Good hospitals, especially larger hospitals, will have serious security – as in armed officers. Why? Because hospitals and trauma centers are the furthest thing from “safe spaces.”
Real danger lurks both within and just outside the walls of these facilities. Yes, this applies to even smaller city medical centers like Peoria’s OSF Medical Center and their ER entrance pictured above. What spurred this massive police response – at least massive for downstate? A flurry of gang-related shootings.
Wounded gang-bangers end up at emergency rooms. They bring their friends and families, and sometimes their enemies looking for payback. Before you know it, they’re all trading shots at the hospital endangering countless innocents.
If you see hospital security like this, you’re likely on your own if things go sideways.
They probably won’t have the horsepower to do THIS.
This is an ED Department door where (serious) security threw someone OUT of the ED.
If you hear “Trauma Alert ED” over the intercom, and look out the window to see this, it may or may not be safe.
Aside from “exciting” times like these at Emergency Departments, hospitals are often located in older, sometimes crime-ridden neighborhoods. Regardless of neighborhood quality, bad guys know that good guys can’t carry concealed firearms there, so they’re almost assured their victims will be unarmed and nearly defenseless.
Hospitals also treat mental patients too.
Between the criminals and the crazies, unsuspecting people can easily and quickly become the victim of serious crime in a place they falsely assumed to be “safe”.
So pay attention to your surroundings and practice avoidance. After all, you don’t want to have to punch some mope’s ticket.
Shots fired outside of a Chicagoland ER entrance earlier this year.
Maintain high situational awareness in medical center parking garages too. Often poorly lit, they offer lots of blind spots for bad guys to loiter while looking for a potential victim or victims.
And if you’re in the ER with a patient, keep your eyes open as well for potential threats and encourage the rest of your family to do the same.
Give those hospital security people a nod to acknowledge them. They’re there to discourage mopes from doing mopey things.
Comments are closed.