It’s a subject I’m reluctant to talk about, for fear of being labeled a paranoid, but there are places where I’m always watchful, and none more so then parking lots.  I’ve heard way too many stories of random violence happening to people in parking lots.  Stories like this…

Video shows man’s abduction by Aryan Brotherhood

A Baytown Wal-Mart security camera caught the kidnapping of a Baytown man who was later found murdered. According to police, in the low-resolution video Robert McCartney, 49, pulls into a parking spot in his white pick-up. It is highlighted in red on the left. A dark colored pick-up pulls in behind McCartney. Its highlighted in red on the right. Before McCartney can exit his truck, a man can be seen exiting the passenger side of the dark truck and walking to the drivers-side door of McCartney’s truck where he appears to get behind the wheel and then follows the darker truck out of the frame.
       
A surveillance camera video taken in the Wal-Mart parking lot and obtained on Thursday by the Enterprise shows what police say is Robert McCartney’s abduction by members of the Aryan Brotherhood.

McCartney is seen pulling into the parking lot in a 1988 white Chevy pickup truck, parking and quickly being approached by a man who just got out of another vehicle. The man gets into McCartney’s truck and drives away as the other vehicle follows them.

Three members of the Aryan Brotherhood are facing capital murder charges in the brutal stabbing death of the 49-year-old Baytown man.

McCartney’s body was found near County Road 611 in Eastgate on Friday morning, according to Capt. Philip Fairchild of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department.

Police said the killing was not a sex crime and that the men targeted McCartney’s because they wanted his truck. One of the men arrested had fallen into disfavor with an Aryan Brotherhood leader and apparently thought the truck parts could restore his good standing, said Capt. Roger Clifford of the Baytown Police Department.

Both the killers and the victim were white, in case you were thinking that white supremacists are only dangerous to people of color. 

I’m certainly not going to say here that Mr. McCartney wasn’t being watchful enough.  He could easily have been just as perpetually wary as I am, and for just that one moment got caught off guard.  It could happen to any of us.  The random, out of the blue nature of the crime is what is so frightening.  A couple gutter crawling thugs decide they want parts for a certain kind of car and just kidnap and murder someone they happen across with that kind of car.  Last year a man was shot to death in a local shopping mall parking garage during an armed robbery, after the robber decided he wasn’t getting enough respect from his victim.  Just a few months ago a group of thugs tried to kill a man in a shopping center parking lot just down the street from me.  Remarkably (because getting a carry permit out of the state of Maryland is like squeezing water from a rock) the victim was armed and able to fight off his attackers.  Probably the most heartbreaking story of this kind I ever heard concerns Robert Alton Harris and his brother Daniel Marcus Harris who kidnapped 16 year olds John Mayeski and Michael Baker from a fast food restaurant as they were eating, forced them to drive to an isolated area and then killed them.  Then he finished eating their burgers.  Then he and his brother drove off.  Harris merely wanted a getaway car for a bank robbery he’d planned.  For that he killed two 16 year old boys as if murdering kids was just part of his day, nothing to get all excited about.

I think criminals like parking lots because most of the time people in them have their minds elsewhere.  And the patterns of car and foot traffic in them are chaotic.  It’s hard to pay attention to everything going on around you.  Alas, you need to. 

A couple weeks ago in Memphis, me and a couple friends were standing by my car in the parking lot of the motel I was staying at.  It was just nightfall and my room was in a section of the motel just a bit away from the main building.  A couple guys pull up in an old beat up car, see us, the driver checks out my license plate (out of state), stops, backs in to a parking space just across from mine, and his passenger gets out…and between their backing in (for a quick getaway maybe), and the looks of this guy walking toward us I just started getting all kinds of bad vibes.  What I did may have freaked my companions a tad, but the two guys in the beat up car left the scene pretty quickly.  My thinking is that if someone tries to take me in a parking lot, I am not going to go quietly.  So the best thing is to be aware of my surroundings, and avoid becoming prey in the first place.  Whether you are armed, or skilled enough or strong enough to fight back, or prefer more peaceable means of confronting violence, that is the best thing anyway.  They say a good landing is one you can walk away from, but a good fight for your life is one that never even happens.