What are some recommended proactive measures you can take to protect your home and family from such an undesired incident? Red cell, concentric rings and training.
Red Cell
Consider your home to be a potential target because it is to the predator.
One of the most effective and low-cost protective measures you can take in defending your home is to red cell it.
The term “red cell,” hails from the world of professional protective services. It refers to a vetted proactive measure initiated by the good guys to discover the weaknesses, and vulnerabilities of a facility or an operation being targeted by the bad guys. Running a red cell operation on your residence consists of your creating a target assessment listing on your own home.
When running a red cell operation, you must assume the perspective of an unscrupulous predator (actor) or, more likely, multiple home invaders (actors) trying to break into your abode and having no qualms about causing severe bodily harm or even worse to you and your family.
Once you’ve assumed this perspective, think of a home invasion as a stairstep process of breaking through multiple and concentric rings of security to get to a predetermined location such as your master bedroom.
Concentric Rings
Accessibility: Step outside your home and position yourself at the very front of your property line facing your home. Looking at this outermost security ring, ask yourself some hard questions about the furthest reach of your property. Are there any access barriers such as a gate, fence, vegetation and the like preventing direct street access? If so, would it stop a vehicle from rolling straight up to your front door? What about foot traffic? What kind of accessibility does foot traffic have to your doors and windows?
Assisting: Consider the next concentric security ring. Are you in any way aiding and abetting actors in their planning or execution of nefarious activities involving your home and your family? Are there any of your own tools such as pry bars, screwdrivers, hammers, shovels, or sports equipment such as baseball bats, golf clubs and the like left out in the yard or otherwise readily accessible that could be utilized by resourceful actors to gain unauthorized entry? A common error made by unknowing residents is to leave such gear, and other seemingly innocuous items like stepstools and ladders, either strewn about the ground or stored in the backyard or garage and with the garage door left wide open.
Detection: A critical security ring that is often overlooked is detection. Forewarned is forearmed. The sooner you can be alerted to a potential or active threat the more time you have to respond. Threat awareness is the currency that buys you time to resolve an emerging threat. Some examples of detection are visual and audio electronics to include digital local and remote cameras readily accessible by your phone, laptop or other personal digital devices.
Deterrence: Moving further inward, the next concentric ring is deterrence. If a would-be invader observes that your home is protected by fences, gates, locks, security cameras, motion sensors, flood lights and such other deterrents as a large dog, then the first question they ask is “Are there easier targets?” and the obvious answer is “Yes, of course there is.” A sufficiently hardened target will be perceived by the predator as an opportunity denied.
Delay: Yet another often overlooked concentric ring of security is to hamper or delay surreptitious entry. The home defense market offers a plethora of home protection and defense devices such as hard rooms, safety doors, ballistic and blast-resistant glass/ film. One of the best suppliers of such devices is American Defense Structures. At a bare minimum you should at least have robust exterior door and window locks that work. The purpose of this security ring is to buy you more time after dialing 911 and waiting for the cavalry to arrive or, if need be, managing it yourself.
Deploy: The last, but certainly not least, of your concentric security rings should be the remaining option of an effective deployment capability.
In this scenario where you know that, having defeated all of the previous rings, there are multiple invaders inside your home, you may not know their exact location and whether they may be armed or unarmed.
To support your physical interception, would you deploy a weapon? If so, does that mean that you’re armed with a rolling pin, a kitchen knife, pepper spray or a firearm? Would you stay in place? Would you retreat? What is your family plan? If you have kids, very young or elderly parents – how do you coordinate movement to the designated indoor safe rooms or outdoor rally points? What are your roles and responsibilities? (Who exactly is doing what?) Is your domestic partner assigned the responsibility of dialing 911 and explaining the situation to the dispatcher while you manage the kids? All of this needs to be worked out before the occurrence of an undesired incident.
Training
Security professionals know that there are only two types of people in the world – those who are trained and those who are not. Consider a pilot, a doctor, and a SWAT commander, each of these is trained to a high level of skill. If you do not possess that level of skill, could you justifiably fly a plane, perform open heart surgery or, utilizing specialized weapons and equipment, clear a high threat environment? You don’t need to be a doctor to administer first aid or a SWAT commander to know a few basic residential defensive tactics.
When it comes to home defense, training your family and yourself in exactly what to do in such exigent circumstances as a home invasion, is a paramount proactive measure.
Your concentric home security rings should be constructed using a balance of both convenience and security in your design. It’s unnecessary to live day to day in a maximum-security environment. However, it is equally unadvisable to render your home a walk-in, easily accessible soft target. Home defense proactive measures are limited only by your time, budget and creativity.