I love really bad suspense horror movies, spending much of my time watching Elvira host the really bad campy ones and another favorite “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” In these types of movies, the victim is always running to the last place you should and event in watching today’s movies, I like to make fun of them, just as much as the hosts of these television shows did. But, walking a dark alley at night in real life is not funny or campy. It can be frightening.
I love really bad suspense horror movies, spending much of my time watching Elvira host the really bad campy ones and another favorite “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” In these types of movies, the victim is always running to the last place you should and event in watching today’s movies, I like to make fun of them, just as much as the hosts of these television shows did. But, walking a dark alley at night in real life is not funny or campy. It can be frightening.
Our office sits on the corner of Arts Alley in El Cajon in between Rea and Main, and lately our alley residents have been coming out in full force, making our local business owners and workers extremely nervous when leaving late at night.
Alleys are a space for those whom to do not want to be seen and ours is no different. When leaving the office, especially late at night or even coming in very early in the morning I have run into homeless who found a place to camp for the evening. I have had several people that are mentally ill or cracked out scream obscenities at me and so far only to walk by continuing their creative colloquialisms and a few lewd hand gestures.
Art alley has many a dark corner to turn after dark. Walking out the back door of the office, we sit three feet from a small parking lot located behind Sophie’s Art Gallery and directly behind it there is a chained off parking lot. Lately this has become a favorite hang out for teens/ young adults, ranging from groups of five to 20. I recently had to walk right through a gaggle of them to reach my car about 10:00 p.m. Though nothing happened, it placed me immediately on guard and at the ready, as I understand the danger. I was mugged once shortly after arriving in the San Diego area and chased another time when out late after a night of going out. I was fortunate both times that I walked away physically unscathed, but mentally, these are things that I will never forget and whenever I am in a position of possible danger, remember vividly.
Just the other day one of our business neighbors asked me when I was going to write about the “zombies in our alley.” I was actually surprised as I thought I was the only one that saw this because of my late production nights. But in speaking with her I found out that they have seen the same happening around here and also noticed that the situation is getting worse.
It has gotten to the point where I have seriously considered being armed, especially in my business. We have had our share of colorful people just walking into our office during the day, and being an unsecured building, even that is disturbing to the people in our office.
The El Cajon police have been great, as I have called them on one of our frequent visitors. They knew the person well and my only concern was whether or not this person had a violent history. I was assured that it was not so, but we have a standing order in this office that if this person or anyone like this comes into the office to call the department immediately and they will come and remove them from the office for us and give them warning not to show up again. But this is not realistic at night, because you never know what is lurking around that next dark corner and there are quite a few to go around in order to get to your car in the evening, depending on where you found parking earlier in the day.
Perhaps it is because we are so close to the police station that these people go unnoticed. As officers come and go we are right at the beginning of their way in or the end of their way back. And I am sure that this block of businesses, sitting in the center of downtown El Cajon are not the only ones with this problem.
A strong police presence can quickly make these people that make the alleys their nighttime hot spot find somewhere else to go.
But, they cannot be here all the time, so it is up to us to be diligent and take precautions when leaving the office late at night. If you run into what may seem as trouble and you can get back to your place of business, do so and call your local police station. I am sure they will gladly come by and escort you to your car and get the ones that are hanging out to leave the area. There are many things that you can utilize though when you feel you are in danger. If you are close to your car, set the alarm off. I carry a rape whistle on my key chain and always walk to my car with my keys in hand. It is not a fail proof system, but it does give me some comfort. But more important is getting to know your neighbors and letting them know that we are there to help each other.
