“An unidentified woman called 911 during a weekend in August 2012 while Michael Bellah was breaking into her place. Her call was forwarded to Oregon State Police because of lay-offs at the Josephine County Sheriff’s Office only allows the department to be open Monday through Friday.” This from Oregon Public Radio via cbslocal.com. It shouldn’t be a problem, though, because as everyone knows, most criminals take nights and weekends off. Somehow, though, Michael Bellah missed that memo. “‘Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there,’ the 911 dispatcher told the woman. ‘You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away?'” It isn’t known if she made the request or not . . .
But Bellah probably wouldn’t have complied. Especially since, as the report indicates, he’d already attacked the unidentified Josephine County, Oregon woman a few weeks earlier, landing her in a hospital. Which, you’d expect, might have prompted her to make some provision for her own self defense.
“Once again it’s unfortunate you guys don’t have any law enforcement out there,” the dispatcher said, according to Oregon Public Radio.
The woman responded: “Yeah, it doesn’t matter, if he gets in the house I’m done.”
The county had laid off 23 deputies plus its major crimes unit. Then “the Sheriff put out a press release warning victims of domestic violence to ‘consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services.’”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t have another victim,” Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilberson told Oregon Public Radio. “If you don’t pay the bill, you don’t get the service.”
OPR and the sheriff are using the incident to argue for a tax hike to partially replace a federal subsidy that had been cut. But don’t think this is isolated to rural Oregon. Response times are rising nationwide as budgets are squeezed due to ballooning pension liabilities and declining tax bases. Which means that, more than ever, individuals will be increasingly responsible for their own personal defense and that of their loved ones. Just FYI.
I have a crazy idea. Get a gun. Learn how to use it. When a bad guy breaks into your home, shoot the bastard several times where it will do the most good. Then you can tell the idiot 911 operator that she can take as much time as she wants to dispatch the meat wagon, ’cause Mr. Rigor Mortis ain’t going nowhere.
Some of the locals are doing that and more:
http://youtu.be/8MGeyuWPM-0
Didn’t RF do a post about a charity group trying to get shotguns to those in need of self defense?
The Armed Citizen Project: http://armedcitizenproject.org/
Police, Fire and EMS look easy to cut on paper. Priorities look different when your cat is up a tree or someone is breaking into your home.
Beyond the budget issues, even a well-funded police department generally “responds” to calls, and the lag between the call and response is a great time to have a means of defending one’s self.
Teeth to tail
Politicians always lay off the few on the pointy end rather than the many on the blunt side, so that the sheep don’t complain when taxes go up.
“According to police records, a few minutes later Michael Bellah used a piece of metal to pry open the woman’s front door. He choked her, and sexually assaulted her. Later that day he was arrested by the State Police.”
Seems to me if she had a gun and used it. That would have saved tax money in the long run. We wouldn’t have to spend tax money on the court system, house him, feed him, etc. The way I see it we could save the tax money and spend it on the schools. It’s for the children.
Outstanding point. An Armed citzen attacked by criminal and employing a weapon to kill the assailant is the MOST COST EFFECTIVE method to reducing the criminal ranks.
I wonder if she would have gotten a different police response if she did have a gun and let the dispatcher know she was going to stop who ever was coming with it. I have a feeling the state police would have dropped what they were doing and would have tried a little harder to get there.
Come to think of it. AR15 would have been just perfect for this situation seeing how it is easier to keep on target.
I feel very sorry for this woman, but Ralph is right. You and your family’s safety is your own responsibility. No one else will be there when the time comes to defend them, especially from a lethal threat.
I haven’t personally seen the story, but someone told me yesterday that the victim complained afterwards that taxes hadn’t been increased.
If I have this right, this same man had put her in the hospital a short time before this…but instead of arming herself or doing something else (finding another place to stay or something), she’s complaining that her neighbors aren’t paying enough.
I feel sorry for her, yes – but I’m definitely not digging that.
And did I hear that right? They have almost 40 employees, and three of them are officers? (Only on my second cup of coffee, so please forgive me. I need at least four before I’m coherent.)
Think of the money all the cash-strapped organizations could save if they would just distribute all those “cash for guns” weapons to the people who actually needed them, or even bought them each a brand new pistol AND training. Less cost for police patrols and a whole lot less cost to try, convict, and house the perps.
‘You know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away?’
Really? Wait………. really!?
And if that doesn’t work, try pissing yourself or throwing up to make him go away.
You must have received this advice straight from the Colorado legislature. That is actually what representative (no capital on purpose) Joe Salazar suggested whilst shredding Colorado citizens civil rights in the House….
I wonder if this girl would have even been able to get a firearm where she was, at least in a timely manner. I imagine a stun gun would be able even the odds for while too…
Hi there, Travis! I don’t believe we’ve met before. When someone repeats something ridiculous in a serious manner with the intent to mock it, they’re using me! I can be lots of fun. In fact, my good buddy Lucas D. uses me all the time to mock stuff! Let’s be pals, pal!
The creep who broke in and raped her was her ex-boyfriend. She knew from previous incidents that the only “no” he might have understand was a bullet. She thinks a state cop should roar across county endangering traffic, children, just to chill out her ex? She’s a frontier woman, now. No local PD. “Get a shotgun. Get a shotgun.” She’s probably a O/Biden voter anyway. She can’t take his advice? “There are people who, when you give them a free chicken, then insist you carve it for them, too.” Goethe (paraphrased)
+1
seems sequester has more implications than previously thought. show of hands, who is surprised
The Sequester is a Federal thing, not an Oregon state thing. If folks in the “She Flies With Her Own Wings” state can’t or don’t want to afford law enforcement you can’t blame that it on Feds.
The sequester cut the federal subsidy that the sheriff’s department was using to fund its operations – which lead to this sorry state of affairs. As more and more tax cuts mean fewer and fewer government services, we’ll go back to having gravel roads and living under constant threat from armed gangs of criminals. Ten bad guys with guns can usually defeat one good guy with a gun, especially if they ambush the good guy.
It’s cost-benefit, folks. Paying enough in highway taxes to keep the bridges repaired and the roads paved is less expensive than the added repairs due to damage from the gravel roads. Buying a gun, getting trained, and keeping up proficiency costs quite a bit more than paying enough in taxes to have law enforcement handy. It is unfortunate that the anti-tax hysteria has reached such a point that we likely will be forced to arm ourselves and form citizens’ militias.
If the pols would get out of our way and respect our right to carry arms a lot of these problems would go away.
@ RepubAnon, GFY you lying liberal POS!!!
By “paying enough in taxes to have law enforcement handy” I presume you mean a cop in every house. No? Then you’re still in the ‘when seconds count, the police are only minutes away’ scenario.
Having a durable-good firearm that cost you maybe $200-300 new, and less used, is not a more expensive option than yearly paying taxes that you have no oversight in the use of (see: bloated bureaucracy and gold-plated pensions). Furthermore, it’s infinitely preferable to have resort to your own, competent defense on hand than to rely solely on someone else to come and protect your ass in time.
Tax cuts? You must be kidding. The sequester (Obamas plan) cut (reduced the increase) 80 billion from a budget that has us borrowing over a trillion dollars, and now Oregon loses all the sheriffs? You forgot to mention the teachers and firefighters that now don’t have jobs. We still spend more than just a few years ago. Obama wants you thinking a $10 reduction in federal spending will collapse bridges and crash planes, while somehow pushing granny off the cliff, and you’re eating it up.
Obama didn’t fool me with that one. In fact, I don’t think he’s fooled me yet.
If the dam Pols would stop taking money away from Police, EMS, and Firefighters and handing it over to welfare programs, things like this wouldn’t happen. When your budget climbs to over 50% to handouts, but your firing first responders, your priorities are really, really, screwed up….
Our township has 138 LEO’s for 27,000 residents. The per household cost of this very effective well-trained force is more than $1,000 per year including pension funding and other costs. A Glock or good pump shotgun costs $550 or less, a one-time expense. Training and practice? Perhaps $60 per quarter, or $280 per year. Obviously self-provided defense is not only cheaper per household but is actually there to stop the rape, rather than arriving afterward just to do the paperwork. Save the money to fund more EMT’s to treat the perp after the fact.
Save the money to fund more EMT’s to treat the perp after the fact.
Better still, practice the Mozambique and save the money to hire ServPro for the cleanup after the fact.
I really do wish our politicians and voters would practice the Mozambique instead of the Zimbabwe.
Your math is quite bad. I pay many thousands of dollars a year in taxes. The price of a handgun and a years’ worth of modest-frequency practice ammo is far, far less than that.
Now, to be fair, we need both. The problem with taxes is the amounts wasted, spent on things the government has no business in, and the portions spent to actually attack the tax payers.
Effective home defense begins and ends with “you”. The cops are the cleanup crew. To believe otherwise is to gamble with your life.
The comments in the link suggest that a woman owning a gun in the household is in more danger than a woman not owning a gun… nevermind that in this particular case, having a gun would have probably stopped the assailant and prevented a sexual assault.
The studies do not correctly indicate who owns the gun or the true circumstances of why the women were targeted, nor if the gun itself was used in the said crime (because it’s very easy to reason that it wasn’t) ie. it’s not dangerous to own a firearm in the home, it’s dangerous to closely associate with a [male] criminal. Nevermind that a criminal in proximity would expose women to a higher risk for rapes, beatings, stabbings, …
It amazes me that such people in the same breath claim feminism, yet want to deny women (in my opinion) the ultimate expression of feminism in the right to a gun. A dark side of me wants to call out these people as drugged up hippies who have no right and capability to own a firearm anyways.
Sorry, folks – the numbers are in. If you have a firearm in the house, the odds of getting shot go up, not down. Proper firearms safety training and procedures help lessen the risk, but the added risk is still there.
However, if there’s inadequate law enforcement in your area, the risk of attack may outweigh the heightened risk associated with having a firearm handy. It’s all about risk management.
No shit, Sherlock. Not having a swimming pool in my backyard decreases my chances of drowning and never leaving my house brings the odds of dying in a plane crash close to zero.
If you want to live your life based on statistics, go crazy. But nobody who’s ever been a victim of or lost a loved one to violent crime ever took comfort in the fact that, statistically speaking, it wasn’t supposed to happen to them. Statistically speaking, I’m probably not going to get into a car accident tomorrow, but I’m also not going to remove my airbags because there’s a risk of breaking my nose if they accidentally deploy.
You _do_ understand my logical problem with the study and the way the stats are manipulated right? Was the firearm itself used in the crime, or does owning a weapon as you suggest simply attract misfortune?! Was it a suicide; did the perpetrator have a known history?!
I’m pretty sure we can draw a stronger correlation to a person with known criminal history and a secondary correlation to the criminal owning a weapon that I will to just _anyone_ owning a “gun”.
It’s like the blanket argument that the U.S. has a high murder rate compared to other “civilized” countries, yes, except that the murders disproportionately happen to a small localized percentage of the total population; ie. people living and gang-ridden neighborhoods. Simply citing the general stat without the breakdown is intentionally misleading.
“Sorry, folks – the numbers are in. If you have a firearm in the house, the odds of getting shot go up, not down. Proper firearms safety training and procedures help lessen the risk, but the added risk is still there.”
Too bad your own argument proves itself wrong to anyone with even a modicum of objective intelligence. While having a gun in the home indeed increases chances of being shot, it also dramatically decreases the chances of being killed by hundreds and hundreds of other means. Even your best friends in the federal government say more people are murdered each year by hammers than are killed with an evil black rifle.
The idea that making guns go away makes crime and violence goes away is ludicrous at best, and at worst, just plain stupid.
Damn, is it me, or does it seem the number of anti-2A trolls have increased around here? rtempleton, truthy, and now this guy? MikeyB is a kind of a permanent fixture so he really doesn’t count.
It seemed to pick up around the time the Liberator hit.
I’ve seen TTAG being referenced in occasionally from the MSM.
@jerry, it’s no coincidence that the tr0lls show up just as middle schools are closing for summer vacation. Now that their time is not being burdened with Remedial English courses, the little b@stards are showing up here.
No, your chances do not necessarily “go” up – that implies knowledge of causation, which that these studies never bother with. Have you ever considered that people arm themselves because they believe, accurately, that they under an elevated threat of harm?
“‘Uh, I don’t have anybody to send out there … you know, obviously, if he comes inside the residence and assaults you, can you ask him to go away?’”
“Once again it’s unfortunate you guys don’t have any law enforcement out there …”
“… The Sheriff put out a press release warning victims of domestic violence to ‘consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services.’”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t have another victim … if you don’t pay the bill, you don’t get the service.”
Holy fu<k. This is truly the Wyle E. Coyote moment for the Republic. We have well and truly had it.
Hope to bump into you guys sometime, after the Intertubes go away…
It’s not over yet, but it’s likely to get uglier before it gets better. We’ve been through this before; twice. Just keep your brass clean and your bore clear.
Even if the agency were fully funded, there’s a lot of bad stuff that can happen in three or four minutes, which would be a fantastic response time.
Fact: there’s only one person you can rely on to be there on time to in any situation affecting you – you yourself. No one else, no matter how well intentioned or dedicated can keep a promise to be there 100% of the time. So learn how to take care of yourself and not depend on others for your safety.
Read about this yesterday and my first reaction is outrage at the 911 operator. Then I looked up Josephine Co., Oregon on Wikipedia and it has almost as many people as the county I live in. Now I’m not totally against helping those in extremely sparsely populated areas but there’s 1 person for every 12.5 acres, that’s not exactly northern Alaska. What compelling reason is there that I should be expected to pay extra taxes so that the folks in Josephine Co., Oregon only have to pay for 6 of their (previously) 29 deputies? And when the taxpayer gravy train comes to a halt they layoff their staff and tell people to fend for themselves rather than pay their own way? Are you seriously telling me that 82,713 people can only afford to pay for 6 cops!?!
Bottom line is regardless of where you live, NEVER trust the cops to show up in time.
It’s a scam. The local government, citing budget concerns, cuts the number of police officers while keeping all the nonessential spending(welfare, pensions, bureaucrats, etc.). When something happens like in the article, the local politicians start up a clamor for more taxes.
This is how the federal as well as state and local spending spending doubles in a decade. Then they wonder why the economy won’t recover – news flash – it’s the over burdensome weight of government taking too big of a slice of the pie.
Too bad she didn’t have a working knowledge of the defensive use of kitchen knives not to mention a quality firearm.
RepubAnon/The Liberal is right in a certain sense: when selfish assholes idolize rich scum who refuse to pay their taxes b/c they want an ever increasing rate of return on investment, certain morbid symptoms begin to appear.
Forget about budget issues, in many rural locations throughout Oregon it can take 30-minutes to several hours for police to respond even when agencies are fully funded. The coverage area is just too great in most of the rural counties.. I remember when I lived in Columbia County about 45 minutes from Portland. I learned right after I moved there that the small town police department closed up at 2am and calls were directed to the Sheriff who had only a few deputies on the road at that time. In rural Oregon, if you do not have the means to protect yourself, you are done regardless of police budgets.
“the Sheriff put out a press release warning victims of domestic violence to ‘consider relocating to an area with adequate law enforcement services.’”
This is a disappointing remark. Move? Really? How about if you live in a rural area, tool up. My friends house had a 45 minute response time in the Mohawk valley area of Oregon. They had firearms for everyone and knew how to use them.
Also, things in Oregon went downhill after the hippies got their way ruining the woods industry. My dad went from $19 an hour in the 80s to $10 an hour overnight. He finally cracked $20 this year as a logger. Lots of tax revenue for Oregon came from the woods industry. Nothing really replaced it.
You don’t need guns. The police will protect you.
I guess I need to abdicate all personal responsibility to the guberment in a real hurry before the final collapse.
The fellow had attacked her several weeks earlier? She had been hospitalized as a result. She got out of the hospital and he got out of jail? WHY was he out of jail? Because justice is slow………………………..their heart becomes fully set to do bad. My neighbor(has extensive criminal record) was caught in the commission of a crime by a deputy, held 48 hours and released……..because the prosecutor did not file any charges. Now…..he has promised me that I would not sleep at night! Takes 1/2 hour for deputy to get here. And after they get here…….nothing. And if they are caught red-handed…….still nothing!
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