Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Safer at night?
Seattle news item: A city bus driver was shot and injured by a crazy dude. Fortunately the cops were able to kill the crazy dude, sparing everyone the expense and annoyance of a nonsensical "trial", and preventing a huge subsidy to Satanic ACLU lawyers.
This caught my attention: The bus driver's wife said she was pleased when he recently changed from night shift to day. She felt that he was safer on day shift. Turned out to be wrong.
Leads to a generalization that hasn't been discussed....
Crazy dudes operate in the daytime because they want their kills to be maximally visible.
Professional criminals and gangsters operate at night because they want their kills to be hidden.
If you're in a publicly visible position, especially with lots of people around, maybe you should be more worried about crazy dudes than gangsters, and maybe you should be more worried in the daytime.
"More research is needed."
Update: More news from the same event leads to a parallel observation about the same two populations.
King County Metro Transit is checking the cameras on 550 buses, after recording systems failed to capture shootings in downtown Seattle last week. One bus driver was shot and wounded Monday morning by 31-year-old Martin Duckworth, who was then killed by police as he boarded a second bus. About 40 percent of buses in Metro’s fleet have the cameras. The cameras have not been regularly inspected...Clearly the transit authority was using the cameras mainly for deterrence, aimed mainly at professional criminals who would be picking pockets or beating other gangsters. Deterrence works reasonably well in that context, but doesn't work with crazy dudes. Either they want to be seen, or they have a unique and unpredictable idea about the purpose of the cameras. ¶ 5:21 AM
