Keep Your Eyes Open

How safe is United States? Have you ever asked yourself that?

I come from Dominican Republic; I don't want to pitch it as the most dangerous country in the world (which is not), but it's not the safest. People are murdered every week, and it's because someone was robbing them, trying to rape them, or kidnap them.

Back there, I never had a bad experience with a robber or a murderer; however, when you come from a country that being kidnapped, assaulted, and murdered in public streets is the daily news, you live traumatized and you start to believe that other places are the same, that you NEVER will feel safe.

Now I live in Los Angeles, California, but seven months later, I still can’t say that I feel completely safe here.

Three months ago, I was at The Grove watching Thor: Ragnarok. I was alone, and as I was getting used to the public transportation, I decided to take the bus to go home after the movie. It was kind of late, maybe 11PM, but the bus was still running and other people were also waiting for it at the bus stop...including a group of REALLY suspicious men. They looked like they were part of a gang: maybe drugged, drunk or something, but they didn’t look trustful.

As I used to do in my country, I started looking around at the people waiting there when I noticed that one of the suspicious men was texting someone. I looked behind me and I also noticed another one of them checking his phone and then, out of nowhere, he started staring at me. My sixth sense told me right away: “move, and quickly.” The plaza was already closing, so it was useless to go back inside. Therefore I decided to walk to the other side of the bus stop and got into a small crowd of people. But, even though I was away of them, I felt their eyes staring at me, waiting.

The bus finally arrived and I jumped in. To my big surprise, they did the same and sat a row behind me. There I decided to check on something: if they were really following me they would also leave at the same bus stop, and if they do, my only option was to find a police officer and report them. So I waited for the bus stop. However I wasn’t very calm and maybe they noticed this because I kept changing seats on the bus… twice.

Finally, the bus arrived at my stop and I got out of it with most of the other passengers and the suspicious men. They made it even more obvious and were still staring at me. I looked around but I didn’t find any police officers. But right there, God sent me help: a bus stopped right in front of me and I jumped in. I told the driver, “Close the door, some people are following me.” He saw the men and closed the door. I looked back at them and they were still staring at me, with a threatening look. But I stared back at them too. If I ever see them again, I would just report them right away; it doesn’t matter if they don’t have anything on them that will make them guilty, this backstory was enough to bust them.

Now I might laugh telling this story, but in that moment I was really scared and thought that something really bad was going to happen to me.

It doesn’t matter the race, the age, or the culture: every city has its danger. And the best we can do is keep our eyes open, look around and be careful with everybody. You don’t know who might want to harm you.