Bye. Hi. There you are. Hello that worked like a charm this time. Perfect, awesome. Well, it's good for you to be back in life. I'm glad we could make it work this time. Oh, me too me too. We had a great conversation off air, and then I pulled the did the post about it and, and yeah, you know, again, to be totally honest with you. Like my, you know, like my head spinning, like, you know, with all the recent events and stuff. So, I think this is a great time
to have a conversation. I really appreciate you, you know, taking the time to do this and there's been a lot of requests specially from women who ride, the sky crane and you know, it's pretty pretty scary sometimes out there. I agree. I think this is the perfect time and I'm passionate about not only keeping people, safe are are educating people and empowering people to be safe but
especially women. I can definitely relate very, very much with women because before I became a place, I mean I've always been a woman but For you can became a police officer. I can definitely relate to some of the stories that people tell me all the time and some of the stories that you've told me and some of your viewers have said they just don't feel safe. And so if there's anything that I can do to help Empower women, then that's what I'm here for prefer are absolutely.
So maybe let's go through some of the safety tips that we first talked about, you know, the more common sense one. And then maybe go a little dig, a deep dive and maybe discuss like certain scenarios and maybe, yes I do. And then I also Also thought because I had a conversation with cinnamon, who's running for city council, we talked, I talked a lot about situations where D escalating the situation, prevented a violent situation and three situations.
I always end. Luckily, it got D escalated, it lead to violence, and sometimes I feel that sometimes things get stirred up and then you know, it could have been avoided with some distance, D, escalation tactics, right? The source. Yeah, So the one thing that I tell people off the bat is no, the safety features before you need them. So there's no point in in a
stressful situation. We tend to not think clearly and that's the fight, or flight flight or fight response and your body sort of shuts down and yeah. Use, what is completely necessary? So have all of those features memorize before you even come into a situation. So the biggest First one I tell, people is if you're on the SkyTrain, and if you ride the train regularly, you will know this.
But some people just, they're not aware the yellow strip, there's a yellow strip, a top of the windows on every SkyTrain, and that's a silent alarm. So if you push that, it sends an alarm to the control center and then they dispatch a Sky Train attendant at the next available station. So it might not be right away, but someone is coming to check that train because the alarm is going off. And if you need Help. Then the sky Train attendant will be able to get help for you.
They can call police. They have radios that they can. They can connect to us. And they can say we need Transit Police right now and we will be there soon as we can. Okay, that's the most common one. Also inside every Sky Train car, there's an intercom as well. So if you're in a situation where it's fast moving, or it's in progress, like an assault is happening now, it's not something that may happen. It's something that is in
progress now and you need help. Now, obviously number one, you always want to call 911, right a that's yeah, that's not something that's ever negotiable. If normal one is obvious, someone's being excited. Mergency always number one, but the intercom inside the train is, if you're in a articulated train which is the one with the sort of accordion connection, right? The our cam is, is on the wall and you just press it and you can speak directly with Sky Train control and you can tell
them what you need. And what the scenario is that's happening. So they can dispatch police right away or they can contact our dispatchers who dispatch us right away and we can be there very quickly if we need to be. That's another good one. If you're on a bus, I like to tell people that if you're ever unsure especially for women, I find we're sort of taught that we don't want to be rude. We don't want to speak up for ourselves or if One. And I'm going to get personal with women.
If someone makes you feel uncomfortable, you have to trust that instinct. You have to draw trust that gut feeling, because it usually means something. So, you get that gut feeling if you're sitting next to someone and you think to yourself, hmm, he's not doing anything wrong. Yeah, but his Vibes all wrong. Yeah. But I feel uncomfortable or I feel. Don't wait for something to happen.
Get up and move move, as close to the bus driver, to the front of the bus, as you can and safely separate yourself create distance from from that person and you don't have to worry about being rude. I think, especially as women were, were told all the time. You know, you don't want to hurt someone's feelings or you don't, you know what you're saying is way more important than hurting, someone's feelings for sure. I always yeah. The bus driver is you want to be
as close to the bus drivers? You can they also have an alarm. That they can push and that puts them in contact with security as well and Communications, and they can also dispatch be in contact with our dispatchers who dispatch us. So, don't wait for something to happen. If you. Yeah, you and another thing that I like to tell women is don't sit on the inside. Hmm, when you're sitting on a bus or even the SkyTrain there, there are two seats. So one is close to the window.
One is close to the aisle. It's really important that You have an Avenue of escape and you need to think about these things before they happen. So think about if something were to happen right now, how would I get out of this situation, right? So I would say, never sit at the window seat. And if someone wants to sit next to you, they can sit at the window seat. Especially if it's a man-woman scenario, he can sit on the window-seat and it to me, that's not rude 45.
I always say that I would rather you make a scene. Yeah, and be wrong then. Keep quiet and be right. Yeah. So always take your own personal safety. As number one, don't even worry about being rude. Yeah, better safe than sorry. You know, and I've, you know, myself, you know, I've been in that seat scenario and then someone came along and they almost poor shoe, you know what I mean?
Like you put our bags and stuff and you know I'm not I'm not like some tiny little thing and I feel squished in their rights like a time. Yeah. Like for a woman that would be pretty intimidating to You know especially alcohol or something like that and you're creating a barrier. Creating you're eliminating your Avenue for escape and not clear. They don't want that. If something bad were to happen you want to be able to get up right away and remove yourself from that situation safely
prefer. And I always suggest to let sometimes even I get up and move to another seat. I've actually done that before even get off the SkyTrain and wait for another study tour and I've even done that, you know it's getting really rowdy. Me and kind of like, you know, you feel this all feel comfortable and, you know, get off and just to see how it's better safe than sorry. Some other suggestions to like on an iPhone, you can give someone you trust. You can track your Movement by
sharing your location. Yeah. That way you can know someone knows. Okay, they're on the SkyTrain door. They're en route and you know, arranging for pickups as well because yeah, you know, a lot of the lot of the scenarios that I've been women have been setting.
Especially it's not so much on the It's usually on the kind of on the station platform or outside of the station, like one lady, you know, who were talking for quite a long time, never had an issue before and she got new Les, Mis, or Janet Janet being chased across the street with some crazy dude, with a box cutter. That's never happened before, right? So he really got to keep your eyes and open and it seems like this this random violent situation is really out of control, you know.
It's kind of yeah and you touched on a really good point there being aware. Yeah. Yeah, I find a lot of times in our generation people are, they're locked on their cellphones. They've got their headphones on. Yeah, your pods in and they're not, they're not present, and they're not aware of what's happening. And in order to keep yourself safe, you have to be able to be aware of your surroundings whether you're wearing One Ear Pod instead of two.
So the mirror, what's happening? You can hear altercation. You can hear somebody saying something to you. And I know again for And one of the tricks that we do is we put our headphones on so that people will leave us alone. Yeah. And we shouldn't have to do that but yeah, but don't compromise your safety just because you don't want to talk to the guy beside you, just get up and move. It's not even it's not a big deal, so just be aware of your surroundings.
Maybe put your phone down for a minute. Maybe just look at who's around you and see. Who's on that train and know where you're going. I'm so if you want to you want to eliminate as much time standing on the platform as possible, you can use the TransLink app you can. If you're not familiar with the trains, sometimes people take the train for the first time or they're not sure where to connect. Do I get up at probably commercial? Do I get off at Columbia? I don't know where I'm going.
Find find the the route that you need. The fastest route and use the translate app and you won't have to stand in the station for very long. You'll be able to catch that train very quickly, same with buses, you don't want to The only person sitting in an empty bus stop by yourself for too long if you can. Yeah, unfortunately sometimes you can make yourself a Target,
right? And then the yeah, maybe let's talk about likes of the escalation tactics so sometimes, you know, and like I said and a previous conversation, there was one of those paraphrase or told the story already, there was a guy who was just me and another dude on the SkyTrain, it looked like he was up for a few days and he started getting really A animated and screaming and shouted, something to the point of when I get mad, you know, people disappear and I just
started talking to him quietly, like, hey, did you have a bad day, like in? So he kind of lowers his tone and lowers his voice. And then he started talking to me more like normally and strolling, you know? Right. But I felt like if the SkyTrain was crowded, someone might have shouted, shut up or whatever. Could have escalated and because he was so like, like on edge and, and I found a lot of situations like that, by talk.
Like soft, quiet non-threatening, put your hand, let go put your hands up or, you know, making non-threatening like body language and actually trying to that your, you actually care about them, like, hey, I'm sorry. You're having a bad day, like what's going on? If you want to talk about it, and I found that this using that has helped me in a lot of situations that seem like they're either on drugs, or drunk or very emotionally
stimulated for whatever reason. Yeah, I agree and being a police officer. Officer we go through quite an extensive amount of Crisis, the escalation tactics and techniques that they teach us. And one of the things that is taught very frequently is to identify with that person that person in a, just a soft tone, try to remain calm.
You don't want to aggravate and I find for me personally, the one thing that works the best deescalate D escalating situation is is Just treat that person like a human. So for me, I just simply ask, are you, okay? Is there anything I can help? I can help for you to calm the situation down or what? Or simply what's wrong? Are you okay? Are you okay? Works the most for me because it's non-threatening it, it's your empathizing with the person and sometimes they just need
someone to listen. Yeah, I'm fine. People who are on drugs or people who are high, who are not necessarily intoxicated because you can't really argue with an intoxicated person. Oh no. It's like trying to argue a five year old and a 5 year old puppy easier. But for someone who's High a homeless, you don't necessarily need to be afraid of people like that in the phone. Almost this is not a crime.
And so I think a lot of times they're just so used to being ignored and they're so used to being treated. Like they're not people that if you If you just make eye contact with them and you say hello, how are you or what's wrong? It usually helps people deescalate the situation. Now, I'm not saying that every situation is going to work. Use these techniques but always remain safe.
So don't enter into a situation where you could physically get hurt, try will remain remain at that that distance that you can tactically. Situation without and I and being in a sky train or a bus is very small quarters. So it's hard to kind of keep that safe distance but yeah, just just treat people like they're human and you'll be surprised at how well it works for D escalating tense
situations. Like try not to always get that one person that's in the corner that says being shut up, you know, once it doesn't help. Yeah. And then that's what they're like, kind of looking for a sometimes. I feel like they're looking for a confrontation. They want that? Yeah, yeah. They want that response so that they're justified in their next, whatever they do, right?
Or they're the ones that want to start something but then most definitely will not finish it. Oh yeah, you're always looking for someone else to do that for yeah, exactly the first. Yeah, the first ones dialing 911 is they run off the platform. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the people. One other thing I will roast Come out before too. And this is what I thought of tea, like in a situation like, say, it is violent.
Like, you know, and and, and maybe the person has a knife and it's just, you cannot get in there because you might get stabbed. And you know what I mean? And then I thought, maybe it's best. Then is try to help people off the SkyTrain. Like there's old people like elderly, maybe someone was like, or disabled kids, and try to you. Use your ability to get other people off and out of Harm's
Way, right? And I think some people should think about that because We seem to live in a society which kind of disturbs me where we just want to film and and not really help, right? And if you don't want to get in there and get stuck, they get that or try to fight the person, you could also use your ability to help someone off the sky train or bus or whatever. And I think that's very admirable that that we want that as a society, I don't think it's
realistic, I hope for people. I don't want people to put themselves in a situation. Operation where they are at risk or but but you know, your physical abilities, you know, say you have special training or for me as if I'm off duty as a police officer. I know what my skill set is. I know what my skill levels are. I know what I'm capable of and I know I can intervene and I know there's no other option for me.
That is what I do. I always intervene but for some people that's not an option for them. No, that's okay. That's the case, you know, course, like, you know, we know we're Vancouver, we've had some unprecedent, you know, situations like machete attacks.
If someone's waving a machete do not get, in the way of like, I just, you know, I'm not gonna win, you're not going to win, but if you can help someone get out of the way that, you know, you can least do that right now and in a perfect world. I would hope that if you see like a nine year old woman struggling with a walker to get out of the way with ya, he doesn't get stabbed. I would hope that you would step in as a human being. I definitely hope that you would
step. As a police officer, you have, I have to tell people, you can't put yourself In Harm's Way, But as a human being, I would want you to help for sure. Absolutely. Wow. Yeah, you know again you know it's like it's like it's really like disturbing for me because I get like you know, if I have a pretty large platform, I get messages every day. I got the two women sent me a message to women and in a very short time, one saw two people does bear spray.
A woman is for no reason and this another lady that works and Metrotown. I won't name the store but she said she got pepper spray twice and know. Her response was the second time didn't hurt. B is the first time it's awful there's like this new thing to where it's just like the sneaky cowardice catch you unaware and then you get blasted with bear spray or pepper spray. And, and like you said, it's important that you pay attention
to your surroundings. You see who's around, you see who's menacing and, you know, let's check is he said, check your butt, check the vibe, check the person. And they're usually looking at you stalking you the because there they will, you know, if you have your head in the phone or something. Yeah, it's pretty scary, right? It's Yes. And I think that eye contact is another huge thing when it comes to not being a possible victim.
They're looking for people who aren't paying attention, they're looking for people who are an easy target and you'd be surprised how effective just making eye contact with someone and I undo the off-duty. I say hello to everybody, right? And if I am friendly, Is this 99% friendly? Most the time 1% rage but we will get it back. I say hello to everybody that way. They know that. I know that I had seen him. Yeah, kind of. So say hello to people.
I mean it's just a simple simple thing to do, but it actually, if I were a bad guy and I looked at you as a potential victim and you looked up and you look me in the eye and you said, Hello. I'd move on to the next one because you're not pretty easy. Yeah, crap. I have to move on to the next one and that's in that small tip is something that may keep you safe and it's so undervalued. And so underused. It's just just say hello. It's so simple for sure.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it kind of, yeah, as he said, makes you aware of them. It's like taking that mental. Snapshot in their head, or in your head. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of situations too. You know, maybe something happens to someone, they get assaulted or something like that, and they're embarrassed to come forward. I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of stuff that's unreported because it's such a great, human humiliation to it.
Especially some cultures to it's like, it's, you know, it's could be pretty embarrassing for them. How, what would you say for someone? Maybe they had the situation and how would they best way for them to come forward? Even if it was like maybe a few weeks ago or or something like that. So I always tell people that That we care. And we it's so much easier to investigate a crime that occurs if we have the evidence
immediately right away. And I find a lot of times with, for example, sexual assault victims, who are grouped. So, not necessarily, not what, what you would be, what would you consider? The traditional sense, traditional rice. So say you're on a crowded train, And someone reaches out and touches your butt, right? Would be a groping and some people are embarrassed by that but also they feel like it's not, it's not a real sex
assault. So, nobody's going to Care, nobody's going to take it seriously, but I always encourage people to come forward immediately because there's diminishing evidence. So if you wait too long, there could be physical evidence. There could be camera Evidence that diminishes over time and you can't get that back. So I would rather you again, be wrong, right? And we have the ability and the evidence available to us to investigate that crime and we can explain the whole process
sometimes. It's overwhelming for people, right? They think if I call the police they're going to want all this information. They're going to court, I don't want that scares me.
I don't I don't know what that's like and we we will explain every step of the process to you and if at any point you want to withdraw from that process that's fine but it's so important to get that evidence right away and know that that you matter that yeah into you absolutely matters and if you shouldn't brush it off and sometimes even influences from people's families, they're embarrassed about what their families are going to say or their friend, a Well, you just
grabbed your bite. It's no big deal. No. But it is a big deal and it happened to you and it's important and that is what we want to investigate and it may be about grab for you. But what about the next person? Yeah. And the person, you know, find and then lot of these cases, like, historically may start off groping and they work their nerve up and they start getting more and more serious crimes and
stuff like that. A question too is another thing because of there's like this uptick of tea, Violence. So there's a lot of, you know, normal did teens that, you know, take the SkyTrain, you know, go to Metrotown and and, and, you know, the do the do things that normal teenage do. And it seems like there are a lot of personal cases. There's a high rate of robbery, what would you say to those parents said, what's the best thing for them to do?
If their kid comes back and say, oh, I was on the bus or and I got jacked my backpack and my earbuds. Well, obviously report it. Obviously, that's the first and foremost after the fact you can call Depends on what city area, you can call non emerge, for whatever jurisdiction, Police Department, your City live in or you can call us and we can
investigate that. But it's so, it's so important to speak to your children and try and educate them on obviously, it's not their fault, but how to educate them on, not being a victim. So, it's hard with. I find my children because especially teenagers because they want to fit in. They want to be clear, so they want the Air Jordans. They I want all of the fancy things and they want to be able to show that they have all those things. They want the newest cell
phones, they want the beets. They want all the cool things bargain. Unfortunately, it does. And we can teach, we can try and teach children we can tell our kids till we're blue in the face. That you know, don't wear your four hundred dollar Air Jordans on the train or on the bus or don't showcase here. You're just like you would never go and wave around a wad of cash, right? Yeah. Yeah. Counting hundred dollar bills
down the street, right? Yeah, and I lot of times the kids are afraid, they often go to the same school, so they're afraid of retaliation, they're afraid groups of kids and it's never. Okay, any assault is never. Okay, so I can understand where they're coming from because they have to see these kids every day, but we just have to, we have to report it. We have to have those conversations with our children that Any time any type of
physical violence is not okay. And whether or not you want to follow through with the criminal justice system is is up to you and you can withdraw that at any time. So I think it's important that we sit down and have those conversations with our children and then also we can explain that process along the way to parents and kids together, we can all work together to sort it out. Ya know. It's it is an unfortunate
situation. We find ourselves in and hopefully there's gonna be some solution Lucian's to deescalate this because you know, again, you know, spank, you should be a fun place for everybody. People have these a train to go to work to, you know, for their livelihood or Transit. And it's one thing, you know, you having to use Transit. And, you know, do you doing long commutes if you had live in
long, you know. But if your fear of all your entire way that, you know, something's going to happen to you, it's quite terrible, right? It can be consuming, especially, I find for people who are possibly new to the country and Not entirely comfortable with the transit system yet. So the idea of taking a train from downtown Vancouver to Surrey Central is is overwhelming. And then plan, your route is so important to plan, your route,
know where you're going. No, the safety features of the train know who to look for on the platform SkyTrain attendants where the bright yellow high-vis vest. Look for officers were out and about and no most only we also have a text service so if you're in a situation where you can't you want to be discreet and you can you don't say someone starting to freak out and you're in an enclosed space like a train car. And you don't want to draw attention to yourself. You can text us.
So the number is eight seven, seven, seven, seven seven. Save that in your phone. Before you leave the house, and you can have that. And it, you just look like anybody else in the train. Just texting away. You can and it puts you in contact with our dispatchers. So, You can have real-time updates as to what the what the bad guys doing? How he's making you feel, does he have any weapons there and ask a lot of questions so that they can get the appropriate response available?
So if he's got weapons that determines whether or not we come lights and Sirens, right? Yeah, so it's really important that you try and get as much detail as possible and of course, if you get to a situation where your say, the train doors open and The bad guy. Now, has a knife out. We didn't have a knife before. That's an intermediate 911 call. Right? My one for that because that will connect connect you with police much quicker than you would get that response that
you're looking for. I'll prefer well I really appreciate your time and you know the again we hope everyone who's watching this you know be safe. You don't pay attention to your surroundings. Have a plan. You know as I said you can use that share your contact with someone you trust so they can track your journey. Make sure you trust them though.
Yeah, yeah, that's a sneaky out. Yeah, but mowing the Lawns that yeah, for a family member, some family and you know, have a plan to and always make sure that someone's going to be picking you up on the other side or at least aware of that rights because you know Amanda it's you know terrible I live in Vancouver all my life and I never had this level of fear. Even myself personally, in 3 days, I had my kids park. I had people kit a teenager's, that weigh 100 pounds wearing
ski masks in the hot. Sun sunglasses there little man bags, probably bear spray in it. And then I was at the store last night will 8:00 had two teenagers company medicine me. So you know, this situation is not going to be good because they're going to be there, do it to the wrong person and or you know, it seems like it's just this uptick. It just seems to be getting worse everyday and personally feel like now it's on my doorstep which is kind of concerning, you know? Yeah.
And you know what? We've seen such an increase in teen violence and I think My own personal opinion is during those formidable years during covid. Yeah, especially for kids who needed that outlet of being at school and needed, that socialization period. It's really sort of open this door to chaos. I want to say about strange, is it strange? That makes my head spun. The kids are pepper-spraying they're stabbing each other. It's quite concerning and on to this and then this like just
targeting people. Right for no reason. Yeah absolutely. I get sent these horrible videos which I don't post a swarming and other or their horrific drops camp and they're targeting each other there. Do ya on school property. They're doing it on public transit there and they're just spraying people for fun, which is shocking. Yeah, I know. It is really shocking. It's really shocking. Well, I really appreciate your time. Hope you'll come back again in the future more and love to
awesome. You have wonderful day. Thank you. Take care. Take care. Bye bye.