This cat burglar’s not kitten around about keeping you safe.
Car jackings, muggings and surprise attacks during walks through a public parking lot or deck can all be avoided with hyper-vigilance, advises ex-con Jennifer Gomez.
“I spent 10 years in prison for being a cat burglar with really, really bad people,” Gomez, an inmate-turned-influencer, admitted to nearly 50,000 virtual viewers, superimposing snapshots of her mugshots for effect.
The transformed transgressor previously struck viral gold online, stockpiling several million clicks with a how-to on safeguarding one’s home from thieves during the holidays. Now, she’s revealing the prime principles of protecting one’s property while in public.
“I’m going to tell you, right now, three things that you can do that are going to help you,” Gomez vowed in her latest counsel.
And her No. 1 safety tip is key.
“You need to set the feature in your car to where if you unlock with your [key] fob or you walk up and it unlocks automatically that it only unlocks the driver side door, and in order to unlock the rest of the car you need to actually, physically [press] unlock twice,” insisted Gomez, lauding automakers Honda, Toyota, Chevy and Lincoln for equipping cars with the setting.
The rehabilitated offender explained that ne’er-do-wells will often enter into an unsuspecting target’s vehicle via the passenger side door, brandish a weapon and lift the loot — be it the victim’s money, personal belongings or the car itself.
Gomez then alerted online audiences to the dangers of loading groceries into their backseats.
“Stop doing that!” urged the brunette. “Most of the time, there are cars parked next to you. And, whether you know it or not, it’s not always the scary white van with dark tinted windows and a sliding door that’s gonna get you.”
She warned that placing yourself between two cars in a parking lot limits visibility, making it difficult for others to see what’s happening in the case of an assault.
“As you start getting closer to your car, open your trunk…and put your bags back there even if it’s not a lot of stuff,” said Gomez, who also acknowledged the front passenger seat as an acceptable alternative.
“That’s more visibility and eyeballs on you if you’re out in the actual row, where people are parking and moving about,” she said.
Further driving her point home, the insider alarmed that innocents are at a higher risk of being kidnapped if “you’re wedged between two cars, someone could just slide their door open and now someone’s grabbing you, pulling you into a car and nobody saw a damn thing.”
Gomez’s last, however not least, pearl of wisdom encouraged folks to refrain from focusing on their phones.
“The main person that an attacker looks for is a person who is distracted,” the reformed delinquent said. “A distracted person is better than a weak person.”
“The majority of attackers go for a distracted person because the element of surprise is the No. 1 advantage for a criminal — any criminal,” she divulged. “Attackers don’t want you looking at them, they don’t want the chance that you can identify them in a line up [or] make a big hoopla before they even get to you because you sense there’s something creepy going on or you got scared.”
Gomez said wrongdoers are “counting on” victims looking down at their devices for the “one freaking minute, 45 seconds, 30 seconds it takes you to walk to your car.”
“Please,” she implored. “Keep your head on a swivel, looking around, making direct eye contact with anyone who makes you feel that they’re not right. Do not be distracted. Not with your bags, looking in your purse, with kiddos.”
“You re the first line of defense for your family when you are out in public. You have to be aware.”
As an “honorary mention,” Gomez begged drivers to immediately lock all car doors upon entering their rides.
“Do not give an attacker even two seconds to jump in with you after you’ve unlocked the car.”
The former crook’s trending word-to-the-wise comes just days after an 89-year-old Queens resident was violently robbed of $1,300 in broad daylight by a maniacal menace. The theft trailed a heist committed by doin young men who stole a Toyota Corolla out of Lowe’s parking lot in Brooklyn, mowing down a 72-year-old with a walker while fleeing the scene.
