To the editor:

While reading the article, “Sheriff investigates attack,” published Oct. 26, it occurred to me that late-night assaults on females are occurring too frequently.

Businesses that require their employees to work late hours should come up with better solutions than just letting a single person walk to their vehicle alone.

There are many steps that a business could take for such crimes to be prevented and make the work place a lot safer for all employees.
One of a few possible solutions to this problem could be to install more lighting in the areas that are not well lit at night around the business.

People are easily attacked in the cover of darkness. Lighting in areas such as trash dumpsters or behind buildings could discourage a suspect from attacking by taking away the element of surprise.

A second solution to this problem could be to use outside cameras to monitor the parking area and building perimeter. By having outside cameras at the business, in the event of a similar situation, police and business owners might be able to better identify the suspect, instead of just having a vague description.

The article stated that the suspect is around 5 feet 9 inches tall and approximately 190 pounds, with dark colored clothing. It is great that the victim is able to describe some of the attacker’s features given the severity of the situation, but the information provided describes a lot of possible suspects.

The last solution is for the business owner to provide their employed females a sense of security. This can include something as simple as having an onsite security guard at certain times of the day or night, or having the employees escorted to their vehicles by another representative from the business.

Assaults on people, especially females, are a constant problem across the country. Attacks such as this one can bring a bad reputation to the business involved. People may not want to apply for jobs and customers may not want to eat in your restaurant.

Both employees and customers should want to see that new security measures being put into place so an event like this one does not happen again. If the victim mentioned in this article was not able to break free from her attacker, the outcome could have been much more severe.

Brittney Pierce

Franklin