Addendum

In a rather timely event, I was faced with the exact situation I last posted about after my Mom sent me an email describing ways for Women to stay safe.

This past Thursday, a day after Mom had sent me the email, I was the opening supervisor at work and a woman asked her cashier to call over her manager. When I arrived, she described a middle aged white man, about 6’ tall, who had circled her in his car (an off-white PT Cruiser, for those of you who live in the Norman area) in the parking lot when she arrived, then proceeded to follow her into the store and tailed her at a distance as she shopped.

I immediately called our security exec, who has trained with the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, etc…and actually has one of those cards in his wallet that you always hear about that exempts him from prosecution if he kills you with his bare hands because they are legally registered lethal weapons. So cool, but I digress…

He escorted her to her car, where he witnessed the man circling the parking lot yet again. He called all available team members outside where we made sure we got his license plate number and as detailed of a description as we could through his tinted windows.

Long story made shorter, the police were called out and a report has been filed and hopefully this creep will be caught as the police are going to notify all retail establishments and news organizations that a stalker is in the area.

My point is, this woman was very observant of her surroundings and noticed what many women, especially teens or young adults, might never notice; a predator clearly stalking her.

After she spoke with the police and her husband was about to take her home, I stopped her to thank her and tell her how brave and calm she had been. Her remark to me was, “I just can’t stop thinking about if it had been a young girl not paying attention instead of me and we could have an abducted girl or young woman in Norman.”

She was absolutely correct. She clearly avoided a horrible situation. Who knows what this creep had in mind for her, but if she had not been so aware of her surroundings, this surely would have had a very tragic ending. So please, always make sure you know who and what is around you.

Oh, and as an afterthought, this was in BROAD DAYLIGHT, not at night when we always expect this kind of thing to happen.