Safety in the USA

I feel safe in the small city that I live in in SW Missouri, except that the police show a complete disregard for the man in the street's freedom of speech & human rights!

Not feeling safe at all. Living in the USA since 27 years and will be leaving for good shortly. I lived in Enumclaw for 4 years and in Port Orchard since 15 years. (The rest of the time I lived in Pullman, WA.) I don't recommend any foreigner to live in smallish rural town here. I can't speak for other parts of the USA. The Sheriff of Port Orchard recommended me to arm myself, which I did and I needed it.

I had 3 break-ins in 10 years, the police never showed, wouldn't even take a report. "Mail me the list with what's missing..' I had vandalism almost daily, from broken fence parts, to broken glass and rusty nails in wooden boards in my horse pasture, to smearing my house with food items (eggs and tomatoes) hundreds of stolen plants or orchard trees I planted were killed with bleach by neighbors. My mail disappears regularly, I had to take out a private mailbox. My old dog (Labrador) was sprayed with pepper spray more then once by a neighbor. I was told in both towns to 'pack up and go where I came from', or 'we don't like the German's around here' (I am Swiss.) Last year in May 4 people, 3 men, 1 women attempted to break in to my house at 3:00 am. The police never showed in 40 minutes. I got them to leave waving my gun in their face. Then an officer arrived and asked me if I had the names of these people. I responded they didn't show their drivers license. He said, 'then we don't have a case', 'no names, no case....!'. He also never filed a report. With the help of a friend I was able to get a report filed, a detective showed up since this group committed many hundreds of break-ins in this area. I did a photo line up, but then never heard again. Someone from Port Orchard broke into my bank account, also local, and made 23 purchases before I noticed. They ordered things to a PO Box in Port Orchard. I gave all the info to the police, including the PO Box number. 6 month later the officer called me and said 'what was that PO Box number again?' A bank teller stole $10,000 from my 401K account which was in a money market account, the police wouldn't even take the report. He said, 'nobody in this town has this much money on the account. This is too big for us.'  I could go on and on, my list does not end here. Being cheated if I use local businesses, is just one of the smaller daily issues I have to deal with. Frankly, my friends from foreign countries, it feels more like a prison break getting out of this town, then moving away. I never feel anything in Seattle. There I am treated as any person. But beware of rural towns. I will leave the US for good and have no intention to ever return. I will also let my Green Card lapse.

That all depends on what part of the USA. I feel safe in my little corner of small town USA. I rarely lock my house or car, am not at all worried when I hear my front door open while everyone is home already (neighbors, friends walking in) and my 17 year old daughter walks home from friends houses all hours of the night during summer vacation.

I've lived and traveled other parts of the USA (St. Louis, Dallas, LA, etc.) where there are area's I avoid like the plague and forbid my kids to travel to/through (not that they had a desire to go there to begin with), or when 'forced' to go through I check my gas gauge (don't want to stop for gas) and make sure there is enough room in front of my car to 'escape' if I need too at lights, avoid eye contact, etc. etc.

I've also lived in de Bijlmer in Amsterdam, a notoriously bad neighborhood (by Dutch standards anyway). After the initial adjustment phase I felt OK walking through at any time of the day/night.

Safety in the USA is a lot like everything else here, as long as you can afford it, you can find a safe place to live.

I respect everyone's opinion, but I don't agree with everyone. I have been in the United States six years. I have traveled a lot. Since I came to America, I been working in the ghetto places with black people. That's the only places you can make good money. Yes we do hear about people getting shot and drugs game, but that's between them. As far as you're away from them, nothing is gonna happen to u. Also, when they get to know you, they won't be harmful at all, and they will get to used to you.
I have been to the west coast. Most of the west coast is safe. People leave their doors unlocked. You can be leave your laptop right front of the house and no one going the touch it. I had friend of mine who used to live in Maryland. He never locked his house's door, so I used to visit him, and whenever his not there, I used to open the door and get inside the house.
The United States is a huge huge country. Depends on where u stay. In my opinion, the worse place u can ever stay in, New York and some places. Doesn't mean that New York is a bad place, of course no. will
stay New. Any place in the world has the positive and the negative.

Is it a safe country to live in when your son goes to a party and a kid with 2 guns shoots 2 of his friends dead? I don't think so. True story, happened to my son in Florida in 2011. I no longer live in the States. I feel safer in my new city in Mexico.

Are you trying to convince me that Mexico safer than America?

itsmejuli wrote:

Is it a safe country to live in when your son goes to a party and a kid with 2 guns shoots 2 of his friends dead? I don't think so. True story, happened to my son in Florida in 2011. I no longer live in the States. I feel safer in my new city in Mexico.

Good thing you moved out of that bad neighborhood.
Anyone ever get shot in Mexico?
Good luck in your new city.

mugtech wrote:

itsmejuli wrote:

Is it a safe country to live in when your son goes to a party and a kid with 2 guns shoots 2 of his friends dead? I don't think so. True story, happened to my son in Florida in 2011. I no longer live in the States. I feel safer in my new city in Mexico.

Good thing you moved out of that bad neighborhood.
Anyone ever get shot in Mexico?
Good luck in your new city.

Actually it wasn't a bad neighborhood, it was just a normal, middle class neighborhood.

It's too bad that you've had such a horrible experience!!!!!!!  It's pretty shocking to me to read that.  I really believe that if you gave another area of the country a chance, you would have a completely different experience and actually love this country, as most people do.  What you described sounds like something out of a crazy movie!
Maybe if you tried some Midwestern states like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, or Michigan, your experience would be 100% different.
This country has always opened it's arms to people everywhere, and on behalf of "normal" Americans I apologize to you for the unforgiveable reception that you've been given .

I found these statistics:

Violent crime > Murder rate    25,757
Ranked 2nd. 98% more than United States    12,996
Ranked 9th.    
Violent crime > Murder rate per million people    218.49
Ranked 17th. 5 times more than United States    42.01
Ranked 43th.

Every day we hear of innocent people being slaughtered in Mexico.

wow what a sad story! feels atouched .sorry dear better make up ur money n come to East Africa, Tanzania ,people are cool n cowards so there is no much thefty ,people are too much in their culture ,its a small percentage that is civilised so making a business here is simple,they have a port that makes transportation of your goods easier ,they have also got a big piece of land bcoz the country is very big so most of the reachest people here do farming  ,people are honest n respect each other , the only problem is that they have got ahot sunny weather bcoz they are near the sea .try to Google n find more about it,maybe it might be ur big option u never thought of.

Ref': Dar es Salaam   
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Af … G-C-1.html

yah Dar es salaam is really a nice place

shammy Al wrote:

wow what a sad story! feels atouched .sorry dear better make up ur money n come to East Africa, Tanzania ,people are cool n cowards so there is no much thefty ,people are too much in their culture ,its a small percentage that is civilised so making a business here is simple,they have a port that makes transportation of your goods easier ,they have also got a big piece of land bcoz the country is very big so most of the reachest people here do farming  ,people are honest n respect each other , the only problem is that they have got ahot sunny weather bcoz they are near the sea .try to Google n find more about it,maybe it might be ur big option u never thought of.

HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SECURITY IN THE USA

shammy Al wrote:

yah Dar es salaam is really a nice place

HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SECURITY IN THE USA

britmick wrote:

Ref': Dar es Salaam   
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Af … G-C-1.html

HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SECURITY IN THE USA.

The topic of this thread is 'safety in USA'.

Can we please get back to the topic.

Thank you.