Why? Because its a tragedy. Its human suffering. And it points out that parking facilities can be places where crime happens. A woman is kidnapped in a parking garage. Her probable abductor has been caught (Using her credit cards, etc) but she has not been found. The probable outcome is grim. Read about it here.
The problem isn’t that it happened — Stuff like this happens all the time. Its the human condition. The problem also isn’t that it happened in a parking garage — however there is no question that we, as an industry could do more with our security (increase the lighting, paint the walls white, have a patrol wander through from time to time.) The problem is the way it was reported. And I’m not sure what to do about it. Its all true and accurate
The headline read — "More Patrols for Parking Decks" — The lede points out that she was abducted from a parking garage.
I guess the 5 "W’s" demand there "where." What makes me cringe as a parking guy is when stuff happens on our turf. I have a feed from Yahoo that sends me articles with the word "parking" in them. They have a facility through which you can list words you DON’T want included. If it didn’t use that facility, I would receive over 150 stories a day. However I do, and receive about 15. The words I take out? "killed -murder -attacked -victim -shoot -body -death -rape -dead -gun -gunshot -rob -robbery -shot -shots" Cause all those things happen frequently in parking garages and lots.
Parking has bad PR — Think about it — everything from the shootout in "Fargo" to Watergate happened in a parking garage.
We aren’t going to change "If it bleeds, it leads", so what can we do. The negative image of our industry starts in our garages and lots. Any ideas out there?
Wouldn’t it be great if someone in trouble thought to run TOWARDS a parking garage, and not away from it.
JVH
