Safety in numbers, safety measures, security. Americans take these words for granted, but we really should be paying more attention to these safety precautions.
A big story in the news last week was the man who jumped the White House fence and ran inside. It came out that the intruder, Omar Gonzalez, got deeper into the White House than previously thought. The Secret Service is taking a major blow to their security protocols since the intruder had ammunition on him.
It leaves people with a bad taste in their mouth as this situation is a matter of national security. If they are ill equipped to handle a possible catastrophe within the White House, how are they going to handle the bigger issues plaguing our nation?
Just today I was on a ferry boat cruising on the Delaware Bay when an announcement about unattended baggage was announced. I shrugged the announcement off initially, as it is not an uncommon occurrence on the ferry. But I become concerned when I realized the luggage was at the table next to me. I thought immediately, that I didn’t quite remember what the man sitting there had looked like — if it had been a situation where I needed to provide identifying details, I would not have been able to.
It turns out, that the man came back and had a chat with the ferry official. The official told him that he couldn’t just wander off without his luggage. If he hadn’t returned when he did, they would have made one more announcement before cordoning off the area and calling the police to investigate.
Image from Google.
This situation made me realize how unaware I was of my surroundings, and essentially how important it is to always have an eye out for anything that looks suspicious. Amtrak is right to have their motto about safety to be “see something, say something.”
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