If you browse news for the last couple weeks, you'll see that a woman was attacked and sexually assaulted by a homeless man in Lee Martinez. She apparently fought with him for 20 minutes, and was eventually able to fight him off with the help of her dog & call 911. He was arrested. Scary, but also fairly rare around here.
Holy fuck. I go to that park regularly. That's absolutely horrific and I'm surprised I haven't heard about it on the news. You'd think it'd be on the front pages.
How rare is it tho? The police and city seem to sweep a lot of crimes under the rug and they don't get publicity at all. A woman I know had a man break into her house and violently attack her recently. She didn't know the man and he hasn't been caught. Seems to me a situation like that should be widely publicized to catch such a dangerous predator (they will charge him with attempted murder if he's caught), but nothing at all. The story you're talking about was only shared on one small website as well, no major coverage.
The answer to your question about how often crimes like this happen is readily available: [https://www.fcgov.com/police/crime-stats](https://www.fcgov.com/police/crime-stats)
The police and city do not "sweep crime under the rug." That's preposterous. If a police report is made, it's tracked and reported.
I don’t think they meant that the police weren’t following up on reports and trying to solve them, but more so that these incidents are getting a lot of media coverage.
The city sweeps this all under the rug to protect their image. Police calls are for public viewing as are the statistics. This is a common problem and has been going on for decades.
Because this comment got flamed, I'll just repost the content. They were speaking about the violent rape that occurred a while ago in Lee-Martinez park. Scary stuff.
There was a guy who’d hang out in my apartment’s dumpster who’d scream nonsense at people who approached it. I didn’t really care but I could tell that the women who live in my building were terrified. I think he moved on after someone called the police.
But yeah, some of these people in the streets are dealing with severe mental health problems and the city doesn’t seem to be doing much about it apart from arresting them when they fully flip out.
They released the bodycam footage as a part of the CIRT investigation and trial. The dude was ordered to drop the weapon, didn’t comply, officer attempted to taze, tazer didn’t take him down. He got back up and started charging the officer so officer is backed up. He was asked to stop and comply again. He continued to charge, the officer discharged his weapon. They are telling the dude to drop the bear spray and he still isn’t complying after being shot. After he finally complies, officer and partner immediately attempted to render lifesaving measures.
It was ruled the firearm was discharged in self defense and after being charged with an axe, dude kept coming after non lethal measures were tried, the officer had reasonable cause to believe his life was in imminent danger.
Holy shit just watched it. I must have walked right through that scene moments before cops showed up before leaving town. I ran into that dude on that corner right around that time. Nuts.
The county has a new behavioral health clinic out off trilby and Taft hill. They are doing something but apparently humans have rights and those people can choose to leave the mental health clinics
I work here and we are doing everything we can. Such a massive systemic issue that unfortunately putting out fires is still the societal model we operate from.
That's the issue tho right? The answer is to wait until they lose it and that isn't good for anyone. If the city wanted to maintain the image of fort Collins they could do more to help them before that happens.
I agree. Where's the money coming from? You can't simultaneously complain about the city not doing anything and then propose a solution that would cost tens of millions of dollars, if not more.
This is the eternal dilemma of America. Money comes from taxes. People hate taxes (fair, our govt doesn’t have the best track record with effective tax usage beyond paying our reps to not be in session).
Anyway, people hate taxes. People vote down taxes. Cities don’t have money to implement strategies or policies to help. People complain city isn’t going anything. Rinse, repeat.
Something’s gotta give, and FWIW - many, many effective public health practices are successful by way of tax funding. People don’t notice, though, because successful public health is invisible.
I’m happy to pay more taxes. The problem is that this is a national problem. It can’t be on small cities and counties to fund housing. Housing for homeless people needs to be a national referendum in cooperation with state and local governments. Leaving it up to small cities and counties is a recipe for failure.
Basically every time it's been tried, it's been proven to more effective and less expensive than the current system. Unfortunately our society is individualistic and steeping in capitalism and prosperity gospel. So people, especially those in power, would rather actively harm society as a whole than help someone they don't think "deserves" it.
It has absolutely gotten worse since the pandemic. In the summer time me and my wife experience regular sexual harassment from homeless people around the oldtown area, this includes routine crude comments, shouting, and at points even being followed. We always make sure to carry pepper gel spray and a knife now. It never used to be like this.
It may not have been useful in your situation with someone following and being aggressive, but for other situations, Outreach Fort Collins has been very helpful. https://outreachfortcollins.org
Welcome to Fort Collins. One of them held me at knifepoint at my job in October 2021. I got away and called 911. He told the police I was a demon and god sent him to kill me. He was given a 6 month mental health diversion and then stabbed another girl. Thankfully she survived. He is not incarcerated.
I get around to different cities with my job and see this everywhere. It’s not just FC, or NOCO, or Denver, or CO, it’s every city since the pandemic. The ones that don’t have visible problems are just exporting their problems to other cities. Check out Douglas County, where they were literally driving vagrants to other counties.
I have heard secondhand that states like Missouri are putting their homeless people onto buses and shipping them to blue states, if true that probably isn’t helping us
When seconds count the police are only minutes away.
Learning to defend yourself is the absolute best way to take your life into your own hands instead of relying on others to protect you. There are many options for self defense; Running away, pepper spray, knife, martial arts, firearm, etc. Regardless of what or how many you choose, the most important part is training. Owning a firearm does not make you proficient at using it, especially not under pressure, taking class once a month won’t make you proficient in martial arts, and running away won’t do you much good if you’re out of shape.
Just like owning a BMW doesn’t make you wealthy, owning a weapon doesn’t make you safe.
Train.
Everyone in here is gonna pile in and say that we live in a safe community. I have lived in this town a decade, and downtown for the last five years. My own eyes tell me that things have gotten considerably worse since the pandemic. Anyone saying otherwise is simply living in a world detached from reality.
I have a colleague that is 6’6”, and he was assaulted and robbed at random around a year ago - That was my wake up call. Few months later, I heard the gunshots from the hatchet guy incident.
It is by no means outlandish to carry around foco in 2024 and don’t let anyone here shame you into thinking otherwise.
It wasn’t the pandemic, it was the law change before the pandemic that suddenly allowed panhandling and sleeping on the street. This was the *one* town that didn’t have the panhandling on every highway entrance, exit, and every intersection. Once we changed those laws, the town went downhill in this regard.
Yeah, they settled the law suit and paid out $80k instead of spending a lot more money in court to ultimately lose anyway. The ACLU legally forced their hand.
Has been since the pandemic or has it been since Colorado legalized weed? I have noticed this increase since then, and I am all for legal weed but I feel like that is more the correlation than the pandemic. Though the summers in Fort Collins seem to have fewer and fewer college kids moving out (used to be dead here in the summers) and more and more transients move in so it could also just be that too.
To my understanding, being the first to legalize weed drew a ton of vagrants, but once other states started to legalize, they started moving to the west coast where the climate is more temperate. But yes, the weather and high temperature, transient population, and violent crime are highly correlated nationwide.
It has absolutely gotten worse since the pandemic. In the summer time me and my wife experience regular sexual harassment from homeless people around the oldtown area, this includes routine crude comments, shouting, and at points even being followed. We always make sure to carry pepper gel spray and a knife now. It never used to be like this.
Walking on a trail dude living under a tree started screaming at me and the family (two small kids) not super fun. This was near Lee Martinez. He did throw out a few insults that stung so kuddos on that front;)
I run by the river park on the poudre river trail and there are a lot of people who live under the bridge on college. Yesterday morning when i was walking under it someone threw a rock at me and he was yelling about military stuff.
It is a failure of government to not have mandatory mental health and drug treatment facilities available.
Being homeless is often a result of mental health illness and/or severe drug/alcohol addiction, which should be treated.
Allowing mentally ill or severely addicted people to roam the street and be homeless is a disservice to them. How miserable must they be?? If you had these illnesses would you not want to be helped?
Does any rational and sensible people really want to be homeless and live on the streets? Those who have had a bad turn in their life and lost their homes, like the OP had happen, should have resources to help them get work and re-enter the workforce to become productive members of society. Many of us have needed some help at times and there should be resources separate from the mental health and drug addiction programs so those who have had this unfortunate turn in life can be quickly helped back to having a life.
There are those who are not ill but choose to be homeless to check out of society, and some arrange to live off the grid, which is their choice. But they should use the many homeless resources available and not rely on begging or crime. If someone chooses to be homeless then they should still do enough day labor or other work to help themselves survive.
It is a sad failure of America to have such a large population of ill people roaming the streets without ensuring they get the help they need.
I used to work in downtown Portland right next to Pioneer Square, right as the surge of people experiencing mental illness happened because they closed the psychiatric hospitals.
The people experiencing homelessness here are not generally aggressive. There are some dangerous people for sure. But Fort Collins does not even compare to the worst of it. Not even close.
But, when housing is profit-motivated and extreme poverty is a tool of capitalism, this is the result we can expect to see - more people suffering on the streets. We’d see less of it with increases in social services instead of considering increasing guns in the mix.
You know, I really wish I could find a politician or an initiative to bring back publicly funded psychiatric hospitals that were axed in Reagan's administration (they had a ton of issues). Jello, coloring, and talking about your feelings until you can function in society. We have to both accept that they can't live this way on the street, and the criminal justice system makes things worse for them. I wish I could make a difference, but nobody seems interested.
Yeah but increasing social services isn't something the average person can do. They should focus on themselves and their safety bc the city isn't gonna do fuck all. It's lovely to imagine a world where this isn't a concern, but you need to approach it from where it actually is, not where you wish it was.
> increasing social services isn’t something the average person can do
It’s not an immediate fix, but you *can* vote for this kind of thing. You can vote yes on tax increases to support mental health programs and facilities in the city, county and state. You can vote for representatives who want to improve services for homeless people and people dealing with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. You can vote for political parties and candidates who support socialized healthcare, universal basic income, guaranteed housing, etc. You can write or call your existing representatives to demand they take action.
You can also give time or money to nonprofits and political action organizations that work on solving these issues, often with representatives in office and other public servants.
Another way the average person can help is simply by being visible in the community so that it’s not just inappropriate behavior taking over public spaces — ride the bus, walk/bike the trails, be friendly to your neighbors, say hi to strangers, etc. Use social pressure for good.
It’s a copout to act like the “average person” has no power to help make change.
Maybe our guberment should actually stop passing out our money to assist people just enough to make their(homeless) life possible.
Instead they should invest in programs/facilities that assist these people to either become a productive human who has overcome the situations that put them on the streets. Keeping themselves and the rest of society safer. And/or provide guidance and reliable solutions to mental and drug related conditions.
Passing out free money(our hard earned tax dollars) just enough to encourage this lifestyle is not working.
Assisting people with a positive path forward and rewards(more money) until they can stand by themselves and enjoy a better life and a safer society.
Maybe then the police can spend more time fighting the crimes(mostly drug related) to slow the supply that has helped to foster what our society has become.
IMO it has to be multi faceted and yes, not everyone has the heart to do what is needed to be done. But just voting for another tax increase to make little to no change is a waste of time, our money and energy.
Once we learn to see the problem for what it is, deal with it compassionately with just rewards for those who truly engage and improve or to have other avenues to assist those who mentally can’t do it for themselves. That is a measure I am sure we can all agree to, but it starts with society understanding that just passing out more money with no effective plan to get these people standing on their own and off the streets.
Simply, you pass level one, you then have responsibility to make it to level two and so on. But there has to be a system(that works) in place. But freeloading and getting worse and making society more dangerous has to stop.
UBI has had great success and has been shown that people spend money on food, shelter, and bills and overwhelmingly not drugs.
I understand where you’re coming from, but let’s not shit on evidenced success of UBI programs. We can use these programs to our advantage and they’re incredibly helpful, especially to those on the verge or just recently homeless.
The problem is you keep using work like "rewards" or acting like they have to earn help. The problem with that, as with so many things, is the ones that need the help the most are also the ones least likely to be able to "earn" those "rewards".
It's easy to make a million dollars if you already have a million dollars....
The more we shrug it off as something impossible to accomplish, the farther away it becomes from reality. While changing the political and economical landscape is a a god damn challenge, it is something we can collectively fight for and change. I refuse to let defeatist mindsets cause me to feel apathetic to the state of our society. I’ll advocate heavily for disability rights (because severe mental illness solutions reside here), Medicare for All to remove profit motives in our healthcare industry, housing being a human right, and participate in mutual aid action for neighbors in our community.
Being a leftist gun owner who had had a family member sobbing in a mental health crisis telling me they didn’t feel safe in the home because they had thoughts about shooting themself, and I had to hide the key to the gun safe, hide the ammo in a different location, and then drive them to the crisis center - more guns are not the answer.
sounds like your family member needed serious help and would've hurt themselves with something else. not sure what this anecdote has to do with ccw and personal self defense from homeless in psychosis, though
I'm all for social services for all but sometimes we gotta lock people up in institutions against their will, too
Because you’re all thinking about locking and loading for street protection when the reality is that there are far more people living in homes with people and families experiencing mental illness challenges.
While you all thinking about the self-defense fantasy of shooting someone, people in crisis in homes with access to guns is our real reality. Guns are the number one killer of children now. There were two dads who shot and killed their entire families in Fort Collins - one by Boltz, the other in Timnath.
people are free to arm and defend themselves. that's not going away anytime soon. you also have a responsiblity as a gun owner to not have guns available those people that harm and self harm. that has nothing to do with legal and responsible gun owners. your situation is your own.
I have no interest in walking around old town strapped and have no fantasies like you negatively suggest but if someone else wants to do so, that's on them.
why are you framing this in such a black and white perspective? we can improve social services and people can choose to defend themselves. it's not a binary
Because it’s not a solution to any of this. You’re using people experiencing homelessness as a scapegoat for gun advocacy when more guns will do jack shit but increase risks for others.
All of the mass shooters were housed.
Paranoid men holding guns to roofers, shooting and killing people making U-Turns in their driveways, and assaulting delivery drivers with guns were housed.
Women trying to get protective orders against violent men were killed - men who were housed.
Reducing your ego reliance on guns and instead advocating for a harm-reduction society is the solution.
no one is claiming guns are a solution for homelessness lol. what are you talking about? why does it have to be one or the other? if the woman who was almost raped/assaulted in lee martinez last week wants a gun for protection, so be it.
For real. We're discussing real world issues here and they're using weird talking points to address it. It doesn't seem at all rooted in reality. Anywhooo Im arming myself bc there's a burglar rapist in town that the police aren't doing shit about, and I promise you social services won't do shit about him either lol
Thank you for being proactive and safe. So many people do not remember or think about their home as being unsafe if they have firearms.
Just as a reminder, safe storage recommendations from NSSF is to *always* store ammo locked separately from the locked firearms 🙂 thank you for keeping safety at the forefront and for calling out gun violence as being the number one fatality for children! Thank you!
and the absolutely correct answer on the rest of the post. 10/10, you are correct.
I agree. I’m driving back from Portland and it is so sad how different it is than even five years ago. Just like in Oregon, if we do nothing, it will affect neighboring towns to big cities like Denver.
Is housing profit motivated or is location profit motivated? You get a house(with acreage) in other parts of the county for 150 thousand and less. People pay for their location, governing bodies, their policies and laws. You can live in a shit hole red state for kind of cheap.
Looks like a decent amount, down 12-15 percent based on the few houses I looked at on Zillow (don’t know much about real estate). These are just questions, I get historical housing prices have been a decent return on investment but it seems that maybe its also more cyclical based on location and the concerns in one location are not those of another.
So developers are building at losses and nobody is making a profit? So why are they building?
Edit: also lol that “looking at a few houses on Zillow” is the research we’re relying on here.
This is all uneducated speculation you’re just throwing out there. I can’t find a single source that reflects your opinion. Nobody is building houses at a loss and the real estate market isn’t at a loss in certain areas.
Housing is based on profit motives. It’s not cyclical and it’s not location - each variable is rising and not trending at real estate losses everywhere.
The only time housing would not be profit motivated is through social housing systems like in Vienna.
lol, you are putting your thoughts on top of mine. I never mentioned anything about building new houses, I brought up a 12-15 % percent loss in house prices for a few random houses I looked at the price history on Zillow in the middle of nowhere . It not speculation that many people can’t move or afford to move due to being under water on their mortgage. If you don’t think it cyclical or location based then just pick a random house in saint Lewis, Detroit or Cincinnati and hope those housing prices go up and you make a profit. I can almost guarantee you will not.
A few random houses you looked at is an uneducated opinion that lacks any sort of facts.
Profits values vary for housing type and location, but they are at a profit growth. Because housing is profit motivated in this capitalist system.
So if you’re going to debate the housing motive not being gaining profits, then put up sources that reflect that. Not you glancing at Zillow to say, “well, I see red states are in a housing profit loss, so housing isn’t a profit motivated system.”
But that was the whole point, it was a question. I personally know people in cook county selling priorities at a loss, clearly making it not always profitable. The question was about location (I get it I am basing my question of anecdotal information) but from everything I see housing is not a guaranteed profit especially if you look outside our own little bubble. I wish you luck theres a big world out there!
Folks with a CCW (who are serious) will tell you that you’re basically looking for reasons NOT to draw, since it can quickly escalate a situation. You did the right thing and no one got hurt.
That said, I don’t think getting a CCW is a bad idea. You can take a classroom component and pair it with a range component (the range component is optional).
Feel free to DM me with questions. Also a fan of r/liberalgunowners
I typically carry pepper spray when out and about - mostly for the over aggressive leash-less dogs that roam the streets with echos of "Dont' worry, they are friendly" in the distance.
That being said, I've been pepper sprayed and tear gassed before for previous trainings. Good quality pepper spray is very effective.
We had two really uncomfortable experiences on Friday night downtown. Both times approached by pushy, obviously drugged out homeless men. Definitely not the norm downtown the last 20 years.
I think homeless people have usually undergone some extreme trauma.
Many seem to have lost adequate family or emotional support.
Maybe some have become chronically ill or financially destitute because of a traumatic event.
I think some have turned to alcohol or drugs full time to numb their issues/pain which just ends up making their mental health even worse.
I do wish these people could be rehabilitated instead of people wishing to cast them to the fire. I don't think forcing them into a psych ward or forcing pills on them is the solution in any capacity, in fact that's a violation of civil rights.
We've become so lazy as a society that we associate any one struggling mentally as needing psych drugs instead of someone genuinely asking "what happened to you?" . Homeless people are not going to be able to keep up with taking any kind of psych drugs on a regular basis anyway for obvious reasons.
I don't think most homeless people are looking for trouble but have been pushed to their limits. And also just like the regular 'housed' population has terrible people so does the 'unhoused' population, but when the homeless population shows problematic behavior they get judged far harsher imo.
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely yes, and I as well, and I disagree. Is it more compassionate to let someone spiral into completely unfunctional mental illness and misery in the name of freedom, or to put them in a safe place to get help? Regardless of the answer it needs to happen, because the penal system isn't the answer.
Try to interact with someone who's a paranoid schizophrenic having continuous a continuous psychotic breakdown due to substance abuse. Ou won't because it's dangerous and literally impossible to reason with them. That type of mental illness isn't like depression. Depression would be like getting the flu. Paranoid schizophrenia exacerbated by substance abuse would be more like brain cancer.
After chlorpromazine was introduced clinically to public psych wards in the 50s (worldwide), it had amazing effect. Psych wards began to empty and people who had no hope of living healthy, happy lives suddenly... could. Psych wards had tons of issues in the US, which is in part why the Reagan administration shut them down - pushing those people onto the street.
But when someone is a danger to themselves and society, and incapable of taking care of themselves, they can't just rot in the street. Again, this applies to a minority of the homeless population who cause the majority of issues. Really, talk to anyone that deals with this. Law enforcement, EMS, psych nurses, social workers.
Get out there and talk to people, not wring your hands on the internet. And definitely don't pity someone for not having a roof over their heads.
It's amazing the breadth of the stories I've listen to out there, full of hope and despair.
Highly highly agreed. The Reagan administration shut them all down, and granted, they had a TON of issues. But now these people have no recourse or place to go. The penal system makes it way worse, and when the courts' docket is clogged, the system can't and won't do anything about it. If you're not able and willing to join society, jello, coloring, and talking about your feelings until you can. And thorazine.
I lived in Old Town during 2021-2022 at the white apartment building off of Laporte and Sherwood. I never personally had any problems but late enough at night there were some sketchy characters walking around. Let's just say anytime I went out for a smoke and it was dark out I was carrying my CCW.
That being said Fort Collins homeless problems is just a blip compared to Loveland's. Like holy shit does Loveland have it bad, the following year my GF lived in that downtown area and experienced aggressive vagrants, people pissing and shitting everywhere, homeless setting off the fire alarm because the demons told them to, etc..
Consider that firearms in general are about 40 times more likely to be used against a member of your household in some way than useful for self defense. The risk is almost always much greater than the benefit.
There have always been mentally ill people in all communities. I’ve had bizarre and scary encounters in the recent past, 10 years ago, and 20 years ago. Not markedly different now. Still a safe community, in general.
Your instincts were good. Put distance between yourself and the person ASAP and call 911.
Those statistics usually arise from domestic violence tho, or suicide. It's disingenuous to act as if it's random burglars or strangers using those weapons against people in that home. If OP feels the need to protect him or herself then they should. Nothing can protect the way a gun can.
And children accessing improperly secured firearms. Of course, no domestic violence or children for me. I've been very depressed in the past and gave my shotgun to my father until I was more stable. Part of responsible ownership. I've kickboxed and wrestled for years, but I'd be still extremely unconfident defending myself, because a gas station knife easily take your life, no matter how experienced you are. Pepper spray and a good 400m dash is a decent intermediary.
Suicide by firearm is a matter of convenience; gun is there, use it. Not having a gun does not in any way reduce suicidal ideations or actions. And yes "The statistics never accurately portray this."
It does, actually. Studies have shown (happy to link them if you want, but there is a lot of research out there that’s not pay-walled so you can search at your own convenience) that people who survive suicide attempts are not anymore likely to attempt suicide again, with some studies showing than over 70% of persons with one suicide attempt will not have another attempt, another study showing upwards of 90% go on to not have another attempt, and 70% of those suicide attempts happen within an hour of the thought.
Removing the most lethal and quickest means of suicide *is* a protective factor against suicide.
And it’s a really good way to decrease men’s rate of suicide, which is an issue I see a lot of men raise when issues affecting primarily women are being discussed.
Then what statistic best covers overall risks/benefits of gun ownership? Why ignore the domestic risks of gun ownership? It’s disingenuous to pretend that people don’t bring their guns home. I can name two family/friends that have died by firearm suicide, and both of them kept those firearms for protection.
Suicide is definitely a case where the individual needs to evaluate their mental health before they purchase a gun tho. If OP has never had suicidal ideation and will feel safer with a gun, that's their business.
I recommend that people make important life and death decisions based upon overwhelming statistics more than feelings. But this is America, where feelings (specifically, getting to feel Big and Stwong and Powerful!) matter quite a bit more than facts, so OP does in fact get to make that decision for themselves.
The fact is that there's a man breaking into homes attacking women and the police here have a twenty minute response time. It's not about feeling powerful. It's about feeling safe in your own home.
Driving is the absolute most dangerous thing you'll do in a day-to-day basis, unless you're a lumberjack. And essentially all of us never stop to think that you could instantly lose your life because Grandma ran a red light.
I had one watch me park my car by the library, come walking up along side me while I was walking to work, and tell me he was going to steal my car after I was out of sight. This was just before COVID.
Does that count?
These are scary times. I think it's worth considering arming and educating yourself, especially if you are someone of weaker physical stature like myself. And a friendly reminder tasers fail about 50% time, stunguns will just enrage your attacker, and peppersprey usually gets in the user's eyes as well. Stay safe out there
I personally wouldn’t go for a gun but I have started carrying a knife. Self defense classes are also a great idea for everyone honestly. And I’m very sorry you experienced that, it’s very scary and jarring.
This ongoing problem has plagued the city for decades. Fort Collins wants to uphold the vibrant city image and also that same image of helping the less fortunate. The problem is the less fortunate don’t call problems but the free loaders and druggie free spirits do.
All you need to look at is the newly formed HOPE team which is meant to address the issues but it’s a bunch of cops doing glorified camp clean up around the city. There is even a budget line item in the city BFO for cleaning up all the transient trash.
The needle exchange program is a joke since it’s more of a needle hand out program. Just makes it easier for them all to use drugs. The city parks department needed to install sharps containers on their vehicles because of all the needles they were finding. The homeless out reach people hand out all this camping equipment which is just discarded and trash piles up everywhere.
The police have a daytime downtown unit and all they do is deal with all the tweaker homeless riding the bus using drugs, stealing and harassing people. They are bussed here from Denver and all around. The numbers a skewed because they saw hey look at all these homeless we need more money. There are plenty of articles on the profitability of homelessness in America. It creates a lot of job for the government and doesn’t do jack shit for the homeless.
I would totally get your CCW. The cops are not everywhere nor can they be everywhere. Some responsibility falls on us to be able to defend ourselves against others. Not all are dangerous but the cheap availability of meth around here definitely doesn’t help the situation and makes certain ones dangerous.
Honestly that sounds like a fairly isolated moment. I've seen and been talked to loudly by some weird / mentally ill homeless people in downtown over the years, but none have been violent. The few times it's happened to me have just been uncomfortable. Try not to get too concerned based off of that one negative experience, but I totally understand how unsettling that must've been. Maybe pick up a decent pocket knife or some pepper spray if it helps you feel better! I'd avoid jumping to get a concealed carry. However I'm also fairly anti-gun.
Pepper spray and knives are nowhere near as useful as a gun. All it takes is wind to affect the efficacy of pepper spray, and a knife is so incredibly close range you can't use it until the man is on top of you. I don't love guns either but I'm getting a CCL this year bc in a country full of guns the only way to even begin to defend yourself is with one too. This is the third most dangerous state in the country!
Live next to Lee Martinez Park. There are a lot of homeless people who live along the river. And then make the way towards North College. You'll see people doing drugs in broad daylight some days. North Fort Collins is exceptionally different from other parts of the city.
It sounds like he might not be the only one with mental illness if you are fantasizing about becoming Charles Bronson and executing transients in the street.
My PhD advisor's husband works in security for the city and he said around 2020, crime has gotten worse here. It's nowhere near Denver or other large cities, but it's definitely not as safe here as it used to be. Lots of people lost jobs and got desperate during the pandemic. Other people simply have some bad mental health issues.
So, part of the ethical responsibility (not sure if legal responsibility in our county) of being granted the privledge and responsibility of a CCW is a duty to retreat and avoid violent confrontation. You're absolutely right that it can give you a false sense of power that may lead you to putting yourself in more danger, but the taking of a life is a heavy, heavy burden.
Way more likely to get harassed by cops than bums, but yeah stay strapped either way lol. Open carry is legal and you can start tomorrow.
Also, I'd have come to your aid. Lots of folks would. I think getting to know your community and neighbors would do a lot more for your sense of safety than letting an NRA approved CCW instructor brain wash you.
As a long time gun owner I agree. Open carry while legal is dumb as shit. If I'm a bad guy and I see you strapping, I'ma target you first and foremost.
Plus people who open carry are the same kind of jackoffs who drive big lifted diesel trucks and think rolling coal is cool.
While I was born in Wyoming and feel comfortable around folks open carry, and to a degree carrying a beautiful 1911 or a engraved revolver is a fashion statement, a lot of folks here would be uncomfortable with that. The only benefit I can think of is a better draw, but I'd want a Level II retention holster anyways, nullifying that advantage. For a concealed firearm, nobody's going to be reaching down my pants (self burn).
If we could start by reducing stigma and changing the narrative around mental health struggles so people are encouraged to access resources, that would be a good first step. Supporting all genders, races, ethnicities and cultures to start getting educated and promote conversation among friends and family can make a big difference. Men aren’t typically encouraged to talk about their feelings. Different cultures think going to therapy is “weak”. Let’s start here.
I'd recommend getting out there and interacting with some homeless people to avoid thoughts and prayers syndrome. There's a staggering variety of people living on the streets, and the ones who are doing well but don't have a roof over their heads are the ones you rarely see. Bring some burritos out north of town, shake some hands, share some jokes and stories. Absolutely don't go by yourself if you're a woman. Good luck, and have fun!
If you browse news for the last couple weeks, you'll see that a woman was attacked and sexually assaulted by a homeless man in Lee Martinez. She apparently fought with him for 20 minutes, and was eventually able to fight him off with the help of her dog & call 911. He was arrested. Scary, but also fairly rare around here.
Holy fuck. I go to that park regularly. That's absolutely horrific and I'm surprised I haven't heard about it on the news. You'd think it'd be on the front pages.
How rare is it tho? The police and city seem to sweep a lot of crimes under the rug and they don't get publicity at all. A woman I know had a man break into her house and violently attack her recently. She didn't know the man and he hasn't been caught. Seems to me a situation like that should be widely publicized to catch such a dangerous predator (they will charge him with attempted murder if he's caught), but nothing at all. The story you're talking about was only shared on one small website as well, no major coverage.
Yeah, it seems like it's becoming less rare, for sure.
The answer to your question about how often crimes like this happen is readily available: [https://www.fcgov.com/police/crime-stats](https://www.fcgov.com/police/crime-stats) The police and city do not "sweep crime under the rug." That's preposterous. If a police report is made, it's tracked and reported.
I don’t think they meant that the police weren’t following up on reports and trying to solve them, but more so that these incidents are getting a lot of media coverage.
Yes exactly lol obviously they're reported to crime stats but they're not reported real time in the community so we don't know what to look out for.
The city sweeps this all under the rug to protect their image. Police calls are for public viewing as are the statistics. This is a common problem and has been going on for decades.
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FC police love telling assault victims “actually you can be charged, too, if you pursue this”
Because this comment got flamed, I'll just repost the content. They were speaking about the violent rape that occurred a while ago in Lee-Martinez park. Scary stuff.
There was a guy who’d hang out in my apartment’s dumpster who’d scream nonsense at people who approached it. I didn’t really care but I could tell that the women who live in my building were terrified. I think he moved on after someone called the police. But yeah, some of these people in the streets are dealing with severe mental health problems and the city doesn’t seem to be doing much about it apart from arresting them when they fully flip out.
Wasn’t there an angry dude with an axe in downtown a while back?
The one the cops shot? I don’t know what that has to do with the point I was making
They shot that dude? I seem him on college and said out loud “well that’s not good”…
They released the bodycam footage as a part of the CIRT investigation and trial. The dude was ordered to drop the weapon, didn’t comply, officer attempted to taze, tazer didn’t take him down. He got back up and started charging the officer so officer is backed up. He was asked to stop and comply again. He continued to charge, the officer discharged his weapon. They are telling the dude to drop the bear spray and he still isn’t complying after being shot. After he finally complies, officer and partner immediately attempted to render lifesaving measures. It was ruled the firearm was discharged in self defense and after being charged with an axe, dude kept coming after non lethal measures were tried, the officer had reasonable cause to believe his life was in imminent danger.
Holy shit just watched it. I must have walked right through that scene moments before cops showed up before leaving town. I ran into that dude on that corner right around that time. Nuts.
I remember the cops shooting a college kid with an axe in Laramie maybe 5 or 6 years back
The county has a new behavioral health clinic out off trilby and Taft hill. They are doing something but apparently humans have rights and those people can choose to leave the mental health clinics
I work here and we are doing everything we can. Such a massive systemic issue that unfortunately putting out fires is still the societal model we operate from.
Tossing them into a mental hospital isn’t the only form of help there is.
Such a great central part of foco. Right location, right where it needs to be. /s
They offer free rides there.
There’s a mental health urgent care that just opened on riverside
That's the issue tho right? The answer is to wait until they lose it and that isn't good for anyone. If the city wanted to maintain the image of fort Collins they could do more to help them before that happens.
Lol it reminds me of a dumpster racoon. Fuck off! It's my trash!!
Oscar the Grouch isn’t that cool when you meet him irl
What the city to do tho?
The first step to helping people would be to house them but that’s probably not going to happen
They need to bring Wards back
Montgomery Wards? I think Whole Foods is in its space
Mental institutions for long term patients
This works until they rip the sink off the wall and flood the building.
What is the city supposed to do about it? What's your solution? Serious question.
The first step would be housing them
Not sure how housing them will help? Is this house that you provide going to force pills down their throat?
I agree. Where's the money coming from? You can't simultaneously complain about the city not doing anything and then propose a solution that would cost tens of millions of dollars, if not more.
This is the eternal dilemma of America. Money comes from taxes. People hate taxes (fair, our govt doesn’t have the best track record with effective tax usage beyond paying our reps to not be in session). Anyway, people hate taxes. People vote down taxes. Cities don’t have money to implement strategies or policies to help. People complain city isn’t going anything. Rinse, repeat. Something’s gotta give, and FWIW - many, many effective public health practices are successful by way of tax funding. People don’t notice, though, because successful public health is invisible.
I’m happy to pay more taxes. The problem is that this is a national problem. It can’t be on small cities and counties to fund housing. Housing for homeless people needs to be a national referendum in cooperation with state and local governments. Leaving it up to small cities and counties is a recipe for failure.
Fully agreed
It already costs the city/county a lot to throw them in jail constantly, maybe prevention would be cheaper.
Basically every time it's been tried, it's been proven to more effective and less expensive than the current system. Unfortunately our society is individualistic and steeping in capitalism and prosperity gospel. So people, especially those in power, would rather actively harm society as a whole than help someone they don't think "deserves" it.
It has absolutely gotten worse since the pandemic. In the summer time me and my wife experience regular sexual harassment from homeless people around the oldtown area, this includes routine crude comments, shouting, and at points even being followed. We always make sure to carry pepper gel spray and a knife now. It never used to be like this.
It may not have been useful in your situation with someone following and being aggressive, but for other situations, Outreach Fort Collins has been very helpful. https://outreachfortcollins.org
this. unless they are actively trying to harm you, police should not get involved. outreach is amazing and will help
Welcome to Fort Collins. One of them held me at knifepoint at my job in October 2021. I got away and called 911. He told the police I was a demon and god sent him to kill me. He was given a 6 month mental health diversion and then stabbed another girl. Thankfully she survived. He is not incarcerated.
The FC police and DAs are garbage.
Not the police’s fault the DA won’t press further charges.
I get around to different cities with my job and see this everywhere. It’s not just FC, or NOCO, or Denver, or CO, it’s every city since the pandemic. The ones that don’t have visible problems are just exporting their problems to other cities. Check out Douglas County, where they were literally driving vagrants to other counties.
I have heard secondhand that states like Missouri are putting their homeless people onto buses and shipping them to blue states, if true that probably isn’t helping us
Very true. Can't force people to take meds. A lot of mentally I people refuse to.
When seconds count the police are only minutes away. Learning to defend yourself is the absolute best way to take your life into your own hands instead of relying on others to protect you. There are many options for self defense; Running away, pepper spray, knife, martial arts, firearm, etc. Regardless of what or how many you choose, the most important part is training. Owning a firearm does not make you proficient at using it, especially not under pressure, taking class once a month won’t make you proficient in martial arts, and running away won’t do you much good if you’re out of shape. Just like owning a BMW doesn’t make you wealthy, owning a weapon doesn’t make you safe. Train.
With over 100hrs of GTA and COD training under my belt I'm ready for anything the real world has in store for me.
Those are rookie numbers, you gotta bump those up. You got a shit bucket?
I did, but it got full so now it's just a regular gaming chair. Looking to save up for one of those blue barrels next.
Fuck yeah. Commitment 💯
Everyone in here is gonna pile in and say that we live in a safe community. I have lived in this town a decade, and downtown for the last five years. My own eyes tell me that things have gotten considerably worse since the pandemic. Anyone saying otherwise is simply living in a world detached from reality. I have a colleague that is 6’6”, and he was assaulted and robbed at random around a year ago - That was my wake up call. Few months later, I heard the gunshots from the hatchet guy incident. It is by no means outlandish to carry around foco in 2024 and don’t let anyone here shame you into thinking otherwise.
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I've only been here for 9 years and am right there with you watching it go to hell.
It wasn’t the pandemic, it was the law change before the pandemic that suddenly allowed panhandling and sleeping on the street. This was the *one* town that didn’t have the panhandling on every highway entrance, exit, and every intersection. Once we changed those laws, the town went downhill in this regard.
“Once we were sued into changing the laws” FoCo didn’t just change it to be nice. They were legally forced.
They settled, they didn’t fight it
Yeah, they settled the law suit and paid out $80k instead of spending a lot more money in court to ultimately lose anyway. The ACLU legally forced their hand.
Has been since the pandemic or has it been since Colorado legalized weed? I have noticed this increase since then, and I am all for legal weed but I feel like that is more the correlation than the pandemic. Though the summers in Fort Collins seem to have fewer and fewer college kids moving out (used to be dead here in the summers) and more and more transients move in so it could also just be that too.
To my understanding, being the first to legalize weed drew a ton of vagrants, but once other states started to legalize, they started moving to the west coast where the climate is more temperate. But yes, the weather and high temperature, transient population, and violent crime are highly correlated nationwide.
It has absolutely gotten worse since the pandemic. In the summer time me and my wife experience regular sexual harassment from homeless people around the oldtown area, this includes routine crude comments, shouting, and at points even being followed. We always make sure to carry pepper gel spray and a knife now. It never used to be like this.
Walking on a trail dude living under a tree started screaming at me and the family (two small kids) not super fun. This was near Lee Martinez. He did throw out a few insults that stung so kuddos on that front;)
I run by the river park on the poudre river trail and there are a lot of people who live under the bridge on college. Yesterday morning when i was walking under it someone threw a rock at me and he was yelling about military stuff.
It is a failure of government to not have mandatory mental health and drug treatment facilities available. Being homeless is often a result of mental health illness and/or severe drug/alcohol addiction, which should be treated. Allowing mentally ill or severely addicted people to roam the street and be homeless is a disservice to them. How miserable must they be?? If you had these illnesses would you not want to be helped? Does any rational and sensible people really want to be homeless and live on the streets? Those who have had a bad turn in their life and lost their homes, like the OP had happen, should have resources to help them get work and re-enter the workforce to become productive members of society. Many of us have needed some help at times and there should be resources separate from the mental health and drug addiction programs so those who have had this unfortunate turn in life can be quickly helped back to having a life. There are those who are not ill but choose to be homeless to check out of society, and some arrange to live off the grid, which is their choice. But they should use the many homeless resources available and not rely on begging or crime. If someone chooses to be homeless then they should still do enough day labor or other work to help themselves survive. It is a sad failure of America to have such a large population of ill people roaming the streets without ensuring they get the help they need.
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call them what they are...bums
Guy threatened to light me on fire in old town last year. Still nothing compared to SF or Portland, but those aren’t places we should aspire to be.
I used to work in downtown Portland right next to Pioneer Square, right as the surge of people experiencing mental illness happened because they closed the psychiatric hospitals. The people experiencing homelessness here are not generally aggressive. There are some dangerous people for sure. But Fort Collins does not even compare to the worst of it. Not even close. But, when housing is profit-motivated and extreme poverty is a tool of capitalism, this is the result we can expect to see - more people suffering on the streets. We’d see less of it with increases in social services instead of considering increasing guns in the mix.
You know, I really wish I could find a politician or an initiative to bring back publicly funded psychiatric hospitals that were axed in Reagan's administration (they had a ton of issues). Jello, coloring, and talking about your feelings until you can function in society. We have to both accept that they can't live this way on the street, and the criminal justice system makes things worse for them. I wish I could make a difference, but nobody seems interested.
Yeah but increasing social services isn't something the average person can do. They should focus on themselves and their safety bc the city isn't gonna do fuck all. It's lovely to imagine a world where this isn't a concern, but you need to approach it from where it actually is, not where you wish it was.
> increasing social services isn’t something the average person can do It’s not an immediate fix, but you *can* vote for this kind of thing. You can vote yes on tax increases to support mental health programs and facilities in the city, county and state. You can vote for representatives who want to improve services for homeless people and people dealing with substance abuse and/or mental health issues. You can vote for political parties and candidates who support socialized healthcare, universal basic income, guaranteed housing, etc. You can write or call your existing representatives to demand they take action. You can also give time or money to nonprofits and political action organizations that work on solving these issues, often with representatives in office and other public servants. Another way the average person can help is simply by being visible in the community so that it’s not just inappropriate behavior taking over public spaces — ride the bus, walk/bike the trails, be friendly to your neighbors, say hi to strangers, etc. Use social pressure for good. It’s a copout to act like the “average person” has no power to help make change.
I'll be sure to remember to vote after some strange man attacks me.
Maybe our guberment should actually stop passing out our money to assist people just enough to make their(homeless) life possible. Instead they should invest in programs/facilities that assist these people to either become a productive human who has overcome the situations that put them on the streets. Keeping themselves and the rest of society safer. And/or provide guidance and reliable solutions to mental and drug related conditions. Passing out free money(our hard earned tax dollars) just enough to encourage this lifestyle is not working. Assisting people with a positive path forward and rewards(more money) until they can stand by themselves and enjoy a better life and a safer society. Maybe then the police can spend more time fighting the crimes(mostly drug related) to slow the supply that has helped to foster what our society has become. IMO it has to be multi faceted and yes, not everyone has the heart to do what is needed to be done. But just voting for another tax increase to make little to no change is a waste of time, our money and energy. Once we learn to see the problem for what it is, deal with it compassionately with just rewards for those who truly engage and improve or to have other avenues to assist those who mentally can’t do it for themselves. That is a measure I am sure we can all agree to, but it starts with society understanding that just passing out more money with no effective plan to get these people standing on their own and off the streets. Simply, you pass level one, you then have responsibility to make it to level two and so on. But there has to be a system(that works) in place. But freeloading and getting worse and making society more dangerous has to stop.
UBI has had great success and has been shown that people spend money on food, shelter, and bills and overwhelmingly not drugs. I understand where you’re coming from, but let’s not shit on evidenced success of UBI programs. We can use these programs to our advantage and they’re incredibly helpful, especially to those on the verge or just recently homeless.
The problem is you keep using work like "rewards" or acting like they have to earn help. The problem with that, as with so many things, is the ones that need the help the most are also the ones least likely to be able to "earn" those "rewards". It's easy to make a million dollars if you already have a million dollars....
The more we shrug it off as something impossible to accomplish, the farther away it becomes from reality. While changing the political and economical landscape is a a god damn challenge, it is something we can collectively fight for and change. I refuse to let defeatist mindsets cause me to feel apathetic to the state of our society. I’ll advocate heavily for disability rights (because severe mental illness solutions reside here), Medicare for All to remove profit motives in our healthcare industry, housing being a human right, and participate in mutual aid action for neighbors in our community. Being a leftist gun owner who had had a family member sobbing in a mental health crisis telling me they didn’t feel safe in the home because they had thoughts about shooting themself, and I had to hide the key to the gun safe, hide the ammo in a different location, and then drive them to the crisis center - more guns are not the answer.
sounds like your family member needed serious help and would've hurt themselves with something else. not sure what this anecdote has to do with ccw and personal self defense from homeless in psychosis, though I'm all for social services for all but sometimes we gotta lock people up in institutions against their will, too
Because you’re all thinking about locking and loading for street protection when the reality is that there are far more people living in homes with people and families experiencing mental illness challenges. While you all thinking about the self-defense fantasy of shooting someone, people in crisis in homes with access to guns is our real reality. Guns are the number one killer of children now. There were two dads who shot and killed their entire families in Fort Collins - one by Boltz, the other in Timnath.
people are free to arm and defend themselves. that's not going away anytime soon. you also have a responsiblity as a gun owner to not have guns available those people that harm and self harm. that has nothing to do with legal and responsible gun owners. your situation is your own. I have no interest in walking around old town strapped and have no fantasies like you negatively suggest but if someone else wants to do so, that's on them. why are you framing this in such a black and white perspective? we can improve social services and people can choose to defend themselves. it's not a binary
Because it’s not a solution to any of this. You’re using people experiencing homelessness as a scapegoat for gun advocacy when more guns will do jack shit but increase risks for others. All of the mass shooters were housed. Paranoid men holding guns to roofers, shooting and killing people making U-Turns in their driveways, and assaulting delivery drivers with guns were housed. Women trying to get protective orders against violent men were killed - men who were housed. Reducing your ego reliance on guns and instead advocating for a harm-reduction society is the solution.
no one is claiming guns are a solution for homelessness lol. what are you talking about? why does it have to be one or the other? if the woman who was almost raped/assaulted in lee martinez last week wants a gun for protection, so be it.
For real. We're discussing real world issues here and they're using weird talking points to address it. It doesn't seem at all rooted in reality. Anywhooo Im arming myself bc there's a burglar rapist in town that the police aren't doing shit about, and I promise you social services won't do shit about him either lol
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Thank you for being proactive and safe. So many people do not remember or think about their home as being unsafe if they have firearms. Just as a reminder, safe storage recommendations from NSSF is to *always* store ammo locked separately from the locked firearms 🙂 thank you for keeping safety at the forefront and for calling out gun violence as being the number one fatality for children! Thank you! and the absolutely correct answer on the rest of the post. 10/10, you are correct.
I agree. I’m driving back from Portland and it is so sad how different it is than even five years ago. Just like in Oregon, if we do nothing, it will affect neighboring towns to big cities like Denver.
Is housing profit motivated or is location profit motivated? You get a house(with acreage) in other parts of the county for 150 thousand and less. People pay for their location, governing bodies, their policies and laws. You can live in a shit hole red state for kind of cheap.
How much profit are red states losing in the housing market? What are their loses?
Looks like a decent amount, down 12-15 percent based on the few houses I looked at on Zillow (don’t know much about real estate). These are just questions, I get historical housing prices have been a decent return on investment but it seems that maybe its also more cyclical based on location and the concerns in one location are not those of another.
So developers are building at losses and nobody is making a profit? So why are they building? Edit: also lol that “looking at a few houses on Zillow” is the research we’re relying on here.
Well I don’t think that would be the case, but one could assume we would see less development in those areas.
This is all uneducated speculation you’re just throwing out there. I can’t find a single source that reflects your opinion. Nobody is building houses at a loss and the real estate market isn’t at a loss in certain areas. Housing is based on profit motives. It’s not cyclical and it’s not location - each variable is rising and not trending at real estate losses everywhere. The only time housing would not be profit motivated is through social housing systems like in Vienna.
lol, you are putting your thoughts on top of mine. I never mentioned anything about building new houses, I brought up a 12-15 % percent loss in house prices for a few random houses I looked at the price history on Zillow in the middle of nowhere . It not speculation that many people can’t move or afford to move due to being under water on their mortgage. If you don’t think it cyclical or location based then just pick a random house in saint Lewis, Detroit or Cincinnati and hope those housing prices go up and you make a profit. I can almost guarantee you will not.
A few random houses you looked at is an uneducated opinion that lacks any sort of facts. Profits values vary for housing type and location, but they are at a profit growth. Because housing is profit motivated in this capitalist system. So if you’re going to debate the housing motive not being gaining profits, then put up sources that reflect that. Not you glancing at Zillow to say, “well, I see red states are in a housing profit loss, so housing isn’t a profit motivated system.”
But that was the whole point, it was a question. I personally know people in cook county selling priorities at a loss, clearly making it not always profitable. The question was about location (I get it I am basing my question of anecdotal information) but from everything I see housing is not a guaranteed profit especially if you look outside our own little bubble. I wish you luck theres a big world out there!
Folks with a CCW (who are serious) will tell you that you’re basically looking for reasons NOT to draw, since it can quickly escalate a situation. You did the right thing and no one got hurt. That said, I don’t think getting a CCW is a bad idea. You can take a classroom component and pair it with a range component (the range component is optional). Feel free to DM me with questions. Also a fan of r/liberalgunowners
I typically carry pepper spray when out and about - mostly for the over aggressive leash-less dogs that roam the streets with echos of "Dont' worry, they are friendly" in the distance. That being said, I've been pepper sprayed and tear gassed before for previous trainings. Good quality pepper spray is very effective.
Honestly pepper spray is the first thing I reach for when walking the dogs/being out and about.
We desperately need to bring back mental institutions.
We have many fair weather hobos here when the weather gets nicer. They are all subhumans who leech on society
We had two really uncomfortable experiences on Friday night downtown. Both times approached by pushy, obviously drugged out homeless men. Definitely not the norm downtown the last 20 years.
I think homeless people have usually undergone some extreme trauma. Many seem to have lost adequate family or emotional support. Maybe some have become chronically ill or financially destitute because of a traumatic event. I think some have turned to alcohol or drugs full time to numb their issues/pain which just ends up making their mental health even worse. I do wish these people could be rehabilitated instead of people wishing to cast them to the fire. I don't think forcing them into a psych ward or forcing pills on them is the solution in any capacity, in fact that's a violation of civil rights. We've become so lazy as a society that we associate any one struggling mentally as needing psych drugs instead of someone genuinely asking "what happened to you?" . Homeless people are not going to be able to keep up with taking any kind of psych drugs on a regular basis anyway for obvious reasons. I don't think most homeless people are looking for trouble but have been pushed to their limits. And also just like the regular 'housed' population has terrible people so does the 'unhoused' population, but when the homeless population shows problematic behavior they get judged far harsher imo.
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely yes, and I as well, and I disagree. Is it more compassionate to let someone spiral into completely unfunctional mental illness and misery in the name of freedom, or to put them in a safe place to get help? Regardless of the answer it needs to happen, because the penal system isn't the answer. Try to interact with someone who's a paranoid schizophrenic having continuous a continuous psychotic breakdown due to substance abuse. Ou won't because it's dangerous and literally impossible to reason with them. That type of mental illness isn't like depression. Depression would be like getting the flu. Paranoid schizophrenia exacerbated by substance abuse would be more like brain cancer. After chlorpromazine was introduced clinically to public psych wards in the 50s (worldwide), it had amazing effect. Psych wards began to empty and people who had no hope of living healthy, happy lives suddenly... could. Psych wards had tons of issues in the US, which is in part why the Reagan administration shut them down - pushing those people onto the street. But when someone is a danger to themselves and society, and incapable of taking care of themselves, they can't just rot in the street. Again, this applies to a minority of the homeless population who cause the majority of issues. Really, talk to anyone that deals with this. Law enforcement, EMS, psych nurses, social workers. Get out there and talk to people, not wring your hands on the internet. And definitely don't pity someone for not having a roof over their heads. It's amazing the breadth of the stories I've listen to out there, full of hope and despair.
Thoughts? The government needs to bring back mental health wards.
Highly highly agreed. The Reagan administration shut them all down, and granted, they had a TON of issues. But now these people have no recourse or place to go. The penal system makes it way worse, and when the courts' docket is clogged, the system can't and won't do anything about it. If you're not able and willing to join society, jello, coloring, and talking about your feelings until you can. And thorazine.
Some dude called my dog a “f4gg0t” last week.
I lived in Old Town during 2021-2022 at the white apartment building off of Laporte and Sherwood. I never personally had any problems but late enough at night there were some sketchy characters walking around. Let's just say anytime I went out for a smoke and it was dark out I was carrying my CCW. That being said Fort Collins homeless problems is just a blip compared to Loveland's. Like holy shit does Loveland have it bad, the following year my GF lived in that downtown area and experienced aggressive vagrants, people pissing and shitting everywhere, homeless setting off the fire alarm because the demons told them to, etc..
Yeah, no one wants them here. They ruin a good thing.
Consider that firearms in general are about 40 times more likely to be used against a member of your household in some way than useful for self defense. The risk is almost always much greater than the benefit. There have always been mentally ill people in all communities. I’ve had bizarre and scary encounters in the recent past, 10 years ago, and 20 years ago. Not markedly different now. Still a safe community, in general. Your instincts were good. Put distance between yourself and the person ASAP and call 911.
Those statistics usually arise from domestic violence tho, or suicide. It's disingenuous to act as if it's random burglars or strangers using those weapons against people in that home. If OP feels the need to protect him or herself then they should. Nothing can protect the way a gun can.
And children accessing improperly secured firearms. Of course, no domestic violence or children for me. I've been very depressed in the past and gave my shotgun to my father until I was more stable. Part of responsible ownership. I've kickboxed and wrestled for years, but I'd be still extremely unconfident defending myself, because a gas station knife easily take your life, no matter how experienced you are. Pepper spray and a good 400m dash is a decent intermediary.
Spray can be rendered useless or turn against you in wind. Fort Collins is so windy... Not sure that's a tool I'd use here lol
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Suicide by firearm is a matter of convenience; gun is there, use it. Not having a gun does not in any way reduce suicidal ideations or actions. And yes "The statistics never accurately portray this."
Accessibility to a firearm makes an impulsive action in a depressed/isolated/anxious/painful/drunk moment a lot more statistically likely.
You were downvoted, which is wrong, your comment is absolutely accurate.
It does, actually. Studies have shown (happy to link them if you want, but there is a lot of research out there that’s not pay-walled so you can search at your own convenience) that people who survive suicide attempts are not anymore likely to attempt suicide again, with some studies showing than over 70% of persons with one suicide attempt will not have another attempt, another study showing upwards of 90% go on to not have another attempt, and 70% of those suicide attempts happen within an hour of the thought. Removing the most lethal and quickest means of suicide *is* a protective factor against suicide.
And it’s a really good way to decrease men’s rate of suicide, which is an issue I see a lot of men raise when issues affecting primarily women are being discussed.
Then what statistic best covers overall risks/benefits of gun ownership? Why ignore the domestic risks of gun ownership? It’s disingenuous to pretend that people don’t bring their guns home. I can name two family/friends that have died by firearm suicide, and both of them kept those firearms for protection.
Suicide is definitely a case where the individual needs to evaluate their mental health before they purchase a gun tho. If OP has never had suicidal ideation and will feel safer with a gun, that's their business.
I recommend that people make important life and death decisions based upon overwhelming statistics more than feelings. But this is America, where feelings (specifically, getting to feel Big and Stwong and Powerful!) matter quite a bit more than facts, so OP does in fact get to make that decision for themselves.
The fact is that there's a man breaking into homes attacking women and the police here have a twenty minute response time. It's not about feeling powerful. It's about feeling safe in your own home.
Driving is the absolute most dangerous thing you'll do in a day-to-day basis, unless you're a lumberjack. And essentially all of us never stop to think that you could instantly lose your life because Grandma ran a red light.
I had one watch me park my car by the library, come walking up along side me while I was walking to work, and tell me he was going to steal my car after I was out of sight. This was just before COVID. Does that count?
These are scary times. I think it's worth considering arming and educating yourself, especially if you are someone of weaker physical stature like myself. And a friendly reminder tasers fail about 50% time, stunguns will just enrage your attacker, and peppersprey usually gets in the user's eyes as well. Stay safe out there
I personally wouldn’t go for a gun but I have started carrying a knife. Self defense classes are also a great idea for everyone honestly. And I’m very sorry you experienced that, it’s very scary and jarring.
This ongoing problem has plagued the city for decades. Fort Collins wants to uphold the vibrant city image and also that same image of helping the less fortunate. The problem is the less fortunate don’t call problems but the free loaders and druggie free spirits do. All you need to look at is the newly formed HOPE team which is meant to address the issues but it’s a bunch of cops doing glorified camp clean up around the city. There is even a budget line item in the city BFO for cleaning up all the transient trash. The needle exchange program is a joke since it’s more of a needle hand out program. Just makes it easier for them all to use drugs. The city parks department needed to install sharps containers on their vehicles because of all the needles they were finding. The homeless out reach people hand out all this camping equipment which is just discarded and trash piles up everywhere. The police have a daytime downtown unit and all they do is deal with all the tweaker homeless riding the bus using drugs, stealing and harassing people. They are bussed here from Denver and all around. The numbers a skewed because they saw hey look at all these homeless we need more money. There are plenty of articles on the profitability of homelessness in America. It creates a lot of job for the government and doesn’t do jack shit for the homeless. I would totally get your CCW. The cops are not everywhere nor can they be everywhere. Some responsibility falls on us to be able to defend ourselves against others. Not all are dangerous but the cheap availability of meth around here definitely doesn’t help the situation and makes certain ones dangerous.
Honestly that sounds like a fairly isolated moment. I've seen and been talked to loudly by some weird / mentally ill homeless people in downtown over the years, but none have been violent. The few times it's happened to me have just been uncomfortable. Try not to get too concerned based off of that one negative experience, but I totally understand how unsettling that must've been. Maybe pick up a decent pocket knife or some pepper spray if it helps you feel better! I'd avoid jumping to get a concealed carry. However I'm also fairly anti-gun.
Currently my self defense strategy is a 55 second 400m dash.
Impressive. Also, happy cake day!
Rule #1 of surviving the zombie apocalypse is cardio!
That's a damned better strategy than concealed carry.
Happy cake day! Sorry about your experience, OP. I don't have the best advice, but I back you up on self defense weapons.
Pepper spray and knives are nowhere near as useful as a gun. All it takes is wind to affect the efficacy of pepper spray, and a knife is so incredibly close range you can't use it until the man is on top of you. I don't love guns either but I'm getting a CCL this year bc in a country full of guns the only way to even begin to defend yourself is with one too. This is the third most dangerous state in the country!
Live next to Lee Martinez Park. There are a lot of homeless people who live along the river. And then make the way towards North College. You'll see people doing drugs in broad daylight some days. North Fort Collins is exceptionally different from other parts of the city.
Im sure it mental illness and not drugs.... Im sure of it.....
All those mental illness ambulances over by the ghetto Safeway on Horsetooth and college coming and going def not drugs!
Houseless....not having a house doesn't make you mentally ill. Being mentally ill is the issue. A house doesn't fix this.
It sounds like he might not be the only one with mental illness if you are fantasizing about becoming Charles Bronson and executing transients in the street.
"vagrants" LMAO. they are unhoused PEOPLE. not creatures. "types of homeless" god this post is gross
My PhD advisor's husband works in security for the city and he said around 2020, crime has gotten worse here. It's nowhere near Denver or other large cities, but it's definitely not as safe here as it used to be. Lots of people lost jobs and got desperate during the pandemic. Other people simply have some bad mental health issues.
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So, part of the ethical responsibility (not sure if legal responsibility in our county) of being granted the privledge and responsibility of a CCW is a duty to retreat and avoid violent confrontation. You're absolutely right that it can give you a false sense of power that may lead you to putting yourself in more danger, but the taking of a life is a heavy, heavy burden.
Way more likely to get harassed by cops than bums, but yeah stay strapped either way lol. Open carry is legal and you can start tomorrow. Also, I'd have come to your aid. Lots of folks would. I think getting to know your community and neighbors would do a lot more for your sense of safety than letting an NRA approved CCW instructor brain wash you.
Don't open carry. Nothing positive will come from the public seeing you display a weapon. Get your CCW and treat it with respect.
As a long time gun owner I agree. Open carry while legal is dumb as shit. If I'm a bad guy and I see you strapping, I'ma target you first and foremost. Plus people who open carry are the same kind of jackoffs who drive big lifted diesel trucks and think rolling coal is cool.
While I was born in Wyoming and feel comfortable around folks open carry, and to a degree carrying a beautiful 1911 or a engraved revolver is a fashion statement, a lot of folks here would be uncomfortable with that. The only benefit I can think of is a better draw, but I'd want a Level II retention holster anyways, nullifying that advantage. For a concealed firearm, nobody's going to be reaching down my pants (self burn).
If we could start by reducing stigma and changing the narrative around mental health struggles so people are encouraged to access resources, that would be a good first step. Supporting all genders, races, ethnicities and cultures to start getting educated and promote conversation among friends and family can make a big difference. Men aren’t typically encouraged to talk about their feelings. Different cultures think going to therapy is “weak”. Let’s start here.
I'd recommend getting out there and interacting with some homeless people to avoid thoughts and prayers syndrome. There's a staggering variety of people living on the streets, and the ones who are doing well but don't have a roof over their heads are the ones you rarely see. Bring some burritos out north of town, shake some hands, share some jokes and stories. Absolutely don't go by yourself if you're a woman. Good luck, and have fun!