In this blog post, I’ll share how you might help a family member or friend who has concerns about whether a Marketplace exchange location is in a relatively safe area. A client, let’s call her Rebecca, reached out for help as she and her husband were scheduled to pick up a puppy. The time and location had already been set near Michigan City, and her concern was whether the area was safe. I inquired what time the exchange was supposed to occur and learned it was in the afternoon. I explained that when I know I have to go into a dangerous area with higher crime, I try to do so in the daylight morning hours and do my best to leave such an area by noon or shortly after noon. The last thing I want to do is be in a higher-crime, dangerous area from sunset to sunrise.
One of my favorite internet tools for identifying dangerous high-crime areas is crimegrade.org. CrimeGrade has tabs for overall crime, property crimes, and violent crimes. Clicking on the “more” tab provides numerous categories of crimes, such as murder, robbery, and drug crimes. Rebecca had agreed to meet the sellers and purchase the puppy at a gas station just south of Michigan City, as seen below.
The buyer, Rebecca, and her husband were traveling to make this exchange happen, so it needed to happen in this area. As you can see in the illustration above, there is a dangerous area just north of the gas station. Dangerous areas are dangerous because of dangerous people who live in and move around those dangerous areas. So, it’s not unreasonable to believe some dangerous men will drive to the gas station for gasoline. Also, some dangerous men will have to walk to gas stations to purchase things like cigarettes, food items, blunts (cigars) to pack their cannabis into, drinks (including alcohol), and any other items commonly sold at a gas station. Gas stations in or near higher crime dangerous areas are often magnets for crimes like robberies and carjackings. The dark green area indicates a low crime rate in this case. I used Google Earth with the street view to do a drive-by to check the terrain and see if there were better options for Rebecca, her husband, and the family selling the puppy.
The image on the top left (Google Earth) shows the original meeting location. We see a motorcycle dealership in the top right image, just north of the gas station. In the bottom left image, north of the stop light on the opposite side of US 421, we see a large car dealership. In the bottom right image, which is north of the large car dealership, we find a tractor and lawn-type business.
If you were to do an internet search for robberies at car dealerships, you’d find a long list of after-hours burglaries and car thefts.
I reminded Rebecca that people are the problem. Today, many young men are making it easier to identify potential threats, as they have capitalized on the COVID mask-wearing phenomenon long after the initial fears of COVID have subsided. Wearing a COVID mask with a hood up conceals one’s identity. I told Rebecca I’d probably change the meeting place to the car lot. Salesmen looking to sell inventory to prospective buyers will watch car lots better, which means at some point, you might have to deal with a car salesman briefly. Still, men concealing their identities are less likely to walk onto or loiter on the car lot. The probability of me having a problem even at the gas station is relatively low because it’s not a high-crime area. However, it is close to a high-crime area. Moving the meeting place to a car dealership further lowers the probability.
I made it clear to Rebecca that if she needed anything else, she should give me a call. I followed up with her later to see how it went. Rebecca advised that she and her husband parked far out in the car lot, and the exchange went perfectly, with no sketchy people coming anywhere near them.
While writing this, I revisited the area via Google Earth. I did a larger street view driveby going into the higher-crime, more dangerous area to the north to see if there were any clues as to why the original gas station was labeled dark green, which indicates it’s a relatively safe location. The first stop light north of the Interstate 80 exit had a gas station on three of the four corners.
Typically, people are lazy. Bad guys, ambush predators, and unjust criminal aggressors are no exception to this general laziness rule. This goes a long way to explaining how this gas station south of Interstate 80 could have such a safe rating.
Several months ago, my wife and I attempted to help a good friend with a Marketplace purchase. Still, the experience was so bad we decided not to purchase anything using Marketplace. That’s a story for another blog post.