A Predator Smart Kid is a Predator Resistant Kid!Jimmy Ryce’s mother Claudine discovered the first Great Escape Maneuvers/GEMs in December of 1995 when she found out what had happened to her 9-year-old son. She kept asking herself if there was anything she could have done differently or anything Jimmy could have done to escape from Juan Carlos Chavez when he ordered Jimmy into his truck at gun point.
On Monday, September 11, 1995, around 3 in the afternoon, Samuel James "Jimmy" Ryce got off his school bus and began to walk home from his school bus stop on the corner, about four houses down from his home, on the same side of the street. He got off alone as he, like most of the gifted children on his school bus, lived in widely scattered places around Dade county.
If Jimmy’s mother had known how many sexual predators were roaming the neighborhood, she would have picked Jimmy up at school or walked with him to and from the school bus stop.
A 28-year-old Cuban man with a black, Van Dyke beard pulled a truck in front of Jimmy blocking his way. The man jumped out of the truck, pointed a gun at Jimmy, and said, "do you want to die?"
Jimmy made his first mistake when he did not immediately turn and run to the nearest safe place–his neighbor’s house on the corner. His second mistake was not screaming to attract help and scare the man away.
By letting the man engage him in conversation, answering the question "do you want to die?" with a succinct "No," Jimmy let the man get close enough to grab his shirt. His third mistake was his not keeping outside grabbing distance of a stopped car and the exiting driver.
Jimmy's next mistake was not fighting to break free from the man's grasp. Jimmy should have scratched, hit, kicked, bite the man's hand, did whatever it took to get away from the man. Jimmy probably thought, "I'd better go with him, or he’ll shoot me. I'll try to get away later when he’s not pointing a gun at me."
"Then get in the car,’ the man said as he pushed Jimmy across the driver’s seat. "Squat on the floor, so nobody’ll see you."
Jimmy was so scared he took off his heavy backpack and held it in front of himself like a shield. He should have dumped it on the seat next to the driver and tried to get out the passenger door.
Jimmy Ryce would be alive today if he had been taught that his innocence and, indeed, his very life depended on his getting away from the sexual predator before he got Jimmy alone with him in a place where no one would hear his cries for help.
That Jimmy was still trying to assess his risk and what he should do is apparent from the questions he asked his abductor at the abandoned trailer where he was taken, less than a mile from his school bus stop and home.
Jimmy asked his captor, "why did you take me?" "Why do you think?"the man snarled. Jimmy, most likely, thought he stole him to have him for a son or a little brother. The man spent the next four hours showing Jimmy why he took him. He sexually assaulted and tortured Jimmy Ryce.
When Jimmy asked, "are you going to kill me," the man did not answer, refusing to reassure Jimmy.
Jimmy's mother had told Jimmy never to get in the car with anyone, not even a neighbor, unless she had given him permission to ride with that person that day. The result of this safety rule was that Jimmy had turned down rides with neighbors for the short distance home from his school bus stop.
Jimmy’s mother never thought to tell him what to do if someone tried to force him into a car with a weapon. She is confidant that Jimmy would have turned and ran if she had told him this: "The safest thing for you to do if anyone tries to force you into a car at gunpoint is to turn and run to the nearest safe place."
As counterintuitive as it seems, this is the best thing to do if a sexual predator tries to force a child into a car by threatening the child with a weapon. A sexual predator is unlikely to shoot a fleeing, screaming child because he does not want to get caught. Besides, unlike a drive-by shooter, a sadistic sexual predator does not get his jollies by shooting kids. Once he has the child in a secure location, he enjoys hurting the child in whatever ways he wants for as long as he pleases.
If you click the Abduction section listed on the homepage of the jimmyryce.org website, you will find more true abduction stories. The parents of these abducted children gave the Jimmy Ryce Center permission to use their child’s picture and real name, in the hope that knowing the horrible fate of a real kid will convince parents and kids that they need to learn Jimmy Ryce’s Great Escape Maneuvers/ Jimmy's GEMs, so they can maximize their chances of getting away if they are ever confronted by a sexual predator.
The Jimmy Ryce's GEMs following each abduction story point out what the child might have done to get away from the sexual predator. All kids need to know Jimmy Ryce's GEMs, as it is a lot better to be prepared, to have thought out and practiced what to do beforehand, than it is to be put on the spot like Jimmy was and have to decide what it is best to do, on the spur of a moment, smack dab in the middle of a crisis.
Kids of all ages need to practice screaming to attract help, fighting to break free, turning and running zigzaggedly away from the predator, performing all the Jimmy Ryce Great Escape Maneuvers which enable children to escape the predators' grip. Kinetic learning embeds the best response so deeply in the child’s psyche that it becomes almost an automatic response. Only an adult, of course, should act the role of the sexual predator.
Kenneth Wooden's book Child Lures: What Every Parent and Child Should Know About Preventing Sexual Abuse and Abduction (1995) is an excellent source for different types of lures predators use to trick a kid into going off with them.
Always be sure to emphasize that by enriching their minds with Jimmy Ryce's GEMs, they are empowering themselves. Jimmy Ryce’s GEMs may one day be more valuable to them than precious gems, like diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, because knowing these GEMs may save their life. Give your kids GEM power! Make your child predator smart and thus more predator resistant.
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Predatory Abduction: Red Alert
On September 11, 2001, we watched family after family near the Twin Towers frantically searching for their loved ones, posting pictures, hoping that somehow their loved one had gotten out of the buildings or was alive in the rubble.
We remembered the terror we felt during the three months we searched for our 9-year-old son Jimmy Ryce, who was kidnapped and murdered by a sexual predator on September 11, 1995. We too hoped for a miracle, that he would come home alive. We remembered the agony we felt when we learned he was never coming home.
We believe that sexual predators who kill our children should be treated as the domestic terrorists they are. They target the innocent. They kill without remorse. They rob our children of their life, liberty, and happiness. In killing those who sparkle most, they steal from us our future leaders and creators. We loose not only their company and achievements but also what their children and their children’s children who will never be born would have contributed.
Some people claiming to be “experts” argue that attacks on our children by sexual predators are isolated events; that the chances are very small that a child will face a sexual predator. The truth is we really don’t know the extent of the danger, because there has been no requirement that local law enforcement departments report to a central agency the crime of child abduction, much less attempted abductions.
The statistics we have give us a horrifying glimpse of the magnitude of the problem. One report states that almost two thirds of the sexual assaults in America are committed against children under 18, and almost one third against children under 12. Another study reports more than 56,000 non-family abductions a year in the United States. That’s one every nine minutes.
This number of abductions of children under 18 is unacceptable in any state, much less a civilized, God-fearing nation.
Logic informs us the numbers reported significantly understate the number of child abductions which actually occur each year.
First, many sexual assaults are only reported as rapes or homicides even though they also involve abduction or false imprisonment. Secondly, missing children are misclassified as runaways when they have actually been forcefully abducted or abducted by seduction or are abducted and exploited after they voluntarily run away. Thirdly, abductions by a sexual predator who is a relative by blood or marriage are not included in the 56,000 non-family abductions figure, even if the child is murdered as well as sexually assaulted. Lastly, but far from last in importance, children abducted in other countries are not counted as the abduction statistics referred to above include only abductions reported in the U.S.A. It is anyone’s guess how vast the underreporting of abductions of children by sexual predators is.
The fight against sexual predators as domestic terrorists has many things in common with the fight against international terrorists. Both fights are matters of self defense necessary to protect us from future attacks. To act otherwise makes it easier for these terrorists to victimize us. We can't afford to do nothing.
What we must do to defend ourselves from domestic or international terrorists is simple.
First, we must figure out ways to protect ourselves from future threats. In our fight against sexual predators, we must start by teaching our children how to protect themselves. They are, after all, their own last defense. We can teach them to recognize potentially dangerous situations. We can teach them how to escape from predators. Click on the Escape link on the jimmyryce.org Home Page to read about how real kids every day play one or more of Jimmy Ryce's Great Escape Maneuvers, Jim's GEMs, to escape from sexual predators. Secondly, we must practice how to minimize damages if attacks occur. How successful we are depends on how smart we are in working out the details in advance of the attack. Click on the Rescue link on the jimmyryce.org Home Page for effective search and rescue strategies for finding abducted children quickly and bringing more home alive. Thirdly, we must bring to justice persons who hurt and kill innocent people for their sick pleasures or crazed beliefs. Click on the Catch and Lock Up links on the jimmyryce.org Home Page for more information on how we can work together to catch more sexual predators and lock them up longer.
pleasures or crazed beliefs. Click on the Catch and Lock Up links on the jimmyryce.org Home Page for more information on how we can work together to catch more sexual predators and lock them up longer.Don’t believe for a minute educating our kids on how to maximize their chances of getting away from sexual predators takes away their innocence. Allowing them to remain ignorant can cost them their innocence, maybe even their life.
Practicing fire drills does not traumatize children about fire dangers; it simply prepares them to better escape the danger if it jumps up in front of them. Teaching children how to escape if ever they are confronted by a sexual predator empowers them. Go to the www.jimmyryce.org website and click on the Escape section to learn how children across the U.S.A. daily play one or more of Jimmy Ryce's Great Escape Maneuvers, Jimmy's GEMs to escape from sexual predators.
During the months we searched for Jimmy, we discovered bringing in a bloodhound immediately would probably have been Jimmy’s best shot at getting home alive, after he was abducted from his school bus stop at gun point. To a scent-discriminating dog, Jimmy’s scent is different from all other people's scent. When Jimmy was carried away in an old pickup truck, the passenger window was rolled down, and his scent was pouring out the window. A well-trained bloodhound could have easily followed Jimmy’s scent trail from his school bus top to the abandoned trailer, a little less than a mile away, where he was kept alive more than four hours as he was reported missing within an hour of his being taken.
A bloodhound the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction gave to the Polk County Sheriff's Office in Florida followed the scent of a little girl pouring out of a truck window down roads and highways, three-and-a-half miles, to the house where she had been taken.
Bloodhounds are miracle dogs. They have a million times the scent capacity of humans and 60 times that of German shepherds. They can as easily follow the scent trail of the person whose scent they are started on, as we can follow, with our eyes, footprints in wet sand. Bloodhounds have successfully even followed the faint scent trail made from scent rafts carried out through the car ventilation system when the windows are rolled up.
A bloodhound owned by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in Florida took the predator’s scent off of a raped and murdered 13-year-old girl and followed the predator’s scent trail for blocks, right up to the man still washing her blood off his arms and bicycle.
Jimmy Ryce would not want us to leave it to the predator’s whim whether we get our stolen children back alive or dead. This is why the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction has given away, free, to law enforcement hundreds of AKC bloodhounds.
To continue this program and press toward the goal of a well trained bloodhound within an hour’s reach by helicopter of anywhere in the United States a child is abducted, the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction requests donations and grants to purchase bloodhounds to give to law enforcement to find abducted children and catch people who rape and kill kids, as well as find and jail other dangerous felons.
We must continue to train law enforcement on how to deal with the unique crime of abduction: the immediate, intensive search for the child paralleling the investigation of the crime and elimination of suspects. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Virginia, administers the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center, created in 1996. There sheriffs and police chiefs from across the country are introduced to strategies which have led to the recovery of abducted children and the catching of their rapists and killers.
We need to make sure this and other highly effective search strategies, such as the Amber Alert and the Jimmy Ryce Bloodhound Network, are federally funded. Bringing more abducted kids home alive requires preparation and the wise commitment of limited resources.
We must accept our responsibility as a nation to carry on the fight against sexual predators. It is not enough to feel sad for victims of terrorists. We must realize that the fight against domestic and international terrorists is not someone else’s fight. We will triumph only if we join together to fight for our way of life and for our lives and the lives of our children.
This is a fight we can win. It is a fight we cannot afford to lose.
(c) Written in 2001 by Don and Claudine Ryce, Directors of the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization since 1996 (last updated February 14, 2008)
Predator Smart Kids Are Predator Resistant Kids!
Don’t believe for a minute educating our kids on how to maximize their chances of getting away from sexual predators takes away their innocence. Allowing them to remain ignorant can cost them their innocence, maybe even their life.
Practicing fire drills does not traumatize children about fire dangers; it simply prepares them to better escape the danger if it jumps up in front of them. Teaching children how to escape if ever they are confronted by a sexual predator empowers them.
The Escape section of the www.jimmyryce.org website sets forth Jimmy Ryce's Great Escape Maneuvers, Jim's GEMs. If you look at the successful escapes from sexual predators, you will see that kids in every state regularly escape from sexual predators by playing one or more of Jim's GEMs. A Gem, by the way, is a kind of marble, which if played right can strike out an opposing player's marble, in this case, the sexual predator.
During the months we searched for Jimmy, we discovered bringing in a bloodhound immediately would probably have been Jimmy’s best shot at getting home alive, after he was abducted from his school bus stop at gun point. To a scent-discriminating dog, Jimmy’s scent is different from all other people's scent. When Jimmy was carried away in an old pickup truck, the passenger window was rolled down, and his scent was pouring out the window. A well-trained bloodhound could have easily followed Jimmy’s scent trail from his school bus top to the abandoned trailer, a little less than a mile away, where he was kept alive more than four hours as he was reported missing within an hour of his being taken.
A bloodhound the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction gave to the Polk County Sheriff's Office in Florida followed the scent of a little girl pouring out of a truck window down roads and highways, three-and-a-half miles, to the house where she had been taken.
Bloodhounds are miracle dogs. They have a million times the scent capacity of humans and 60 times that of German shepherds. They can as easily follow the scent trail of the person whose scent they are started on, as we can follow, with our eyes, footprints in wet sand. Bloodhounds have successfully even followed the faint scent trail made from scent rafts carried out through the car ventilation system when the windows are rolled up.
A bloodhound owned by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in Florida took the predator’s scent off of a raped and murdered 13-year-old girl and followed the predator’s scent trail for blocks, right up to the man still washing her blood off his arms and bicycle.
Jimmy Ryce would not want us to leave it to the predator’s whim whether we get our stolen children back alive or dead. This is why the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction has given away, free, to law enforcement hundreds of AKC bloodhounds.
To continue this program and press toward the goal of a well trained bloodhound within an hour’s reach by helicopter of anywhere in the United States a child is abducted, the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction requests donations and grants to purchase bloodhounds to give to law enforcement to find abducted children and catch people who rape and kill kids, as well as find and jail other dangerous felons.
We must continue to train law enforcement on how to deal with the unique crime of abduction: the immediate, intensive search for the child paralleling the investigation of the crime and elimination of suspects. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Virginia, administers the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center, created in 1996. There sheriffs and police chiefs from across the country are introduced to strategies which have led to the recovery of abducted children and the catching of their rapists and killers.
We need to make sure this and other highly effective search strategies, such as the Amber Alert and the Jimmy Ryce Bloodhound Network, are federally funded. Bringing more abducted kids home alive requires preparation and the wise commitment of limited resources.
