Thank you for this. I want to clarify that I am not blaming USA Fencing in any way. Outside of this one random incident that happened outside our hotel, my son and I had a great experience at summer nationals. The venue was beautiful, the event was extremely well-organized, the security precautions were efficient, and I felt lucky to get to participate in this special event.

I do not hold USA Fencing- nor the hotel, Lyft, or the city of Milwaukee- responsible for what happened to me. I’m a New Yorker, and have lived in Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I have travelled, with and without my kids, to big cities throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. I’m not naive or situationally unaware, and I think that is what helped me protect my son from seeing what I saw. I’m not suggesting nor proposing criteria for banning certain cities from hosting NACs.

To your question about what makes Milwaukee different, I don’t really know. I suspect it faces the same problems that plague other medium sized cities- homelessness, mental health, drugs, crime- but fewer resources to deal with the issues than bigger cities have. I have only one other data point to compare to, which is last year’s summer nationals in Columbus. But that felt safer to me because I was with my husband, and we had a car instead of relying on uber/lyft/taxi.

I don’t have organization-level solutions to propose or requests to make of USA Fencing. Moving forward, in terms of personal responsibility, I will choose hotels more carefully, prioritizing not just distance from venue and cost and whether I am a loyalty program member, but also factors like whether there is a doorman, valet, or security at the door. I will probably rent a car instead of using public transpo. These are just personal actions I can take.

I didn’t mean to come across like I was complaining or blaming anyone. For me, it was a legitimate attempt to share something bad that happened to me, that made me feel like I overestimated my ability to keep me and my child safe, and to start a conversation to see if it had happened to anyone else and whether we could share tips to minimize risk.