In the years that you’ve been working in protective fields, have you seen a shift in the way that people behave toward each other? Does it seem like it’s gotten better, does it seem like it’s gotten worse?
(Sigh.) I’m gonna say that I think, from what I’ve seen in the law enforcement field, it’s getting worse. (I was afraid that was gonna be your answer.) Especially in law enforcement. Of course, tempers are a lot shorter than they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, you know, with things like road rage and all. I mean, it all stems from something and I wish I knew what it was because then we could fix it. But we’re not sure where it’s all coming from, so we’re using all of our resources to try to push it back because we don’t know where it’s coming from. There are certain areas that we suspect, but generally on the streets now days – and it all depends on where you’re at, I mean here at Hollins everybody knows who I am and everybody supports me and everybody is nice to me and I’m nice back to everybody. In Philadelphia it wasn’t the same way, you were viewed more as a problem than you were a good thing… you weren’t their protector, you were the guy who put them in jail all the time. So it all depends on the area or the groups that you’re working with also. But crime is definitely on the rise. I would say more violence toward each other than what we used to have. Now here, we’re still good. (Laughs.) And I don’t foresee, unless all of a sudden something strange in the atmosphere happens where everybody turns on each other, I don’t foresee Hollins ever getting really bad. Of course, the City of Roanoke and the county are expanding so we’ve got more… we’re not as isolated as we used to be from crime and we’re opening our doors up to more events from the outside, so we just have to be real careful and watch. You know, the more watchful of what’s going on around… and the students need to watch also, because there might be some bad influences that are coming in that we don’t really know about and we really can’t control until we find out that they’re a bad influence and then we can try to get rid of them. But some of them are really good at hiding the fact until it’s too late.