My Aunt went to Walmart the other night to buy some groceries and Supplies, as she was walking out, a man said to her you here by yourself. This comment rattled my aunt but she did the smart thing and went back inside the store and asked for someone to walk her to her car.
Has anyone else had or know someone who might have had a similar experience?
Unfortunately we are living in a time where it is challenging to read the intent of people in a situation like this one. A big “Well Done!” to your aunt for making a quick and accurate response on the fly. Stay safe!
I’m glad she’s ok. Who asks this question other than a bad guy?
She needs to carry that way the playing field is balanced.
Did she see the guy and approached him or was “he just there”? Find out some of the events/details leading up to this. Was he gone when she came back out? It would be a good educational experience for us here as well.
Smart lady, and I’m glad she’s ok because of it.
Good on your aunt for making a good decision and following through.
Growing up in the Chicagoland area and living in some smaller cities, it’s common to have people come up to you for one thing or another. Even people asking for change on the side of the road is common enough that at some stop lights, organizations like the local fire department will be out asking for donations now and then. With packed streets or after-hours bars, even pick pockets pop up now and then (including women)… or a group of kids that goes from having fun to starting trouble in a crowded area.
On a side note, I’ve learned that one of my “blind spots” in the past was women. Both incidents were many years ago when I would spend more free-time out at night hot-spots. The first was when I was helping a slightly intoxicated lady friend back to the car to drive her home (I was the designated driver). Two young women started following us back to my car. When I put my friend in the passenger seat, one woman came around to the door and tried to grab my friend’s purse. The other stood about 10 feet away. The one at the door insisted that if I didn’t let go of the purse that her friend would shoot me. I ended up jumping into oncoming traffic to flag down what looked like a cop car, but turned out to be a taxi. Luckily the 2 women thought it was a cop car too and fled the scene.
Another time an attractive young woman came up to me outside a bar acting as though she was interested. A few seconds later I could tell she was fishing around my back pocket for my wallet (I kept it in my front pocket while in the city).
2 days ago there was incident at Chicago Western suburbs.
The male victim set up a meeting on social media to record a video for the offender, but upon arriving at the meet-up location, was held up at gunpoint and robbed.
People just have to think twice before meeting strangers over Internet.
Neither me nor my family (wife and 4 teenage daughters) are in any way afraid of the new flu. That being said, scared, disparate people do give me the shivers. They are unpredictable and because of that, my awareness is on defcon 5. My wife doesn’t carry, and my girls are to young(legally) to carry. So I am the permanent armed security for grocery store trips and the like.
I haven’t let my wife go to the store without me in 4 weeks and in days like this we as protectors need to think about this stuff. Our situational awareness needs to be at least in the orange at all times. Too many cell phone junkies walking around with zero cognitive knowledge of what’s going on around them, coupled with scared, desperate people equals a target rich environment for bad people. As protectors, I urge you to be aware, put your phone down and live up to the responsibility you have taken on.
@Ronnie8 Welcome to the community. We are all on high alert these days, sounds like you have your hands full keeping all your girls safe. Bruce and Nancy.
Welcome to the Community @Ronnie8!
My situational awareness and PerSec plans do not change. Except in my home.
I’m constantly watching my surroundings after seeing/reading some if your posts info.
Check out the web site. There are training videos that are worth your time.
There are great videos and PDF downloads here that address that issue. I still read them.
Sounds like your aunt did the right thing.
Last week a duo of tweekers was getting ready to approach us in the parking lot of the grocery while we were preparing to unload the cart. My wife and I both noticed and took up our defensive positions as we have drilled to do. Kids jumped into the back seat and locked the doors as instructed. We took up positions of cover and stared them both down. They pivoted midstep and moved to the edge of the parking lot and began arguing with one another. We left unscathed.
Situational awareness and drills of potential scenarios come in handy sometimes. Use your spider sense and stay safe.
Took a defensive pistol class where the instructor used several women targets as threats. First time through the scenario I “died” because I did not engage the woman. It flies contrary to our culture. It was a very strong bias on my part. I froze and “got shot.” During the debrief the instructor made it clear that sometimes a woman may be an armed attacker, or even a 12-year old. These are things we don’t normally think about. It was a very eye-opening experience.
Seems like you were looking for trouble by putting yourself in high risk situations. Hope you grew out that. 
Ya, I replaced those tendencies with traveling to provinces overseas for charity work where guerillas come down from the mountains to take supplies and where people are found shot dead on the side of the road by motorcycle assassins.