‘I never forgot about you’: Families reunite with women held captive for years

May 7, 2013 by

Cleveland (CNN) — The first time most of America heard Amanda Berry’s voice was on a frantic 911 call.

“I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years,” the 27-year-old woman said on the call, which was made on Monday. “And I’m here. I’m free now.”

A day later, Berry could be heard again. This time talking to relatives, she seemed positive, even upbeat — telling her grandmother Fern Gentry that she’s “fine” and that the 6-year-old girl also rescued Monday from a Cleveland home is indeed her own.

“I love you honey, thank God,” her tearful grandmother said, in a call recorded by CNN affiliate WJHL. “… I’ve thought about you all this time. I never forgot about you.”

Back in northern Ohio, balloons dotted the frontyard of the home of 23-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, who along with Berry and Michelle Knight were allegedly held captive for years in a Cleveland house. There was also a sign strung along a fence, the same one that had been there since Gina was first reported missing nine years ago.

Her 32-year-old sister, Mayra DeJesus, told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on Tuesday that her sister — for all the hell she’s gone through — is in “good spirits.”

DeJesus spent the day with family, who didn’t focus on what she’d gone through but more on lifting her up, her sister said.

Her brother, Ricardo, earlier described how the whole family was crying and shaking upon hearing Gina was safe and alive.

“I was just glad to be able to see her,” he said. “It’s been nine long years. I was just happy I was able to sit there and hug her and say, ‘Yup, you’re finally home.’”

Berry, DeJesus and the 32-year-old Knight each disappeared from the same Cleveland street — Lorain Avenue — three miles from the home in which they were found Monday evening. They escaped after Berry broke out the bottom of a screen door and called for help Monday evening, startling neighbor Charles Ramsey who came over and helped kick in the door.

Cleveland police and the FBI hailed Berry as a hero for her daring escape.

“We’re following her lead,” Cleveland’s Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said. “Without her, none of us would be here today.”

Three men have been jailed in the women’s disappearance — 54-year-old Pedro Castro, 50-year-old Onil Castro and 52-year-old Ariel Castro, who neighbors said lived at the house. All three are expected to be charged in the coming days.

Some neighbors of Ariel Castro spent Tuesday second-guessing themselves, questioning why they hadn’t noticed signs earlier and if they could have prevented the horrors.

“This is a heartbreaking moment for us, because I’m always out there (and) I’ve heard nothing,” said Daniel Marti, who’s known Ariel Castro since junior high school and lived near him for some 22 years.

“… To us, it was like nothing was happening. But yet it was happening, right in front of our face and we didn’t even know.”

‘He didn’t want nobody back there’

The predominantly Latino neighborhood, made up mostly of two-story frame homes, sits within sight of downtown. The gentrification that has spiffed up districts on either end hasn’t extended to the blocks around Castro’s home, where a number of houses are boarded up. But the churches in the neighborhood still ring the bells in their steeples, and the neighbors say they look out for one another.

Authorities and several neighbors say they had no prior indication anything suspicious was going on at the nondescript home on Seymour Avenue, where a Puerto Rican flag hung from the porch.

But after Monday’s discovery, they reflected back and noticed things that, in retrospect, might have signaled something awry.

Marti, for one, asked himself why he didn’t question why Castro — who, he thought, lived alone — would return each day with bags of McDonald’s food, or who would watch the little girl he occasionally took outside. He also recalled how Castro seemed to steer him away from the house when they talked:

“Now that I think of it, he didn’t want nobody back there.”

Another neighbor, Israel Lugo, said saw Castro at the park Sunday with a little girl and asked who she was: “He said it was his girlfriend’s daughter.”

Lugo said his sister got a bad vibe from the house and asked him not to let the children play unsupervised nearby. He said he heard yelling in the house in November 2011 and called police to investigate, but they left after no one answered the door.

And Nina Samoylicz, who lives nearby, said she called police about two years ago after spotting a naked woman in the backyard of Castro’s house. Samoylicz said when she called out to the woman, a man told the woman to get in the house, then ran in himself.

“She was just walking around and naked,” Samoylicz said. “We thought that was weird. We thought it was funny at first, and then we thought that was weird, so we called the cops. They thought we was playing, joking, they didn’t believe us.”

She said she had also seen tarps covering the backyard.

But Sgt. Sammy Morris, a Cleveland police spokesman, told CNN that the department had no record of a 911 call reporting a naked woman at Castro’s address.

In fact, authorities never had any indications that the women were being held in the home or that anything suspicious was going on there, Cleveland

Public Safety Director Martin Flask said. Neighbors had not provided any tips, he added.

Police had visited the home twice, authorities said Tuesday, once after Castro called about a fight in the street and another time to investigate Castro on an unrelated incident involving a child who had been left on a school bus.

The 2004 incident was the first of four exhibitions of “bad judgment” that led to Castro’s November firing by Cleveland’s school district, according to records released Tuesday night.

“He previously had been suspended for 60 days for leaving a child on a bus; 60 days for making an illegal U-turn in rush hour traffic with a bus load of students, and last school year for using the bus to do his grocery shopping,” the letter recommending his dismissal states. His firing came after he had left his bus unattended outside a school after his preschool routes had been canceled, without notifying his dispatcher or depot.

Tito DeJesus, a bandmate of Castro’s, said he had been inside the bass player’s home once, about two years ago, to help deliver a washer and dryer he’d sold to the suspect and saw “a normal environment.” DeJesus said he isn’t related to the rescued Gina DeJesus but had known the family for years.

“It didn’t seem to be a place where women were being held against their will,” he said. “Of course, mind you, I didn’t go throughout the entire house. I was just at the beginning of the house, in the living room, but it seemed normal.”

Finally free

Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland on April 21, 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday. DeJesus disappeared nearly a year later, on April 2, 2004. She was 14.

Michelle Knight vanished on August 22, 2002, and her family reported her missing the next day, Flask said. She was 21.

Little was known about Knight’s case Tuesday. Her mother now lives in Naples, Florida, and was contacted by Cleveland police late Monday, a neighbor, Sheldon Gofberg, told CNN.

The three women and the child were released Tuesday from the hospital where they had been taken for evaluations, a spokeswoman said. Tomba said all four appeared to be in good condition, if in need of a good meal.

While amazing, such discoveries are more common now, said John D. Ryan, CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

“To us at the National Center, this is not something that we find shocking any more,” he said. “The fact is, we have seen more and more long-term missing cases end up in the victim being rescued many years after their original abduction.”

The most widely reported such incident in recent years was that of Jaycee Dugard, who was freed in 2009 after 18 years of captivity behind the home of a California couple.

In another case, Ryan said last year a 43-year-old man was found and reunited with his mother after being abducted at the age of 2.

More than anything, the three victims need privacy and time with family members, said Elizabeth Smart, who was in the headlines in 2002 when she was kidnapped from her Utah home at age 14 and held captive for nine months.

“I want them to know that nothing that has happened to them will ever diminish their value and it should never hold them back from doing what they want to do,” Smart told CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

The women should not feel pressure to speak publicly about their ordeal, Smart said, adding that time will help them heal. “It’s just incredible they are walking away from this horrendous nightmare, alive and safe today,” she said.

‘We’re hoping for a miracle’

Investigators had previously speculated that the disappearances of Berry, DeJesus and another girl, 14-year-old Ashley Summers, may have been connected. Summers’ family last saw her in July 2007, when she was 14.

“We did in fact believe there was an association between the Berry case and the DeJesus case as well as the Summers case,” said former FBI agent Jennifer Eakin. Eakin is now a case manager at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which in 2008 held a comprehensive review of the cases with the FBI and Cleveland police.

Now the Summers family is hoping that the Cleveland investigation will yield information about Ashley, her aunt, Debra Summers, said.

“We’re hoping for a miracle,” she said.

Anderson, the spokeswoman for the Cleveland FBI office, said investigators will question the three women found Monday in the hope that they know something about Summers’ disappearance.

Survival the key difference from ‘House of Horrors’ case

The suspects

Of the three brothers arrested, Ariel Castro was the only one to live at the home where the three women were apparently held, police said. The others lived elsewhere in the city.

Their uncle, Julio Castro, told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ on Monday that his family had grown up in the same west Cleveland neighborhood and knew the Georgina DeJesus family.

Julio Castro told CNN’s Martin Savidge on Tuesday that family members were “surprised” over the developments.

“Shame on you,” Julio Castro said, when asked what he would say to his nephews.

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Proposed DNA database greatly expands scope of surveillance

October 5, 2012 by

A new version of a draft law that proposed to set up a national DNA fingerprint database of criminals, including rapists, murderers and kidnappers, plans to substantially expand the type of offenders it covers to include people convicted of drunk driving and adultery.

The expanded list covers a host of offences including violations of the Motor Vehicles Act and dowry deaths, according to the ‘work-in-progress’ version of the draft reviewed by Mint. Mint has independently confirmed the authenticity of this version of the proposed legislation.

The proposed Indian database, or the National DNA databank, as it will be called, will consolidate DNA profiles from several state-level databases and maintain at least six different lists—an offenders index (that includes undertrials), suspects index, missing persons index, a crime scene index, unknown deceased persons’ index and a volunteers index. Only those who have been convicted of a crime will have their DNA profile permanently on the database. Missing persons subsequently found or suspects cleared of an investigation will be removed from the list after a court orders the manager of a DNA database bank to do so.

While currently the government consolidates some biological information about convicts, including fingerprints, in a centralized database, a database of DNA information opens up several ethical issues around privacy.

DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid encodes information of a person’s genes. While analysing this can reveal information on a person’s medical history, parentage and propensity to diseases, forensic experts say DNA-related information collected from a crime scene is quite useless for gleaning a person’s medical history.

“There are 17 sites or locations along the DNA strand that, together, we use to identify a person,” said J. Gowrishankar, director, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, and one of the scientists involved with the creation of the database. “However, none of these locations reveal anything about a person’s medical history. They are as neutral as fingerprints.”

He added that the chances of two people matching all 17 points are one in a 100 trillion. “That’s many times less than the world’s population, and hence a useful, neutral, unique identifier,” said Gowrishankar.

Apart from its uniqueness as an identifier, DNA can be accessed from a wide range of biological samples such as hair, semen, saliva, dead skin cells unlike fingerprints which are harder to find, according to Gowrishankar.

Yet embedded in its usefulness lies its potential propensity to invade a person’s privacy. Exactly 50% of one’s genetic information is shared with a parent or progeny, and between 25% and 90% with a sibling. Thus a convict’s DNA information on the database also points to DNA information of innocent relatives and family.

“That’s one of the big concerns that we are trying to address. If there’s a 90% match between two fingerprint samples, it tells you nothing about the relationship between two people,” said Gowrishankar. “A similar match between two DNA samples, however, is a potential lead. Would it then be ethical for us to share that information with investigating agencies?”

Then there’s the chance that innocent people who just happened to be in the vicinity of a crime find themselves on the database without their knowledge or consent. “Unfortunately, DNA evidence doesn’t say what time a person was present,” said Gowrishankar. Thus, technically, unless an investigation is closed or a case is solved, people can without their knowledge be on the ‘suspects’ list.

Helen Wallace of GeneWatch, a UK-based advocacy group that’s been critical of maintaining DNA databases, says that it is the potential for false leads—generated by such instances—that undermines the utility of a DNA database. “In the UK, for instance, there have been instances when police relied more on the DNA database rather than properly matching DNA from a crime scene, with suspects samples and that actually delayed the culprit from being apprehended,” said Wallace. “Moreover, even doubling the size of the DNA database hasn’t led to an increase in the number of convictions in the UK.”
Jeremy Gruber, President at the US-based Council for Responsible Genetics, said the Indian database was problematic because rather than crime-solving, it would be just be a Big Brother surveillance tool.

“No other country in the world mixes their law enforcement database with databases of innocent individuals in this way. Indeed, since very few crimes actually involve DNA, its collection for crimes for which DNA evidence isn’t relevant serves no safety purpose—it’s primary purpose is surveillance,” he said in an email.

The UK and the US have the largest such DNA databases in the world with roughly 3 million entries in each. A recent amendment to the UK’s Protection of Freedoms Act will lead to the deletion of at least a million profiles from the database, mainly on the grounds that these are profiles of innocents, said Wallace.

Unlike in many countries where DNA samples of suspects who are later found innocent are destroyed, the Indian database will maintain all physical samples indefinitely. “Our law is currently clear that body and tissue samples will be physically retained. We have to maintain that in case of a re-opened investigation,” said Gowrishankar.

Other officials, however, say that much debate is needed before the Bill is brought before the Union Cabinet, a prelude to being debated and passed by Parliament.

“For a while, it was with the home ministry, but now the department of biotechnology has been entrusted with the provisions of the Bill and now there have been some concerns—especially on privacy— by members of the Planning Commission,” said M.K. Bhan, secretary of the department of biotechnology.

The latest version of the Bill has been cleared by the law ministry although Gowrishankar, who’s part of the department of biotechnology panel drafting the Bill, added that he was unaware of the expanded list of crimes covered by the database.

“There’s a lot more discussion that’s needed on that,” he said.

An independent expert said that while she favours a national database, it would be useful and effective only if policemen and crime scene experts were sufficiently trained to properly collect and store DNA samples before they are submitted to laboratories for analysis.

“There have been so many instances where the police have requested me to analyse samples, but they’ve not followed even the basics of preserving biological samples,” said Anupama Raina, a forensics expert at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. “If collection is improper, a DNA database would be ineffective.”

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Kidnapping by Mexican police caught on video

June 14, 2012 by

There it was on video: Five heavily armed policemen barge into a hotel in western Mexico before dawn and march out with three handcuffed men in underwear.

But police weren’t making an arrest. Prosecutors say they apparently were taking orders from criminals. Just hours after the three were seized, they were found asphyxiated and beaten to death.

Mexicans have become inured to lurid tales of police collaboration with narcotics gangs during 5 ½ years of a drug war that has cost more than 47,500 lives. But seldom can they actually see it occur, and the video broadcast on national television was a shocker.

“One assumes that in some cities … the municipal police work for the drug cartels,” said Jorge Chabat an expert on security and drug trafficking at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching. “But what is different here is that there is a video. It’s not the same thing to imagine that this going on, and to see it.”

The Jan. 20 video released by prosecutors late Wednesday shows a police truck pulling up to the hotel in the city of Lagos de Moreno, quickly followed by a pickup carrying four armed men in civilian clothing. A city policeman carrying an assault rifle runs over to their truck and is given what appears to be a list. Then he and his fellow officers trot into the hotel and present the list at the reception desk, apparently asking what rooms the men are staying in.

In the next segment of the video, the victims are trotted out of the hotel in their underwear with their hands cuffed behind their backs. One is being hustled along by a man in civilian dress, who stuffs him into a patrol car. The gunmen — police are investigating whether they belong to the Jalisco New Generation drug gang — appear to be calling the shots throughout, with the police officers serving as gofers.

The police then watch and wait in front of the hotel while the men’s luggage and vehicle are stolen. Finally, the police truck carrying the victims follows the gunmen as they drive away in the own pickup and the stolen vehicle.

While the kidnapping and murder occurred in January, and the faces of several officers were clearly seen on the videos, the officers were not detained until June 6, when soldiers and state police raided a local police station. And they still have not been formally charged with any crime.

“It took time to obtain the video tapes, to do the investigation, and to get the arrest warrants,” said Jalisco state prosecutor’s spokesman Lino Gonzalez said Thursday. “We didn’t have the information.”

In any case, the release of the dramatic images comes less than three weeks before national and state elections in which security is a major issue. Critics accuse President Felipe Calderon of setting off a bloodbath with his strategy against gangs, while his party’s presidential candidate, Josefina Vazquez, has suggested her opponents are ready to compromise with the cartels.

Jalisco is governed by Calderon’s party. The man who was mayor of Lagos de Moreno when the video was shot is now a rival party’s candidate for the state legislature.

Gonzalez said that so far, seven policemen and officials of the municipal police force of Lagos de Moreno have been detained pending charges. And state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said the four men in civilian clothing also have been detained separately in other cases. He declined to say what gang they might belong to.

There are still mysteries surrounding the case, including whether the gunmen thought the victims were members of a rival drug cartel. The victims were from the northern state of Coahuila, where the hyperviolent Zetas cartel has been battling the Sinaloa cartel, allies of the local Jalisco Nueva Generacion gang.

Gonzalez said the victims, before checking into the hotel, had been briefly detained by police at the local jail for a minor infraction. They paid a fine and were released. But while in custody, “They said something indiscrete,” Gonzalez said. “Apparently they said something like ‘We’re from Coahuila, and we’re part of the mafia.’”

It’s not unusual in Mexico for detainees to boast about their connections, hoping to press corrupt police to release them.

This time, however, it backfired.

“Apparently, somebody at the jail heard the comment, and reported it to the real criminals,” Gonzalez said.

Coronado told local media the men had claimed to be Zetas.

Gonzalez said it has never been proved the kidnapped men were gang members. They may have just been in Lagos de Moreno collecting the rent on a ranch, and they are being treated simply as victims.

Chabat noted that corruption has reached so deep that in 2010 in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, seven local police officers in the town of Santiago were arrested on allegations they were working for the Zetas drug gang and that they kidnapped and killed the town’s Mayor, Edelmiro Cavazos, in retaliation for his attempts to cut corruption.

“There are police officers who kill the mayors they are supposed to protect,” Chabat said. But this week’s video “is cause for despair,” he said. “It gives rise to the feeling that this is not going to be solved in the short term.”

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Mexican Mayhem Fuels U.S. ‘Bodyguard’ Boom

February 24, 2012 by

On the surface, the drug war across the border boils down to a conflict between Mexico’s military and rival groups of cartels. This is true, but it leaves out Mexico’s other conflict — one fought against civilians through kidnapping, extortion and assassination. Little wonder that those who can afford it are now fueling a boom in professional bodyguards and guns-for-hire, many of them based in the United States.

And the boom is not just limited to jobs in Mexico — it’s happening on both sides of the border. It involves private security firms employed by both Mexican and U.S. citizens traveling from one country to the other, to border regions, or fueled by Mexican citizens relocating to the U.S. to escape the violence. The jobs given to the bodyguards involve protecting their clients against violent cartel threats and abductions, and helping negotiate kidnapping cases.

There are also serious risks. Some companies won’t work in Mexico proper because of the danger, while others do so — quietly.

R. Kent Morrison, president of Texas security firm BlackStone Group, hates the term bodyguard. For the heavily-built ex-Navy commando and Gulf War veteran, the term suggests a “big hulking gorilla with dark sunglasses and the trench coat.” Tucked away in a small office building in the wooded suburbs of west Austin, BlackStone is among a number of companies near the border competing in the more exclusive field of “executive protection,” security industry lingo for a more elite (and expensive) brand of hired muscle.

“Historically in the U.S., security has been the stereotypical, polyester-clad, eight-dollar-an-hour security guard, and that more than anything is just a way to reduce liability insurance costs,” Morrison says. “What we do is focus on providing security to usually high-net-worth individuals who actually have a need for security and aren’t provided that by some government entity.”

But when discussing Mexico, Morrison is cautious. He says BlackStone is seeing growth from Mexican nationals, mostly business executives traveling north, but only gives a rough estimate and doesn’t give out the names of individual customers. “I’ll tell you in the last five years the requests that we’ve had for those types of services from individuals and businessmen traveling from south of the border has probably doubled,” he said.

He says having a security detail in Mexico is now a literal “status symbol” for the country’s elite. And as that elite relocates to states like Texas because of violence or travels to do business, “they want to duplicate the services that they’ve grown accustomed to down south.”

This caution to discuss specifics reflects the shadowy and hazardous nature of Mexico’s private security business. Clayton International, an “executive protection” and counter-kidnapping subsidiary of longtime Iraq mercenary group Triple Canopy, and reported to work extensively in Mexico, said it would not answer questions from Danger Room due the “sensitivity of the subject.” Philip Klein, president of Houston-area Klein Investigations and Consulting, said his company has seen a 120 percent increase over the past two years, from 55 “sorties” to Mexico in 2009 to 121 last year. Klein expects the “unrest to continue down there, unless the government can get control,” and therefore more business for his company. But Klein is reluctant to discuss details.

One reason for the reluctance, according to a Triple Canopy employee speaking on background to Danger Room, is sheer risk. “The thing about working in Mexico is despite what movies or T.V. or popular perception might be is that nobody down there is armed on an executive protection detail. The Mexicans will not allow it — period,” the employee said. And not only that, if the cartels do attempt an assassination, they will “kill the protective detail too just to make sure all the loose ends are tied up.”

Mexico does indeed prohibit foreign nationals from carrying weapons. Instead, companies have subcontracted out the gun-slinging to Mexican freelancers and local firms. Rather than an armed U.S. mercenary team, a typical security detail includes two unarmed “detail leaders” from the U.S. in charge of four armed Mexican guards, hired from local firms or police officers moonlighting for extra pay. The U.S. agents call the shots and pick the travel routes, while the Mexican guards provide the muscle and firepower.

But the reliance U.S. mercs have on their armed Mexican subcontractors comes with another set of risks: the subcontractors can be easily out-bidded. Morrison said that “on a Tuesday, this group may be a completely solid group and Thursday they’ve been corrupted by the cartels.”

But whether the demand in border states like Texas is being fueled by actual threats of kidnapping or just the fear it could happen, however, is hard to ascertain. But Mexican citizens are facing a different level of risk. In a nod to the reality of the sometimes blurry distinctions between legitimate business in Mexico and organized crime, Morrison added that clients have told him: “‘A competitor made a play for my company and I have to come in and make sure they don’t strengthen that play by snatching my kid.’”

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The Psychology of Kidnapping and Abduction

February 2, 2012 by
kidnapping-and-abduction-262x300

I was startled to read that in 2010 the United States was ranked sixth in the world for “kidnapping-for-ransom” crimes according to the available statistics (after Columbia, Italy, Lebanon, Peru, and the Philippines). In June 2010, Senator John McCain stated that Phoenix, Arizona was the “Kidnapping Capital of America.” With 370 cases in 2010, Phoenix is ranked second in the world only to Mexico City. The increasing frequency of these types of headlines caused me to investigate kidnapping further to better understand the overall risks of abduction, how to avoid being kidnapped and what to do if being held captive for any period of time.

What I have come to learn is that kidnapping is a growing global epidemic with no realistic solution.

By definition kidnapping is “the taking away or transportation of a person against the person’s will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority.” This may be done for ransom or in furtherance of another crime, or in connection with a child custody dispute. Non-custodial parent abductions of children were, by far, the number one type of kidnapping occurring across the globe in 2010 and often does not get included in the most common statistical reporting of abductions.

Kidnapping for ransom is certainly a common occurrence in many parts of the world today (especially in Latin America) and certain countries are often described as the “Kidnapping Capital of the World.” In 2010, Mexico clearly earned the title but very few abductions were for financial gain; it is estimated that over 90% of the kidnappings in Mexico were due to the wars being fought among and between the various drug cartels and the Mexican government. Statistically, nearly all of the victims in Mexico were killed. In 2007, the title “Kidnapping Capital of the World” belonged to Iraq with possibly 1,500 foreigners kidnapped; estimates break that number almost in half between kidnapping for ransom and kidnapping for ideological purposes. In 2004, Mexico held the title and in 2001, it was Colombia.

How does a kidnapper choose his victim?

Kidnappers tend to develop a profile of their likely target before making an abduction based upon their overall goals, which usually falls into one of three categories: financial gain, extremism or emotional disturbance.

If a kidnapper is going to take a hostage for ransom, he will target the victim based upon an outward appearance of wealth or information given to him from someone who knows the victim intimately, such as a household employee, a bank teller, a waitress at the victim’s favorite restaurant or someone else that suspects that the victim has a lot of cash.

Have you ever inadvertently “flashed” a lot of cash while digging through your wallet or purse to pay for something at the local market? If you are a regular, that sort of gossip tends to get a lot of attention from minimum wage workers and the dollar amounts often gets blown out of proportion the more times the “story of your wealth” gets told!

The good news is that hostage-for-ransom victims tend to survive their ordeal. Avoid carrying large amounts of cash or wearing expensive jewelry. Be discrete about how much money you have and where you keep it. Hire domestic employees carefully and do not give your trust to them easily.

Zealots, extremists and terrorists tend to target their victims based upon such things as nationality, ethnicity, religion, social status or organizational affiliation (i.e. employees of a specific company or political party might be targeted). Unfortunately, because the primary aim of these types of abductions is to create sensationalism, be visible or to make a statement, the percentage of hostages that are killed can be quite high.

Strong emotion and mental defect also play a large part in the overall number of kidnappings. The kidnapping of a child by a non-custodial parent or other adult is usually based upon an emotion upheaval created when the kidnapper feels that the child’s welfare and best interests are at risk or that the child will be gone completely from their lives. Non-custodial parent kidnappings also occur out of spite or revenge. People take hostages during periods of rage and profound loss, too. One classic example is that of a man taking an ex-lover hostage because he is emotionally unable to let go. The feeling of loss festers into the irrational thought that he might be able to convince the victim to reconsider resuming their relationship… if she could just be made to listen. Gender-based kidnappings occur as well; the mentally disturbed who have sexual deviancies often target people just because they are male or female.

There really is nothing one can do to avoid the attention of a would-be kidnapper who is either an extremist or otherwise mentally disturbed. Apply standard personal safety precautions to lessen the chances of becoming a victim; situational awareness is of paramount importance.

Tips for avoiding being kidnapped.

It is critical that you pay attention to your surroundings and maintained a sense of privacy.

If you are a tourist or business traveler dress like the locals. Blending in helps avoid the attention of people who are looking for obvious or lucrative targets. Avoid wearing extravagant jewelry, expensive clothing, company logoed apparel and religious garb that identifies a specific faith if it is not appropriate for your surroundings. Don’t wear clothing with your name on it – the same applies to your children. Keep your itinerary and travel plans to yourself!

Are you being watched or followed? Does it appear that you are about to be approached by a stranger or group of strangers? People who are surveilling or following others tend to fixate on their target, which causes them to stare. Personally, I like to spin around really quickly every so often while I am walking just to see who instantly averts their eyes. Likewise, when I am driving I make a random series of turns or make two abrupt u-turns to see if I am being tailed.

Targets are especially vulnerable while travelling. An abductor tends to surveil his victim while planning his attack because he is looking for a weakness in the victim’s routine. People get comfortable and settle into a predictable pattern of daily activities from which the abductor can study and choose when and where he will have an advantage over the target and have the least risk of being caught in the act. The best defense against becoming a victim to your own routine is to consciously change your routine every day: Vary the times that you leave and return home. Use several different routes during your daily travels. If you travel by bus, try and limit the amount of time you are waiting at bus stops and only use stops that are well-used during the times you are typically waiting there. Only use clearly-marked and licensed taxis and never except a ride from a stranger.

If you are driving a personal vehicle make sure that it is well-maintained and has plenty of fuel; the last thing you want to have happen is to run out of fuel at night! You don’t want to become a “target of opportunity” because you are helpless on the side of the road. Keep your car doors locked and a mobile phone where you can get to it quickly in an emergency. Don’t be afraid to call for help if you are stranded, uncomfortable or need any type of assistance.

Carry and use a “GPS-aware” mobile phone. It is absolutely possible to locate your phone through a process of pinging or triangulation. Many fugitives and abducted children have been recovered through the use of cell phone pinging by various State and Federal law enforcement agencies.

If you have a flat tire or are in an automobile collision (we don’t call them “accidents” because the collision could have been planned) and your vehicle is still operable drive to the nearest public place before exchanging information with the driver. Always call the authorities who are responsible for investigating collisions whether or not the impact felt “minor” if it is dark or you are unfamiliar of with your surroundings. One important consideration to take into account about your mobile phone: if it is resting untethered on your car’s dash or center console when you are in a vehicle collision the phone will probably be thrown about the car’s interior and can be nearly impossible to find, especially if you are disoriented, injured or the car is badly damaged.

Self-defense classes, personal safety equipment and concealed firearms (where legal) really can make a difference!

Most importantly, darkness and isolation are tools that abductors leverage to their best advantage! Concealment offers him the ability to catch a victim off-guard with very little chance of interference from bystanders. If you must be alone, remain in well-lit places with a lot of people around.

What to do if you are being abducted:

Fight your abductors like your life depends on it and make as much of a commotion for as long as you are able. Oftentimes an attacker will give up if there is a perceived risk that the attacker might be hurt or caught during the process or if you are more trouble than you are worth. The longer you can drag out the instance of being abducted, the better your odds become of avoiding the eventuality of the attacker’s success. If you believe that you are the victim of a hate crime, a target of an extremist or are being moved to facilitate a violent sexual act against you, then you MUST fight with everything you’ve got. Your chances of survival after being moved under these circumstances are almost zero percent. Personally, I would rather die at that moment and location where I had a chance of survival than be drug away where I do not; the probability of an excruciatingly painful death is almost certain, too.

Screaming “Fire!” is better than screaming an unintelligible sentence like, “Help, I’m being kidnapped!” and do it in the language spoken by likely bystanders or others who may hear you; for example, you’ll want to know the correct words or phrases in Spanish if you are in Latin or Central America. Learn and practice those words and phrases ahead of time.

If you are subdued and can no longer fight or scream, stop struggling and calm down. You need to be able to think rationally and strategically. You must clear your head of the clouding effects of adrenaline. If you believe that you are the victim of a hostage-for-ransom scheme, then work with them through negotiations and giving them points of contact. People often die while trying to escape; the longer you remain in captivity the better chance you have of eventually being freed or rescued.

Be overly courteous to your abductors and mind your manners! Don’t argue with, complain to, or threaten your captors. Listen to them when they speak and follow their instructions if you are not in imminent danger.

If your abductors let you speak, do so in a gentle voice. Project humility and gain empathy; talk with your captors in a manner that might suggest you understand their circumstances and the reasons that led them to target you because “you are human and face difficult situations as well.” Find commonality, sports, children, religion, shared experiences, etc., and convince them that there is no real reason to hurt you physically. If you are unclear as to your captor’s motive for taking you, then you might suggest that you are worth more alive than dead to buy you some time.

If you learn the abductor’s name, your location or potential plans DO NOT use their name or talk about them unless they shared that information with you directly. There is no need to make the situation worse because you “know too much.”

Do not tell your captors anything that will endanger the lives of others or that can be used against you to further their crime.

Most importantly, retain your sense of dignity and self-worth. Maintain your hygiene the best you are able. Find religion and pray regularly; studies have shown that people who pray regularly and thoughtfully have higher confidence levels, elevated endorphin and serotonin levels within the body and are able to deal with traumatic experiences more effectively. P.O.W.s have often related that prayer emboldened their spirit and maintained their will to live.

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