Part II: Escape Your Pursuers

Running is the easiest part. Hiding is a bit harder. Staying hidden is the difficult part. The difficulties are determined by the resolve and resources of those hunting you. If the US government is seriously determined to find you, they probably will unless you are willing to sacrifice everything.

If authorities have launched a manhunt against you, it is in your best interests to leave the city and run into the hills. 

When being pursued you will naturally want to put as much distance between yourself and your opposition as possible. Be careful, if they can see you, running directly away could  lead you into a trap. If they can’t see you, take an unexpected tangent to their pursuit. It won’t put as much distance between you at first but if they walk past you at a distance, you win for a while.

If dogs are involved in tracking you, don’t attempt to out run them.  You can confuse them by running around objects a few times and running downstream. Dogs will go for your feet or hands when you’re running, then for your hands when you’re down. They’re trained not to go for the throat. 

If a police dog confronts you with an officer, give up. If the police dog has been sent on ahead, kill the dog. You should sacrifice a bit of flesh to do this effectively: Offer your “dumb” hand to the dog and let it take it. (First wrap your arm in a shirt if you can.) Use the knife in your “smart” hand and try to drive it through the dog’s braincase.

Trying to get both hands around the dog’s neck is probably a mistake since doing so will be next to impossible. If you can get your hands around the neck and you don’t have a knife, lift the dog off the ground and shake it until its neck snaps. You can try to squeeze the dog’s windpipe closed yet that takes strength and time. It’s best to break the neck. You’ve been on the run and will probably lack the strength needed to strangle the dog.

If there are helicopters looking for you, it is always best to hide in a bush or up in a tree rather than running it out on foot.  However, keep in mind that at some point it’s expected that you’ll stop running and go to ground, so hiding in one place for too long should be avoided at all costs. 

When on the run, it is often worth doing things the hard way. If you’re tramping through the forest along a trail walking at high speed, making good time toward freedom, you may want to toss that away, break from the trail, climb the ridge if there is one, and crash through the bush for ten miles. They’ll expect you to take the path of least resistance. Always consider whether you are being too predictable.

At some point during a chase you will need to try to create a break in your trail. This could mean walking backwards a bit, climbing a tree, working your way through the branches to other trees, climbing down, and then working your way back the way you came. Even if you don’t suspect that you’re being trailed, it is probably a good idea to break your trail from time to time. 

Part I - Throw Yourself Away and Build a New You

Before you go to ground, destroy as much of the old you as possible. You want to go beyond making yourself disappear: You want to make it seem as if you never existed. This means that you should do as much of the following as possible before and after you disappear

Destroy all photographs you have access to before you disappear. Delete your entire online identity and request friends and family also get rid of any images that contain your face. This includes family volumes of photographs that family members have. Your family members may or may not be supportive, but at least try to get rid of the most recent and recognizable records of your face.  If you destroy all photographs of you, they can’t be shown around gas stations and quick food stops.

Discard all your worldly possessions except cash. Most importantly destroy and discard all of your credit cards. The instant you use a credit card or an ATM bank card while on the run is the instant the authorities or private investigators know where you are. Before you run you should empty all bank accounts anyway.  In fact, any magnetic card with your name or the name of someone you know can and will be used to find your general area. Destroy them all. 

Purchase clothes you normally wouldn’t consider wearing and put them on in a place where you won’t be observed. Cut your old clothes into pieces and flush them down the toilet. 

Abandon your car. Don’t bother driving your car into a lake or an ocean.  Since you’re giving up an asset, make giving it up work for you.  Abandoning your car in a place where you feel confident it will be stripped and sold by thieves is a good idea.

Leave the pink slip of the car in the glove box to make it easier for thieves to chop and sell your abandoned car. Leave a door unlocked so they don’t have to break a window. You want the car to be taken in mass rather than picked apart on the street where a cop will spot it so it’s best that you leave the key in the ignition while you’re at it. Before you walk away from your car, leave the engine running, in fact, so that a thief will feel more comfortable stealing it. 

Purchase another car. In America one can slap down $500.00 and buy a pile of junk with no questions asked and no identification needed. If the seller has the pink slip and a key, you buy it if it’s cheap and doesn’t have anything a cop might consider stopping you for a safety violation.

Don’t fill up your newly-acquired car with any of your personal belongings. You need to discard everything you own and don’t let it show that you’re doing anything other than commuting to or from work. Even if the cop doesn’t stop you, if word gets around that you’ve gone missing, the cop is more likely to remember a stuffed car than all the countless cars simply commuting. They’ll match your profile against your description and may recall the general — if not the exact — type of car you may be driving. If you want to escape notice of the cops, you need to blend in.

Cops work off of profiles: They are trained to spot the unusual as well as how to spot individuals fitting a variety of profiles. Someone on the run fits several profiles. You want to “fall out of the net” and slip through the typical police profiles.

A cup of coffee on the dashboard in front of a guy or gal wearing work clothes arouses no suspicions. You’re on your way to work, not running from someone.  Lean back in your seat, left arm on the window sill, right hand on the steering wheel at the 6:00 O’Clock position. Take a sip of your coffee, water, or Diet Coke every now and then, and try to act like you’re a mindless commuter getting from point A to point B.

Don’t tell anyone where you’re planning to go or what you’re planning to do. For as long as possible, don’t ask friends for help or shelter — most of all never ask family members! Don’t telephone anyone to say “good bye.” Don’t have any contact with friends or family! Police authorities will monitor their residential lines and private investigators can easily tap loop-start residential lines with not much more than two pieces of equipment costing all of $200.00 each.

Leave town. Don’t go to any place you’ve talked about or stated a desire to visit. Don’t run to any place predictable. Don’t hide in a city or town you’ve ever been to or contains known family members.

Alter your buying habits. When you throw your old self away, you need to discard as many predictable patterns as possible. One of the most common mistakes when hiding is maintaining old habits. This may seem an unusual step but you’re working toward disappearing. Patterns are predictable. Break them.

Of all the schools in America, University of Maryland University College easily has the most confusing name. Not only is the phrase ‘University College’ redundant, the school isn’t even affiliated with the University of Maryland.

So what exactly is University of Maryland University College? 

UMUC is a popular distance learning institution operating in over 53 locations around the world. It is one of America’s largest distance learning universities with over 90,000 enrolled students. 

When UMUC first opened in 1947, the school was named College of Special and Continuation Studies to distinguish it as an institution independent from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1953, Raymond Ehrensberger, chancellor of the institution at that time, wanted to change the name to something more meaningful and less cumbersome for people to say and remember. Early suggestions for the name included College of General Studies, College of Adult Education and University College.

In 1959, Chancellor Ehrensberger persuaded the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents to change the name to University of Maryland University College. Therefore, UMUC is not a division of the University of Maryland but rather a separate institution within the University System of Maryland.

The name “University College” was adopted from the British university system to depict an educational institution offering “courses and programs from all academic departments outside the university’s walls and normal class times.”

The headquarters for UMUC is located in Adelphi, Maryland near the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. Until late 2000, the UMUC headquarters was listed in College Park, Maryland. In an attempt to establish its own identity as an independent university and move away from the common notion of serving as the “night school” for non-traditional students, UMUC changed its postal address to Adelphi, an unincorporated community that borders College Park. The address change with the U.S. Postal Service involved no physical move of people and facilities.

Two Other Interesting Facts About UMUC

1. UMUC largest’s building (pictured above) is UMUC Inn & Conference Center which is operated by the Marriott Hotel Chain.

2. UMUC’s most famous graduate is NFL all-pro linebacker Ray Lewis.

A 1996 study examined the cognitive effects of Greek affiliation during the first year of college. Statistical controls were made for individual pre-college ability and academic motivation as well as gender, ethnicity, age, credit     hours taken, work responsibilities, and other factors. Data showed that men who were members of fraternities had significantly lower end-of-first-year reading comprehension, mathematics, critical thinking, and composite achievement than their peers who were not affiliated with a Greek organization. Sorority membership also had a negative effect on cognitive development. However, only the effects for reading comprehension and composite achievement were significant and the magnitude of the negative influence tended to be smaller for women than for men.

A follow-up study in 2006 by the same researchers and using similar sampling techniques and controls showed that negative effects of fraternity/sorority affiliation were much less pronounced during the second and third year of college than during the first year of college. On objective, standardized measures of cognitive skills, the effects of Greek affiliation continued to be negative for both men and women, but they were substantially smaller in magnitude. The study also included self-reported measures of students’ cognitive growth. For men, fraternity membership continued to exert small negative effects in the second and third years of college, but only one was statistically significant. For women the impacts of sorority membership on self-reported gains were just the opposite. In both the second and third years of college, sorority membership exerted small positive effects on all self-reported measures.

Cognitive Effects of Greek Affiliation in College, Research Journal of the Association of Fraternity, September 2006 

Markups are the small profit margins that retailers gain when an item is sold. It is a fundamental of business; it’s the reason that the amount we pay is not what the item is actually worth. In certain rare situations the mark-up is completely disproportionate to the real value of the item. This is a list of some of the most outrageous profit margins available in the market today.

1. Greeting Cards

The markup on a greeting card is around 100-200%; which is pretty modest considering some of the more vicious markups on other products.  Greeting cards are one of the best items to markup because they are so cheap, and unsold merchandise does not dramatically affect the bottom line. Paper is cheap, but paper with some sappy writing on it is expensive. It’s a retailer’s dream product; a little piece of paper with some writing on it that can be sold for three or four dollars.

2. Movie Popcorn

It’s no secret that popcorn and candy are expensive at the movie theater. Concession sales make up about 20% of total sales in movie theaters but make up to 40% of the average profit. Why? Because movie theaters need to sell overpriced food to keep ticket prices low. If ticket prices were high, no one would come in the doors and subsequently spend money on snacks. So the price of admission is cheap, but the snacks are where movie companies make the highest profit margin (the same goes with stadium events). So what is the average markup of movie theater popcorn?  According to Richard B. Mckenzie an economics professor at UC Irvine and author of “Why Popcorn Costs So Much At the Movies” its between 900-1200%.

3. Medicine

Prescription medicine is always near the top of the list for highest markups in America. Canada and European countries’ prescription medication prices are regulated by government imposed “ceiling” prices; essentially a limit on how high the prices can get for medicines. They also negotiate directly with drug companies. However, no such price controls exist in the United States. As a result Americans routinely pay 200%-5600% markups on every day medicines.

4. Sugary Beverages

At any restaurant the average markup for soda is incredibly high. A 12 ounce glass costs the restaurant nickels, but it is sold for dollars; and it is half filled with ice. However the real profits in beverage sales are made by manufacturers like Coke and Pepsi. All of their products, from soda pop and juice to energy drinks and sports refreshments, have massive profit returns. Most of the beverages consist of water, corn syrup and a few minor additives. The syrup concentrate to make 50,000 Cokes only costs $2.60 - including labour. That means that one penny buys enough syrup to make nearly 200 glasses of Coca Cola.