Back in May 2013, a group of armed robbers charged into Pepe’s Grocery in West Dallas and found an owner willing to defend his life, his employees and his store. Upon seeing the altercation, the owner grabbed his own handgun and opened fired on the assailants, hitting one of them and scaring all of them enough to flee from the premises.
As great as this was, it is the story behind the story that shows why citizens should be willing and able to stand up to criminals. After the robbers fled, the owner dialed 9-1-1 to report the crime, but it took more than an hour for police to arrive. Supposedly, a communication error between the store owner and the operator listed the crime as a robbery, rather than a shooting, so the incident was not considered an emergency.
As hard as they work, police can’t be everywhere, and because of the sheer volume of calls, they often have to gauge the seriousness of every crime reported to 9-1-1. Even in the most drastic emergencies it’s a standard case of “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”
Police have a hard job, and they try to prevent as much crime as possible, but according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports there were only 2.4 officers for every 1,000 citizens nationwide in 2011. That same year, Texas reported 55,386 law enforcement officers policing an estimated population of 25.5 million.
Sadly, police often only clean up and investigate, because it is all they can do. As such, law-biding citizens have to rely on themselves to keep from becoming a victim and a statistic.
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