmas Crazy.” No... not the people whose houses glow with 10,000 lights strewn from the eaves or whose yuletide excitement includes a truly heinous holiday sweater. I’m talking about the individuals who seem to come unhinged this time of year. Some of them will pose no threat to themselves (or others) but others will become truly dangerous.
The number of armed robberies, home invasions, and burglaries seems to just keep going up as Christmas Day draws near. Thugs are boosting cars, snatching iPhones, and committing all manner of mayhem in cities big and small. Even our otherwise law-abiding citizens seem to give themselves some sort of “hall pass” during the holidays. We know that a number of “upstanding members of society” will be committing a wide variety of idiotic and illegal acts — from drunk driving to aggravated assault in the parking lot of the local shopping mall — during the next few days.
Oh yeah, and lest we forget, just three years ago a man dressed as Santa Claus showed up at a Christmas Eve party in suburban Covina (Calif.), shot and killed three people — wounding two others — before taking his own life. Just last week a gunman opened fire at a Southern California Edison building in Irwindale.
There sometimes can be a tendency during the holidays to allow complacency to creep into the “routine” of patrol. Do not let your guard down! Now, as much as ever, it is important to:
• Do your when/then thinking.
• Prepare for the unexpected!
• Wear your body armor.
• Back each other up.
• Watch the hands!
Stay safe, my friends.
