Community Security

You all know that I frequently point to South Africa as an example of why we need to be prepared. In July of 2021, the KwaZulu Natal (KZN) riots occurred and what stopped them wasn’t law enforcement action by the government, but dedicated community security operations by local residents. If you follow me on Twitter, you know that my friends “K9 Reaper” and Gideon Joubert (“Paratus2014”) live on the front lines of this. Gideon trains citizens for self defense in Cape Town, and K9 Reaper is a member of a community security organization patrolling nightly in the West Rand.

The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Proverbs 22:3

During the riots, the police ended up falling back into their stations after dark, and the citizens were left on their own. While this is an extreme example, in America, when riots or a disaster strike, the already limited police and fire resources are committed to handling the situation and the citizens are also pretty much left on their own to defend their own neighborhoods, farms, or property. Here, we are going to discuss that.

First, you need to be organizing now for community security. The time to think about this isn’t on day 3 of a crisis. A great book that spells out how to develop a Neighborhood Protection Plan is the Civil Defense Manual by my friend Jack Lawson. It describes how to find people and how to organize your team. Essentially, find like minded folks and start there. Begin with a neighborhood watch and then build on that concept.

Next comes understanding. Understand that during any type of severe event, the local police, even your “Constitutional Sheriff”, will be tied up responding to the event, protecting civil infrastructure like government buildings, hospitals, and water/utility facilites, as well as manning checkpoints. Deterrent patrols and crime-in-progress response will be pushed way to the bottom. Don’t believe me? Read accounts from Hurricane Katrina. You will be on your own for security and medical response. Understand that and plan for it.

Humans first began settling together in villages and towns due to security. They co-located for mutual defense. Everyone who lived in the town took part in manning the village gate and had a role if the village was attacked. The town developed a guard schedule and some means of sounding the alarm to call the men to the defense of the town.

If we use that as our model, we develop a quick format. We need to establish some type of an entry control point or ECP, that is akin to the old “town gate” from history. On a farm or large property, closing all gates but one serves this purpose. In most neighborhoods, this gets hard. Begin with an Area Study to determine which routes to blcok with cars, leaving only one way in as a controllable ECP. This Area Study should also have located ways in by foot, like along utilitiy corridors or parks that will need to be blocked off or watched. Watch your neighborhood kids on any given summer day – they’ll show you the secret paths.

Speaking of utility corridors, in a serious WROL situation, where the police have locked down vehicle routes, you will begin to see folks with bad intent using utility rights-of-way to move around. Establishing concealed observation posts to monitor these will go a long way to preventing you being surprised. Same with underground routes like large sewers or utility tunnels.

As far as rasing the alarm, modern technology is best. In the old days, they would ring a large bell. Now, we can use our trusty Baofeng Radios (or whatever HT radios you have). You can spread the word without a lot of noise. I know, someone will leave a comment about cheap chinese junk (motorola radios are made in Malaysia, so I guess cheap Malaysian radios are somehow better) or encryption, but listen, for the purposes of a small security zone, less than a mile across, they get the job done. Encryption is a double edged sword – first, most people will mess up their settings and it won’t work and second, the fact that you are using encrypted voice raises other people’s interest in you. In fact, you might WANT them to be able to eavesdrop and hear that you are going on a security alert as it might convince them to seek a less prepared target. And, before another smart guy comments, sure, a mesh network is good in a static location, it is also a beacon advertising to the world your exact location and the fact that you can generate electricty. Might not be good in every situation. Stick with SIMPLE.

Coordination is the next thing to do. Develop partnerships with neighboring groups and neighborhoods, and even your local law enforcement. If they know that during a crisis your area is secure and self-sufficient, that eases the burden on them. Then, when you truly need them for help, they will be more likely to assist as you took some responsibility. Once the lights go out, that coordination needs to increase. While working for a major company, during a hurricane, I let the local state police post in a northeastern state know that my team would be out patrolling our locations in strength and they tossed us some of their radios for coordination and let their officers know that we were allowed to pass through checkpoints and enter wherever we wanted. That’s valuable. It also means that if something really bad goes down and you have to handle it, you are a known quantity with the police and will be believed a little more than someone they’ve never spoken to. Coordination with local law enforcement (when warranted) increases professionalism.

Before a crisis happens, you need to have met with your local sheriff or local city police and ask about their emergency plans and political positions on things like the Second Amendment, the Right to Self Defense, and such critical topics. Don’t coordinate with folks who would disarm you given the chance.

Have materials on hand to build barricades to reinforce your road closures and barriers, just in case things get very bad. There are detailed plans on building obstacles in TW-03, Defensive Operations (available right on this site).

Running a two-three person patrol around the property, similar to neighborhood watch, will be a necessity. Now, once a major event happens, your local group will have to decide whether that patrol is armed or not. The common law idea of community defense allows the residents of an area to investigate those found wondering around in it, especially in a crisis where looting has happened and order has broken down. Someone intent on doing bad things will pick another neighborhood if they get challenged by an alert patrol and were told to move on if they have no business nearby, especially in a residential neighborhood.

The time to prepare, organize, and train is now. Find like minded folks and start talking about these things. Develop plans and put them in action.

On that note, I have several Community Security Operations classes planned this summer, check out the Training page to find one near you.

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