Street Smarts: How to Avoid Being a Victim-With Det&ctive J.J. Bittenbinder, a compelling new special that offers practical tips to help adults and children spot and stay out of dangerous situations, premieres Tuesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. and encores on Sunday, March 22, at 11:35 a.m. on Channel 13. Street Smarts was produced for PBS by KERA in association with J Marc Group and Video Publishing House Inc.
“MY NAME IS J.J. BITTEN-binder, and I’m a policeman. I’ve been a police officer since 1971, and I’ve been a homicide detective for the last 15 years. I’ve handled double murders, triple murders, robberies and rapes. I’ve interviewed more than 1,000 victims, witnesses and offenders of violent street crimes in Chicago. It can happen to you. It can happen to anybody-it can happen to them any place at any time. But it can happen to you .”
Detective J.J. Bittenbinder doesn’t mince words. Instead, in Street Smarts: How to Avoid Being a Victim, he emphatically drives home the point again and again and again-in a country where violent crime has reached epidemic proportions, you can be a victim.
Bittenbinder favors self-protection, not paranoia, and during a riveting hour in front of a studio audience, the veteran criminal watchdog shares his expertise and important defensive strategies in this primer on personal security.
“The bad guys are out there,” he tells the audience, “and they know how to spot the weak ones. You are responsible for yourselves, to yourselves, and you’ve got to have a plan.”
The plan Bittenbinder presents in Street Smarts includes four key objectives: becoming a “tough target,” denying privacy, attracting attention and taking action. He tells how the average person can master each part of the plan and covers such vital topics as what places are most dangerous, what to do when approached by a stranger, when to act, and which defensive “weapons” work and which don’t work.
Detective Bittenbinder gives fascinating insights into the criminal mind and reinforces his message of survival: Be smarter than the criminal. “The bad guys look like you,” he says. “They don’t all look like Charles Man-son and Bluto. These criminals are stronger than you are, swifter than you are. but they’re not as smart.”
The “smarts” necessary to survive in today’s urban jungles are available to everyone who heeds Bittenbinder’s advice: “Listen carefully,” he says. “This stuff can save your life.”
Patricia Perini, KERA’s executive producer of national programming, and Von Polk are the executive producers of Street Smarts: How to Avoid Being a Victim-With Detective J.J. Bittenbinder. The program, which was taped before a studio audience last December in Chicago, was produced by William Neal, Richard Paskin and Marty Feinberg.
An audio cassette of Street Smarts: How to Avoid Being a Victim-With Detective J.J. Bittenbinder is available for a $60 membership renewal to Channel 13. KERA members can renew their membership by calling (214)699-5086. Credit cards only, please, on this special number.
Related Articles
Arts & Entertainment
DIFF Preview: How the Death of Its Subject Caused a Dallas Documentary to Shift Gears
Michael Rowley’s Racing Mister Fahrenheit, about the late Dallas businessman Bobby Haas, will premiere during the eight-day Dallas International Film Festival.
Commercial Real Estate
What’s Behind DFW’s Outpatient Building Squeeze?
High costs and high demand have tenants looking in increasingly creative places.
