Police are urging those with dashcam or CCTV footage to come forward.

It’s different when you read those words and realise that it’s referring to the street you live on.

It hits even harder when you realise that the victim could have been you. A guy who was sent to the hospital with multiple stab wounds, just because he refused to give up his phone.

The 32-year-old was walking home from work when a car started following him.

As a guy who regularly walks around his neighbourhood at any random hour and is nearly 32 … it hit me just how this could have been me. This attack wasn’t premeditated or planned. This was random.

Whilst I would argue that I would have better sense to run away, or realise something is wrong when a car is following me, it’s still terrifying to know that this could happen to me.

In a way, learning about this incident made me feel justified in learning Krav Maga. But like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it’s also made me extra paranoid.

My neighbourhood is very safe. Having lived over 10 years here, I’ve always felt like I could go outside for a walk and not worry about anything. Everything is well-lit, people are friendly, dogs are being walked everywhere … I’ve never not felt safe.

But I didn’t grow up idolising spies for nothing. My head has always been on a swivel no matter where I am. My girlfriend has complained that I am always scanning my surroundings when we are walking, that whilst the habit has lessened with her, it is still an ingrained habit to check where the fire escapes are when I enter a new restaurant.

Taking in the moment, is the same as taking in the environment I find myself in.

The stabbing of the random man, was a sobering moment for me. It meant that I had to be extra cautious when I walked outside, that the moment I opened the gates and hopped into my car, I could face trouble.

That particular incident happened 5 weeks ago.

Only recently I learned two things.

My brother’s car window was smashed

And my car experienced an attempted robbery.

Someone came up to my car and gave it a good tug, checking whether it was locked or not. It was my mother who caught him mid-tug, and wondered what he was doing before he subsequently ran away.

Worse still, was my poor brother, whose right rear window was completely shattered. We exchanged theories on who it could be, what could have happened, but fortunately, aside from the annoyance of replacing the window, luckily in both cases, nothing was stolen.

But the ease had set in. My mind was now extra alert, extra paranoid and mulling violent thoughts.

I like to think I know my capacities pretty well.

I wanted to learn Krav Maga because it has every dirty trick in the book.

But even before I took lessons, I was already a dirty fighter.

I knew that if I ever got into a fist fight, I was going straight for my torch, blinding my opponent with the beam, before smashing their jaw with the hard edge of the torch and sprinting as fast as I can in the opposite direction before they can even register what happened to them.

Because when you’re alone and potentially outnumbered …. you hit as hard as you can and you run.

People hate cardio.

My job is to make sure I hate it a bit less than they do, so I survive another night.

This is the problem when something violent happens on your front doorstep. You start coming up with insane violent thoughts to process, to wonder and to brace yourself. Because you know deep down, once violence turns up, it never stops until someone is dead at your feet.

Violence can only be met with superior violence. It’s no good cutting a man’s arm off. He’ll still try to stab you with the other hand. You need to behead him to properly end everything.

That is the one thing I’ve noticed in watching so much police body camera footage.

You de-escalate whenever you can. You talk, plead, then shout and finally command.

But if they ignore everything, you draw your gun and you end the threat.

I don’t know what type of threat is out there, but it’s in my neighbourhood now. I can hear angry shouts that can only come from substance abuse. A man, my age, was stabbed. My brother’s car was smashed into, and a stranger tried to break into my car. A man once walked into my home, and tried to open the door. Last year, my friend’s car was broken into and he lost valuables.

It would be foolish of me to assume that everything is rosy in my area.

I need to stay vigilant and wary.

To answer my question ….

Do YOU feel safe?

No, I definitely do not.

If anything, and this is a mixed feeling, I feel almost vindicated in how paranoid I’ve been all these years. Vindicated but also saddened that I was right. Call me a cynic, but you can’t trust people. I’ve watched and seen too much law enforcement and military footage to believe anything else.

People are unpredictable, and with how the local judgement has been on crime lately, it’s not surprising to see that crime has risen.

But at the same time, I understand that desperation. Cost-of-living has shot up and that means the number of people who are now desperate has gone up too. A car is an easy target to get quick valuables.

Yet, that only proves my theory about the unpredictable nature of humanity.

In the end, to survive in this world, you need to keep your enemies at bay, by having a strong community around you. People you trust, people who will have your back in desperate times and most importantly friends and family that you can lean on for help.

No man is an island. It takes a village to keep the marauders away.

And I can definitely sense them lurking around in my neighbourhood.

Whilst it may be exhausting to be vigilant all the time, it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.

Life is already tough.

Let’s not make being a crime statistic a part of it.

Eyes on a swivel and make sure you know how to run real damn fast.

~ Damocles.