AZ "Riots" and your Safety Question

[fightingquaker13]

Best plan, don't be there. Most riots don't just happen. There's a bit of warning. Use a vacation day. When I was 19 I wound up in the DC, Adams Morgan riots twice in one day. It was Salvadorans rioting. I honetly don't remember why exactly. The first time I escorted my manager/friend Jill home just as "peaceful protests" had begun to get out of hand. What the heck I was supposed to do to protect her, I have no idea, but I was 19 and it seemed the chivalrous thing to do. She lived in a third floor walk up. I remember sitting in a window of her place watching the show and smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. The DC police facing rioters pissed over immigration law and whatver had set the damn thing off to begin with. Here comes this ultra lib (and white) DC councilman and some monks marching in with a news crew to admonish the Police and plead for peace. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! There goes the afore mentioned crusaders (monks holding their habits up around their knees) running back down the streets after the cops, "mistakenly" gassed him. I nearly pissed myself. However, I went back later after stupidly agreeing to drive my girlfriend back down with a couple of roomates. She was a photographer for the school paper, and had done a bit of work as a freelancer for AP. She wated to go to get published. It was either go with her or lock her in the basement. Off we go. It was a whole different vibe. The afternoon was sort of just amateur hour. The rioters were pissed, but it was sort of cathartic and no one really got hurt. By nightfall, folks were drunk and pissed and the cops had also had enough of the crap. Building were burned. It took about five minutes on those streets to convince Lois Lane that it was passed time to be elsewhere. Personally, I should hve locked her in the basement and resigned myself to celibacy for a while.
Operator has it right. Find a building, come up with a plan to hold the door and stay there if you do get trapped. You do yourself no good on the streets.
FQ13