Taking matters more seriously

[Betty]

In my blog today, I posted this story:

10/18/06 - HENDERSON, Ky. - A nine-month-old boy, his mother and her boyfriend were still missing Wednesday, two days after a social worker was found dead in the mother's home, and police were taking calls of possible sightings across the Midwest.

Boni Frederick, 67, had taken the boy, who has been in foster care, to his mother's house for a visit Monday. Police found her body after she failed to return to work, and she appeared to have been beaten to death. Her car also was missing.

"It was blunt-force trauma and sharp-instrument lacerations," Sgt. John Nevels of the Henderson Police Department said Tuesday. "There was definitely a struggle."

Police searched Tuesday for the missing boy, who was believed to be with his mother, Renee Terrell, 33, and her boyfriend, Christopher Wayne Luttrell, 23...

Terrell has a history of abuse charges against children, including charges of assault and endangering the welfare of a minor, police said. The child had been taken from his mother when he was 13 days old because of neglect.

A neighbor, Jean Davis, told The Courier-Journal that Terrell learned last Wednesday that Saige would be put up for adoption. Terrell told friends on Saturday she planned to take the boy and run away to New Mexico, Davis said...

Advocates said the slaying emphasizes the danger of social work.

"It's like a state trooper stopping somebody for speeding," said Kathleen Hoffman, deputy director of the Association of Social Work Boards. "Ninety-nine percent of the time it's fine. But there's always that chance that somebody has a gun."

Terrell has family in Louisville; Evansville and Fort Wayne, Ind.; and New York, police said. Frederick's car was missing, and the dispatcher said Terrell, Luttrell and the boy may be traveling in it. It was described as a 2000 white Daewoo Nubira station wagon with Kentucky license plate 675-DRV.

Renee Terrell was described as white with brown hair and brown eyes, glasses, 5-foot-5 and 240 pounds. Luttrell was described as white, blue eyes, 6-2 and 150 pounds with tattoos on his arms.

Saige Terrell is white, brown hair and brown eyes, 27 inches tall and 19 pounds. Police said the boy is developmentally disabled and has a scratch on the right side of his face and a rug burn on the back of his neck.

As some of you know, my husband (posts occasionally as mrshonts) is a social worker, and he's neck deep in dealing with parents, foster parents, and the often abused, neglected, and molested children. He also does a lot of supervised visitations. It's a job he's very good at, but it can also be a dangerous job.

When I met my husband, he had already been thinking about getting his carry permit. I imagine his large size and never having been in an incident made him not take self-defense too seriously before. We went back and forth a lot on related issues - you may recall the thread where I could not get him to understand why I did not want to travel to places I could not carry.

He's got his permit now, but is limited in where he can carry, since he goes to schools, courts, and other gov't buildings a lot. Otherwise, he must remain in deep concealment.

Recently he's been wanting to take the issue of self-defense more seriously. I imagine what goes on in his job is opening his eyes more, and since he's suffering from a couple bulged discs in his lower back, I think he feels his physical strength is hampered, so he is wanting to rely more on tools. I admit he's pleasantly surpised me in wanting to go to the gun shop and look around and find more options for guns and carry options. I know he's really wanting to do it for himself and not to please me.

I'm going to have to extend his pockets so he can carry better - the butt of his j-frame Smith tends to want to ride up. He's lost a lot of weight from working out, so we think he's at the point where he can try IWB carry. He's also considering a BUG.

All these improvements are great, but with the tools need to come all the other important stuff, like situational awareness and proper mindset. Since he's rather new to all this, I want to make sure he's properly prepared. I've been thinking about getting him to take a tactics course of some kind that would cover mindset and scenarios he would be likely to get into. We've got a couple facilities close by, like Rattlesnake Ridge and Tactical Response.

I hope he'll also check in here more frequently, and even if he doesn't post, just lurk around.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Redneck Repairs]

Betty if i could suggest one school with what i understand you have in mind , try Massad since he seems to me to deal with more common sense issues than most ( no slam on any school of weaponry , but massad devotes more time to the lifestyle of carry and possibly a bit less to pure range work ) . also you might want to look at and get behind euclid's recient post here since it speaks to the school issue , its going to be a long term haul but worth it imho even tho it doesnt address all yalls issues .

[Rob72]

Law controls the law-abiding. Do what it takes to get home at the end of the day. Some folks are more aware of the "nuances" correllating those concepts than others. Sent you a PM, Betty.

Forgot to add: I was not terribly impressed with many of the dealers in TN, in the Nash and Memphis areas(Tx and Ok spoiled me!). Not too many breaking the stereotypical gun-salesman mold ): I made friends with another couple, besides the one mentioned in the PM, that you might like to meet ("normal-folks" gun people), one of them was working at Centennial Med Center, though that has been a few years ago.

[pogo2]

I don't know much about social workers, but I gather from Betty's post that they are not officers with a badge and authorized to carry on duty. Given the potential dangers of the job, as evidenced by the murder of the social worker and kidnapping of the child in her custody, you can make a good case for giving LEO status and weapons to these workers.

Are social workers unarmed throughout the US, or are there state by state differences?

[Betty]

I think whether you can go armed or not really depends on who you work for. Some agencies are government-run, like the Dept. of Child Services, others are not gov't agencies (but since they work with foster kids, they tend to work closely with the gov't, anyway).

My husband works for two different agencies - one prohibits carry, the other encourages it (because the boss carries, too!). Dumping the former isn't really an option right now, social work doesn't pay well at all. (But he's working on his Masters Degree to open up new, and better-paying, doors.)

Besides worrying about what the parents are going to do, sometimes even the kids get out of hand. He works with babies on up to teenagers. Some of them are on drugs and many run away, and at least one toddler has stabbed another kid in the back with a kitchen knife. Many are chronic liars and try to manipulate. A couple weeks ago he had to physically restrain more than one kid, and those kinds of situations can get rather dicey because they are minors.

[Illuminaughty]

"It's like a state trooper stopping somebody for speeding," said Kathleen Hoffman, deputy director of the Association of Social Work Boards. "Ninety-nine percent of the time it's fine. But there's always that chance that somebody has a gun."

Oh come on! There's always that chance a criminal has a gun and intends to use it! Get it right!!

[Lew]

He is indeed, Noble for his choice in careers. I for one would not take a job in this field. It would not suit me at all.

He sounds like he is on the path to "Joining the fold". I think it is a good thing.

The hardest thing can be trying to help those who think they do not need help.

[P95Carry]

Certainly Betty - some help to increase awareness would be good but that does not necessarily need any special course per se - just maybe some solid practice at a very conscious level. Expand the abilities with perypheral vision - getting better at interpreting auditory input etc etc. Something you two could enhance with teamwork.

Another good point I think we all could possibly improve on is what was mentioned by SouthNarc on TPI - ''Task fixation" (in public) - which really got me to thinking just how much many people, even us lot - can be fixated at times when concentrating hard. On phone, map reading - all sorts of things.

Thus a good thing is to expand one's radar during such times such that fixation itself is moderated or even avoided. Maybe practicing at multi-tasking - making scans at close intervals during potential fixation.

I am glad your man is taking things more seriously and with that sort of job needs to - your blog piece sure gives much food for thought!

[rocky]

Sounds as if mindset was the toughest hurdle. the rest should be easier.

[KenpoTex]

It's always nice to hear about someone who's taking a more active interest in their personal safety.

If you're looking for a good tactics/pistol class, you might take a look at Tactical Response. They're based out of TN and while I haven't trained with them myself (but intend to do so) I've heard a lot of great things about their courses.

http://www.tacticalresponse.com/

[Hekkenschutze]

well that is a sad story and a rather unfortunate event, but a struggle and beat to death due to blunt force trauma?
Who really knows how the situation unfolded but I don't think it matters if you have a handcannon creativly stashed away in your jacket, if someone blindsides you with a baseball bat to the head and then beats you to death before you even knew what hit you...
I fail to see the use of the gun for protection.
BUT, if the social worker got out of his car at the house and out walked the other guy with a gun then I could see the use of a concealed handgun.
All in all though, I will agree that just having a concealed handgun does put the odds in your favor but does not always garauntee success in saving your life.
Much luck to you and your husband Bettie and take gun classes together :) it should provide you both with skills, knowledge, some fun and you'd get to do it together

[steve63]

Situational awareness. Keep your eyes moving and looking for somebody that may be out of place. Sadly, most people don't do that and put themselves in danger. I agree that social workers and the investigators working for DHS need to be armed because you never know what could happen from one situation to the next.

[Betty]

Who really knows how the situation unfolded but I don't think it matters if you have a handcannon creativly stashed away in your jacket, if someone blindsides you with a baseball bat to the head and then beats you to death before you even knew what hit you...

... which is precisely why I want him to take a tactics class. Unfortunately, he says he does not want to, yet, so it's up to me and what I can teach.

Maybe I'm not giving him due credit because I'm a worrisome wife, but he does have to, by the nature of his job, keep close eye on the parents. They're supervised visitations, and he's already had to crack down on parents who wanted to be alone with the kids. He also has to keep an eye on his briefcase, since he's been warned some parents have been slick in trying to find out where the foster parents live.

The gun has never been the end-all, be-all magical weapon. It must come with proper training and mindset in order to be effective.

-----

On the upside, the murder incident has caused hubbub in the social work community, and my hubby told me yesterday that a group of them at his job that prohibits carry were talking about self-defense and arming themselves, and were upset that they are prohibited from carrying. At his other job, they're actually have a meeting to discuss it.

Unfortunately, if the state ever gets wind that people are going armed, they would stop giving them kids to work with. They'd rather hear about dead social workers instead of social workers defending themselves.