These are my thoughts about patrolling. You don't have to agree with me on this, but I speak from experience of what I know to be both effective and not effective. And I am posting this because I've seen lots of misconceptions that others in this community seem to have had about patrolling. Feel free to discuss or add your own thoughts on this.

- Patrols are not about who sees you, but rather about you observing and listening to all that goes on around you. It's not about you. It's about those you're out to help, protect, save, etc. Being seen can have it's advantages at times, depending on your focus. But if people see you in your uniform walking around, know that it can set you up to either be laughed at, made an easy target, or you'll have a bunch of people asking you questions and wanting to take pictures with you, which not only can that distract you from your patrol, but also understand that your actions will speak louder than your words. Try to avoid letting your patrols be an ego booster for you.

- If you are patrolling in uniform, and people ask you what you're doing, please don't tell them "I'm a super-hero!" you won't appear as one to them. You'll appear silly. Instead, if you say anything at all, a more preferable response would be to say something like "I'm patrolling" or "I'm just out making sure no crime is going on, and that nobody's getting hurt, mugged, raped, killed, etc." as I said before, your actions will speak louder than your words, but if you do feel the need to say something, it's not about "what" you are, but rather "what you're doing, and why, etc.".

- Don't make your patrol times nor locations known to the whole world, especially not before you do them. It's not wise to open up the possibility for people to either: A- Work around your patterns, and/or B- Track you down. It's alright to tell maybe one or a few people, possibly someone else in this community, or someone you know that might be in a Hero-Support Role for you.

- Patrolling isn't a job done for x amount of hours, x days of the week. You're not a cop. The longer you're patrolling, the more you'll possibly be effective, but it's not about how many hours you patrol that will make you effective. It's what you do in the time you are patrolling that matters. Technically, you're on patrol the second you leave your house, in uniform or not. But there are different levels to patrolling, depending on where you are and what your focus is. You don't always need to be in "the mode", so to speak (like when out of uniform, for example), but at least do the right thing, where-ever you are, when ever you're there. As Tiny Terror once said, removing the gimmick does not remove the purpose.

- Do some research on your patrol location before you patrol there. You can use the internet to research crime statistics, news reports, etc.

- Try to learn something new on every patrol. Be it by learning your way around said-location, perhaps some of it's history, the laws of the town/city or state, or the people there, and maybe things they have to say about what goes on around there.

- Experience can be your best teacher. But without enough skills, there won't be as much experience you'll gain, if you can't do as much(although with experience, you'd begin to understand the major importance of why I say this). You need to train both your body and your mind. In addition to martial arts and physical fitness, you'll be more effective if you're knowledgeable in things such as laws, criminology, psychology, ethics, private investigating, first aid, and at least 1 other foreign language, and maybe even another personal skill. I don't expect you all to know all of those things, but at least put some type of effort in to both of those aspects.

- It is good to evolve your body and mind over the years, but don't ever forget your original motives of why you chose to do this.

- To all you new people who this applies to, stop getting pissed off when you don't run into any crime that night, and then complaining about it in a blog, and then thinking that makes you sound more heroic. You shouldn't want crimes to happen, that's why you're out there in the first place trying to stop crime, and protect people. I can understand if something happens and you weren't there to stop it, that you'd be upset. Or if you were doing some investigating to find a wanted criminal, and didn't find them and they went after someone else. But when no crime is going on, that's a good thing. Yet if the area is consistently safe with no crime problems at all, it could mean that you might be needed to patrol somewhere else more dangerous (if you're prepared: I.E. trained, educated, and armored)

- I don't say this to try to force religion on anyone, but I will say, that using your religious beliefs can help you, be it for safety/luck/success, or to help relax you so that you may be able to think and operate with a more clear yet alert mind. Praying before you go to bed, also before and after a patrol helps. Meditating can too.

I think that everyone for the newbies to the one who have been doing this for a while should read this.

I agree.

I suggest making this a sticky, anyone else agree?

around my community, Atavistik is another four syllable word that nobody uses, to them I'm ************************** and I'm just doin' my thing. they know I go out in the hills to discourage unwanted encroachment, but it's simply a community service I enjoy to them. I've actually used that "I'm just playing superhero" line on a police officer a time or two tho. in the context, it was kinda true, but even tho he knew what I meant, it didn't go over too big.


I vote yes on sticky.

Great tips thanks for sharing

having no fear is a really big plus combined with careful tactics.

That is a brilliant piece, Tothian, and rlsh of all experience levels will find value in it. I would only add that newbies possibly should start out slowly and build discipline and commitment by patrolling a minimum set number of hours per week. The reason I say this is because they need to find out if they can stick to it, and a gradual induction may be the best way to determine if patrolling is a good fit for them. Preferably, the newbie would team up with a veteran, because if they run across an incident and freeze up, the veteran could take over to protect the victim and possibly the new rlsh as well. A separate tip I'd like to introduce is to train your senses as well as your mind and body. The subconscious takes in all the information around us, but rarely do we purposely train to use our senses to their highest ability. By training our senses, they will become heightened. Of course, you will not be like Wolverine, let's not live in the comics, but let me give you an example of a "superpower", if you will, that all humans are capable of possessing. Spiderman's danger sense is based on a factual physical phoenomenon called hyper-cognitive reflex response. Have you ever had a napkin fly off the table while having a picnic in the park and snatched it out of thin air without thinking about it? That is hyper-cognition in action! Your subconscious takes control to perform a reflexive reaction that normally would not be possible. But you can train your body to do this consciously and with ease and calm. The best way to start this training is to sit silently in a very public place and make notes of everything you can either see, hear, taste, feel or smell. Start the list over every day, do not simply transfer what you wrote previously, re-sense it the next day, and you will be amazed at how many new things you add every day. This training is valuable in many aspects of patrolling even if you don't take it to the limit, but is most effective when trained daily. Thanks for reading my oppressively long post.

Dark Ghost, Nightghoul, Anonyman, Bladearts,
Thanks.

Atavistik,
Telling a cop you're just "playing super-hero" might work in the short run, but over time they might catch on. Usually I'd recommend just being honest with the cops, but something like, if they started to catch on after you started to save a lot of people or fight a lot of crime, you could just tell them you did what you felt needed to be done.

Master Legend,
Such a balance like that of being courageous, confident, yet careful, is good advice.

Gauge,
I do strongly disagree about the whole patrolling a set number of hours, for many reasons which are stated in my thread. I understand your reason, because of seeing how committed they are. But I believe that bad habits can start early. Usually experience can help you learn from your mistakes, but I give this advice to avoid having others make those mistakes, so that nobody is either tracked down, or has the criminals work around their pattern. But to test someone's committment, you could judge by the ways they both train, study, and prepare for their patrols. From there, it's just a matter of when and where they're needed to patrol. You do give good advice about training one's reflexes though. In the Marines, they trained us to act immediately without thought or hesitation.

I was apparently pretty vague about the "set number of hours" advice. As Tothian also notes, I did not mean to suggest that a predictable patrol pattern be set, just a commitment to patrol a certain minimum number of hours per week. Whatever you can comfortably work into your week, but be sure to make it random. Start out small and just commit yourself, for example, to going out for two hours on Friday from 7 - 9pm and on Saturday from midnight to 2am. You can easily commit to something like that and still not be predictable and trackable. I'm sorry my vagueness has caused this confusion and will make sure to be more thorough in future posts. Thanks for the heads up, Tothian.

Also, I know you said you were just giving the advice to people starting out. But I don't want to see anyone make the same mistakes others have made in the past, nor present them with the opportunity to open up a can of failure on themselves.

Yeah, the times I threw out there were just as an example, not an indication or suggestion of actual times or days to go patrolling, and certainly not an accurate representation of when I personally patrol. I mistakenly assumed that was understood.

I have never posted an accurate representation of my patrol schedule, so your assertion as to knowing when I patrol and the odds of an encounter with criminals who read this forum is likewise inaccurate. Also, you concluded that I patrol 3 - 4 times per week when my example included only 2 sample times. That's quite a deduction! These inaccuracies are indicative of extreme inattention to important details, a lack of focus that can get you in deep doo-doo on a patrol and can compromise not only your safety, but that of the people you seek to protect and the team you patrol with. However, if you were accurate, I would then have to say a sarcastic "thank you" for doing the math for those who would care. Although, you didn't account for the size of the city, the neighborhood patrolled on a given night, the exact route taken and various other factors that would make the odds much, much smaller of encountering a specific criminal forum reader at some specific intersection of the many square miles of area of my city.

Moreover, criminals are highly unlikely to schedule their misdeeds around our timetables, even if they had an idea we were out here. As you point out, cops are out there, but that does not deter all crime, and cops are much more predictable than rlsh in their routines. That is why some deranged idiot can kill 4 cops in a coffee shop.

As far as thinking like a criminal, I do agree it is important to know how they think, but their actions are not hard to predict. You need to know how they think so you can increase the chances of maintaining control in an impromptu encounter, manipulate them into a crafted encounter, influence them into making a decision you want them to make while they believe it is their decision, make them believe you when you are lying through your teeth, etc., etc.

I guess I wasn't being as vague as I previously thought. I choose not to feel picked on by you, because the points you have made and the conclusions you have arrived at are wildly and entirely inaccurate. Of course, you have every right to your opinion, as much as everyone else on this forum, and I feel I have been very tolerant of your critiques of my views. At this point, however, as it impacts and influences the actions and viewpoints of new rlsh, it is very important that people read this thread and make their own decision.

I want anyone who decides to patrol to be as safe as possible. Let me be clear that I DO NOT SUPPORT DISCLOSURE OF PATROL ROUTES, STANDARDIZING PATROL SCHEDULES OR ANY OTHER ACTIVITY THAT MAKES RLSH TRACKABLE OR PREDICTABLE. Is that direct enough?

I have been actively patrolling for a very long time. I do not claim to be the oldest or the wisest or the longest-serving. I do have significant patrol experience and have trained many successful patrollers, but would never deny the value of knowledge from other sources. Tothian often makes very insightful observations, and I will never detract from them. At the same time, I cannot stand idly by and not comment on inaccurate information that calls my judgment, knowledge and experience into question, no matter how highly esteemed the questioner is.

Tothian- it was a very far back experience, in reference to a particular situation I had aided local authorities in due to my being there and particular insight into the problem. possibly even before the movement began.

simply agreeing that it's not a good idea to proclaim such a thing.

Gauge,

I have paid attention to what you said. From our private conversations, where you did mention you like a more regimented approach to your patrols. And to this thread:

http://www.therlsh.net/the-bat-cave-f21/patrol-frequency-t1603.htm

Where you asked for how often do people patrol and for how long. I was confused as to your thoughts on it because it seemed like you were saying two different things that contradicted each other.

I know those weren't your patrol times, 7 to 9pm, or midnight to 2am. But my response to that was giving an example of how someone could work against those who are vocal about any type of pattern at all.

As for my guess that you patrol 3 or 4 days a week, I admit that was just to set you up to see if you were going to say something like "No, I don't patrol that many days, I patrol x many days."

You're right that most criminals won't try to work around our pattern. But the idea I like to emphasize is not to even leave that option open for them at all, even if unlikely.


Atavistik,
Alright.