Locksmith Narrowly Avoids Tragedy

VIA San Francisco Chronicle – It was previously reported that during an eviction last week of a multi-million dollar house, a locksmith was shot. Fortunately the San Francisco Chronicle is now reporting that the locksmith who was on scene was not hit, however the property manager was wounded in the leg. This is the second time in just a matter of months that we have heard of an eviction turning into a possibly deadly confrontation. This is not the first time that we have seen an incident like this during an eviction process back in July we saw a locksmith from Modesto, CA killed while trying to open a security door on a home where there was scheduled to be an eviction.
Luckily during this incident there were no fatalities. This goes to show that, while rare, locksmiths need to be prepared for confrontation when performing evictions with property owners simply because of the nature of the service being completed. Following the shooting of the property manager that the locksmith narrowly avoided, there was a short stand off between the resident and police before he finally surrendered to authorities.
Locksmiths want to prepare themselves to always be on the watch, even though most customers are not inclined to these type of actions. Phila-Locksmith is certainly not immune to situations where evictions can turn hostile and have had people draw weapons on our technician. Luckily cooler heads tend to prevail and we hope that some sort of system can be put in place to help protect locksmiths, in addition to police and property owners, during the eviction process. Phila-Locksmith will continue to monitor for any other hostile eviction encounters, especially in the state of California where these last two incidents had taken place.