C.

These people always are.

As for not feeling safe anymore... all I can say is that it gets better with time.

A few years ago, I was working the night shift in a supermarket... we prevented a shop lifter from stealing... we let him go, he was definitely on something and beginning to get violent... Well... as I said goodbye to the cop I was talking to on the phone about the incident, I was called to the front desk...

The shop lifter had come back. With a four foot axe and looking for the people who had stopped him from stealing a family size lasagne... yep... for ten dollars worth of haul, he was irked...

But as I have already said, he was on something and not just the alcohol we could smell on him...

He chased my guys (I was nightfill manager) and me... I had a customer faint, another attempt to confront him, and even more just panicking, not knowing what to do or where to hide.

And that was just the customers - my poor staff went above and beyond, they still served, they sheltered mothers with children behind their checkouts and counters, they comforted the borderline hysterical...

The oldest on site, besides myself, had just turned twenty one....

He was finally arrested and I had fourteen uniformed officers, three plain clothes and our own company's security to deal with.

And around thirty staff who waited until they could before they fell apart.

To this day, I have nightmares about what could have happened. This guy was beyond it and meant every swipe of that axe. All I can do is to breathe deep, remind myself that the worst did not happen and then move on.

If I don't... he wins.

And I'm too stubborn, love my job too much and just won't allow a doped up idiot to control my life in any way.

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Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook

Certain laws need to be reconsidered (and repealed, if necessary), and it must be easier for families to get help for mentally ill members. As it stands, I can watch a loved one go bonkers, but if that loved one refuses to get help, I can't do anything -- until after the poor sod commits a violent act.

If it weren't for society's historical mistreatment of the mentally ill, and labeling people mentally ill because they're a bit different, we could have laws that could help someone who's gone off the deep end and doesn't know it.

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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features