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Baton Rouge Women take up arms against killer
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Fighting Back
Fearing the Unknown, Baton Rouge Women Take Up Arms Against Serial Killer
By Jeffrey Kofman
B A T O N R O U G E, La., Aug. 15 - Locals constantly tell visitors that this city of 200,000 is really just an overgrown small town.
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Kids play in the front yard. Backdoors are kept unlocked. A woman can jog alone through the lush Southern greenery that surrounds the University Lakes on the Louisiana State University campus.
But not now. Not since local police confirmed that a serial killer is at work in the community. Suddenly doors are double and triple locked. Women don't venture out alone and every man is a potential suspect.
Baton Rouge has had an overdose of the worst of big city life.
"You get in your car and everybody's telling me, 'make sure you lock your door,'" says Ashley Sanford who just returned to Baton Rouge to begin another year at LSU. "It's kinda scary because we don't know exactly who he [the serial killer] is and you kind of have to be on guard all the time."
Sanford wants to take a self-defense course but the classes are all full. Her mother was reluctant to see her return here. "My mom wanted to make sure that I have the mace and the blow horn, so she went to get it. So I have one for my apartment and one for my truck."
Women here say they won't feel safe until police catch the man who strangled Gina Green last fall, stabbed Charlotte Murray Pace in May and slashed the throat of Pam Kinamore last month. Police say DNA evidence shows all three women were killed by the same man.
Police say they were was no sign of forcible entry in the homes of any of the dead women. They think the killer is someone who can easily gain the confidence of an unsuspecting person. Perhaps someone who wears a uniform, maybe even a police officer.
Baton Rouge police are working with investigators from seven other law enforcement agencies, trying to find that man. Police Chief Pat Englade is candid: right now there are no suspects.
"Anytime you have an unknown it's very scary," Englade says. "We don't have a picture of someone we can put on the screen where they [the people of Baton Rouge] can get an idea what they're looking for or what police are trying to find. And that's scary."
'I Want to Feel Safe'
So scary that women here are learning to confront violence with violence. The local gun shops are filled with an unlikely assortment of women who never thought they'd ever want to touch a gun. Police report that applications for concealed weapons permits were ten times higher for the first week of August than they were for the same period last year.
In a crowded wood-paneled classroom, Carol Lizana and 20 other women listen intently as the instructor gives his students a primer on the operation of a handgun.
"Treat every gun as if it is loaded," the women are told.
Lizana says she needs to do this: "I want to feel safe and I don't without a pistol."
But while hundreds of local women share Lizana's point of view, one woman who doesn't is speaking out. She is Lynne Marino, still reeling from the killing of her daughter, Pam Kinamore. Marino has led the families of the victims in the very public security warnings to women in the community. But Marino worries that women who are arming themselves may be over-reaching.
"I don't think that's a good idea for women to pick up guns when they don't know what they're doing."
Marino thinks pepper spray and stun guns are wiser self-defense with much less danger.
And police report that earlier this week a woman who was being stalked near her home chased the man away with pepper spray. That was one of three attempted abductions in the Baton Rouge area over the last week. None was successful. None has been officially connected to the slayings. But the news has heightened anxiety.
On the steps of LSU Terry Serio says it's not fear that she's feeling: "We're angry that this is happening in our town. This a beautiful country town and we love it."
The people of the City of Baton Rouge want their small town back.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/batonrouge020815.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Fearing the Unknown, Baton Rouge Women Take Up Arms Against Serial Killer
By Jeffrey Kofman
B A T O N R O U G E, La., Aug. 15 - Locals constantly tell visitors that this city of 200,000 is really just an overgrown small town.
Print This Page
Email This Page
See Most Sent
On Guard Against A Serial Killer
Illegal Plastic Surgery Horrors on the Rise
Wilderness Therapy For Troubled Teens
Kids play in the front yard. Backdoors are kept unlocked. A woman can jog alone through the lush Southern greenery that surrounds the University Lakes on the Louisiana State University campus.
But not now. Not since local police confirmed that a serial killer is at work in the community. Suddenly doors are double and triple locked. Women don't venture out alone and every man is a potential suspect.
Baton Rouge has had an overdose of the worst of big city life.
"You get in your car and everybody's telling me, 'make sure you lock your door,'" says Ashley Sanford who just returned to Baton Rouge to begin another year at LSU. "It's kinda scary because we don't know exactly who he [the serial killer] is and you kind of have to be on guard all the time."
Sanford wants to take a self-defense course but the classes are all full. Her mother was reluctant to see her return here. "My mom wanted to make sure that I have the mace and the blow horn, so she went to get it. So I have one for my apartment and one for my truck."
Women here say they won't feel safe until police catch the man who strangled Gina Green last fall, stabbed Charlotte Murray Pace in May and slashed the throat of Pam Kinamore last month. Police say DNA evidence shows all three women were killed by the same man.
Police say they were was no sign of forcible entry in the homes of any of the dead women. They think the killer is someone who can easily gain the confidence of an unsuspecting person. Perhaps someone who wears a uniform, maybe even a police officer.
Baton Rouge police are working with investigators from seven other law enforcement agencies, trying to find that man. Police Chief Pat Englade is candid: right now there are no suspects.
"Anytime you have an unknown it's very scary," Englade says. "We don't have a picture of someone we can put on the screen where they [the people of Baton Rouge] can get an idea what they're looking for or what police are trying to find. And that's scary."
'I Want to Feel Safe'
So scary that women here are learning to confront violence with violence. The local gun shops are filled with an unlikely assortment of women who never thought they'd ever want to touch a gun. Police report that applications for concealed weapons permits were ten times higher for the first week of August than they were for the same period last year.
In a crowded wood-paneled classroom, Carol Lizana and 20 other women listen intently as the instructor gives his students a primer on the operation of a handgun.
"Treat every gun as if it is loaded," the women are told.
Lizana says she needs to do this: "I want to feel safe and I don't without a pistol."
But while hundreds of local women share Lizana's point of view, one woman who doesn't is speaking out. She is Lynne Marino, still reeling from the killing of her daughter, Pam Kinamore. Marino has led the families of the victims in the very public security warnings to women in the community. But Marino worries that women who are arming themselves may be over-reaching.
"I don't think that's a good idea for women to pick up guns when they don't know what they're doing."
Marino thinks pepper spray and stun guns are wiser self-defense with much less danger.
And police report that earlier this week a woman who was being stalked near her home chased the man away with pepper spray. That was one of three attempted abductions in the Baton Rouge area over the last week. None was successful. None has been officially connected to the slayings. But the news has heightened anxiety.
On the steps of LSU Terry Serio says it's not fear that she's feeling: "We're angry that this is happening in our town. This a beautiful country town and we love it."
The people of the City of Baton Rouge want their small town back.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/batonrouge020815.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878