Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Security is Not a Concern

About a week ago I had a run-in with the police.  I had only been here a week at the time and thought that was a bit early to start a police record.  I was standing outside in the early darkness and their car appeared, just like the state trooper who pops you for speeding, from out of nowhere.  After asking me a few questions, they identified themselves as security police and I was a bit unnerved as their car was unmarked and they weren't wearing uniforms.

The reason for their interest is that I was standing outside during the hours favored by some burglars who had been working the area.  Just in case I was one of them, they wanted to be very clear of my identity.  The update on that story is that the burglars have been caught which is which is quite a good job as burglars are usually quite difficult to catch and they did it in a week.  There was a group of four of them in their mid-twenties, only one of them Greek, and they were doing it to feed a need for drugs.  No-one does second-floor jobs to get money for marijuana or the like so they were almost certainly addicted to narcotics.

The speed at which the bad guys were apprehended is good news but there's additional security news as the fellow next door works for port security in Katakolo, just down the road from here.  A cruise ship stops here most days and during the high season there can be as many as six or seven in port at the same time.  There has been at least one problem with terrorism on cruise ships in the past so port security is present here to deal with that possibility or anything else unusual that might arise when a thousand or so tourists spill into town at once.

All of the above is good for the security of Katakolo but how it applies to me is that when my neighbor goes to work he's dressed in fatigues and packing heat!  He's one of a team of about ten, I believe, so any terrorist who wants to pull anything down there would definitely be facing some serious firepower. What that also means is that any burglar who tries anything here where I live will be making one very serious mistake.  Due to the number of cars going in and out of here, it's not likely that a burglar would try anything anyway but this is an additional guarantee.

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