I and my local students have the privilege of living in Blount County and the city of Maryville, Tennessee. Maryville and Blount County is one of the nicest, friendliest and safest communities in the United States located within minutes of the amazing and beautiful Smokey Mountains National Park. In fact, our community is one that prides itself on its small town charm and low crime rate. Having grown up in high crime areas in the inner city one of the many reasons I moved here was due to the low crime rate to safely raise my children.
Prior to moving to Maryville I traveled the country teaching Self Defense Seminars. I taught in big cities including New York City, Detroit, Toronto (Canada) and Seattle, Washington and in small towns such as Tifton, Georgia, Ft Collins, Colorado and Davie, Florida. In the small towns the most common phrase I heard from program participants was, "Why do I/we need Self Defense? Crime doesn't happen here!"
Since I am in the Self Defense business it was and still is my job to be able to answer such questions and typically when I would first fly into a new location I would get the newspaper for the area (courtesy of my hotel) and then I would look at the headlines on the next morning's paper before teaching the seminar. Most often that was all I needed to answer the questions. Recent crime was displayed or referred to on the front page so that all could see. Towards the end of my travels I also began looking at the sex offender registries for even small towns by zip code. Unfortunately, sex offenders can be found in almost all communities in the United States even the very small ones. The same holds true for my own low crime rate town of Maryville.
Even though we live in a small and friendly town Crimes of a deadly and unfortunate nature happen in our community at least once a week and there are quite a few registered and almost certainly unregistered sex offenders living in the local area. We feel that as a result of this responsible people will want to educate themselves regarding self protection and self defense. Also, for folks who think they live in other small and "crime free" communities please consider reality rather than just sticking your head in the sand. Your children, friends and family members will thank you for it.
Included here is a list of the worst crimes reported by the Maryville Daily Times that involve the use of a knife, multiple attackers or vicious surprise attacks. This list only includes the worst crimes and is extremely far from comprehensive. There is a violent crime in the local community that involves a knife on the average of at least once a week and recently there have been more than one a week. I have also included a link here so that you can put in your zip code and get a list of the local sex offenders in your zip code.
We are willing to help with these problems in any way that we can. Having stated this, I want to make it clear that it is up to individuals to help themselves. We can show you the way to water but you have to make your own decision to drink. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!