My newspaper ran a story today with some very disturbing numbers: here in this mid-sized southern city, there have just this year been “30 to 40” home invasions, with a startling five homicides resulting, and several assaults. Three have been killed just this month. I have been hearing and reading about these all along, but until the numbers are tallied you just don’t realize the extent of it
These started out as inner-city ghetto events where everyday violence is a way of life and where the victims were thought to have been keeping drugs and/or drug money. Now the perps have branched out into a more innocent clientele in middle class environments. Their MO ranges from the basic kicking in the door to shouldering the door open when someone answers a knock, to the latest incident where some people were accosted while sitting on a patio for a birthday celebration. A young man, the honoree, had been out on an errand, returned and found the thugs holding guns on his guests. He heroically but foolishly fought the invaders but took a slug in the head for his efforts.
In another case an elderly woman was locked in a closet while the crooks ransacked her apartment. Problem is, they didn’t let her out and after about a week she died there.
I can recall only one case, two or three years ago, where the inner-city predators took their act outside of town into the country to more isolated victims. In that case they tied up a man’s mother, and when he walked in and surprised them, they shot him and set him on fire. I look for more and more of this to happen, and I’m kinda surprised there haven’t been more, because lots of people here live back off the road, out of earshot of neighbors. Some 50 years ago I read the Truman Capote account of the murder of the Herb Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, and I’ve never forgotten the lesson that it can happen.
When I was just a kid back in the 40s someone came into our secluded farmhouse while we were sleeping, walked right past my bed. Dad, awakened by the dogs, went to the front door, S&W in hand, only to hear the side screen door slam shut as the intruder exited. We began locking our doors after that.
These started out as inner-city ghetto events where everyday violence is a way of life and where the victims were thought to have been keeping drugs and/or drug money. Now the perps have branched out into a more innocent clientele in middle class environments. Their MO ranges from the basic kicking in the door to shouldering the door open when someone answers a knock, to the latest incident where some people were accosted while sitting on a patio for a birthday celebration. A young man, the honoree, had been out on an errand, returned and found the thugs holding guns on his guests. He heroically but foolishly fought the invaders but took a slug in the head for his efforts.
In another case an elderly woman was locked in a closet while the crooks ransacked her apartment. Problem is, they didn’t let her out and after about a week she died there.
I can recall only one case, two or three years ago, where the inner-city predators took their act outside of town into the country to more isolated victims. In that case they tied up a man’s mother, and when he walked in and surprised them, they shot him and set him on fire. I look for more and more of this to happen, and I’m kinda surprised there haven’t been more, because lots of people here live back off the road, out of earshot of neighbors. Some 50 years ago I read the Truman Capote account of the murder of the Herb Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas, and I’ve never forgotten the lesson that it can happen.
When I was just a kid back in the 40s someone came into our secluded farmhouse while we were sleeping, walked right past my bed. Dad, awakened by the dogs, went to the front door, S&W in hand, only to hear the side screen door slam shut as the intruder exited. We began locking our doors after that.
