Large Fierce Mammal

As part of my professional life, I spent 17 years operating and working in the emergency services dispatch centre in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. I designed it, set it up, wrote the policies and procedures manual, personally selected and trained every person who ever worked there, and by the time I was finally able to get out of that aspect of the business, my facility – call sign “Central Dispatch” – handled emergency traffic for five fire districts and the Lunenburg-Mahone Bay Police Service.

An interesting set of delineations occur when defining people involved in a call to a first response agency, and for the greatest clarity I’ll look specifically at a police call. When a police call came in that required any action beyond the dispatcher level, an “occurrence” was opened. This involved filling out a basic form that contained the information that would start a file on the event. People involved in the event, starting with the one calling but possibly including others they were calling about or on behalf of, were broken down into categories. These were:

• Complainant
• Suspect
• Victim
• Witness

There would sometimes be crossover – the complainant might also be the victim, or they could be a witness – but I always had issues with this simplified set of pigeon holes. in short, I made up my mind a long time ago that I will not be a victim. I will not cultivate that position in the world, and I will not accept its being bestowed on me by anyone else. Have bad things come into my life because someone else brought them? Of course they have. Sometimes I have been successful in exacting retribution, and sometimes I haven’t, but I have moved on. I have learned from the experience and carry no baggage beyond a solid memory of who not to save from certain death should the opportunity ever present.

A friend of mine who lives in a state where concealed handgun carry is legal recently encountered a man hiding in the bushes with clear intent to ambush him as he walked through a wooded area near his home. The encounter occurred at dusk, and when challenged, the man in the bushes moved onto the trail toward my friend until what was going to happen next became evident. After that he left the area at speed in a cloud of profanity, and my somewhat rattled though thankfully well prepared friend went on with his evening and the rest of his life. If I had taken my friend’s police complaint, the man he saw off would have been classified as the suspect, and my friend would have been both the complainant and the victim. He was no victim. Even if he had been assaulted before drawing his weapon, whether or not shots were fired, I am of the position that successful resolution of the encounter expunges all victimhood from the equation. One trains, prepares, and cultivates a mindset to maximize the chances of a successful outcome in all endeavours so that one will not be a victim.

Some may think this is a lot of bile to hurl at a mere word, and they would be wrong. “Victim” is no mere word. It’s a fucking biohazard. I was inspired to pontificate about it on this particular day by the timely combination of the recent firing from my life of a locally resident self-made, self-excusing loser, and reading an exceptionally well written article on John Rappoport’s Blog called Polishing Your Victim Story. Clicking the title of the piece will take you there. I’m sure everyone will be reminded of someone they know, and I sincerely hope the one who comes to mind isn’t you.