America's Most Dangerous Cities: A New Report

The 14th annual "Crime City Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America," was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. It is based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report and named Detroit, "the Motor City," the most violent in America. People in Detroit are miffed, understandably, but you just can't argue with statistics, especially statistics from the F.B.I. The government knows what it is doing. It is not like they spend $2000.00 on a toilet seat or lose track of a few Billion dollars that successfully made the flight overseas but was misplaced after that. The government must have known what it was doing. I am from a small town. I cannot handle big cities. When I see the congestion, conglomeration, congregation and all the other cong-words, it makes me uneasy. I am from a small town. I am used to knowing that if my car breaks down in any part of town, I know someone in the area who lives there and can help me. I live in a town right on the Texas/Mexico border where 99.99% of the people are of Mexican descent so if you have to go to someone's house to use the phone in an emergency it is a given you will have to sit down to a plate of hot Mexican food while you wait for your help to arrive and when they get there they will be invited in for a plate too or dessert. You used to be able to leave your bike out in the front yard and it would still be there in the morning. You didn't have to take your car radio with you when you got out of your car. Surveillance cameras were for banks, not for homes and driveways.

I don't know if it is just growing up or the ever-present media that is terrifying people into being scared of everything. Home invasions, carjackings, kidnappings and random shootings make me scared to go out at night. In fact, according to a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau titled, "A Child's Day," nationally about one-fifth of children are kept inside because of dangers in the neighborhood. The dangers are real; pedophiles, traffic and crime. It is like when someone gets a motorcycle, everybody has to tell that person about someone they knew that died a horrific death while riding a motorcycle. He was decapitated by an 18-wheeler or had his face scraped off by the pavement as he slid 25 feet into a cement curb where his head split open like a melon. These stories are supposed to either gross you out so bad or scare you away from riding your awesome bike.

The stories people tell now about something they heard on the news are real enough though to scare anyone into staying home. Two men shoot each other over a 25-cent billiards game. Boy goes up to house for help and instead is kidnapped, tortured and raped by the adults inside. Six year old girl abducted and raped while waiting for the bus. Two parents decapitate their own three children, one six months old. These crimes are happening all over the nation; in fact, the last one happened in my hometown. How many points does a city get based on the horrific nature of the crime for these annual dangerous city rankings? Does a flat-out rape net one point while a murder-suicide gets two points? How did the FBI score the crimes that this chart was based on? How horrible that there is a plethora of crimes that many categories can be made.

When people ask each other, "What is the scariest movie you ever saw?" people in my age group and above it would answer, "The Exorcist" because supposedly it is terrifying. You want to know which movie terrified me? "Friday the 13th" Part I because it was not about some girl floating up in the air spewing curses at priests, it was about some crazy guy with weapons killing everyone in the camp. Psychos are real and the probability of encountering one is so much higher than meeting a girl who can spin her head completely around and float up in the air while lashed to her bed. You never know now if someone is going to rob you whether you are leaving a bank, shopping at a convenience store, or just using your credit card on your computer at home. People lock not only their doors to their house but their car doors while driving in case of a car-jacking. Everywhere, parents are tying their children to them, connecting to them by cell phone in case of a school shooting or keeping track of them by GPS embedded in their clothing.

Do I lock my daughter in? Absolutely. I am about to get her a cell phone in case of emergency and against school policy, but you never know when something horrible will happen and I want to whisk her away from the outdoor world and bring her home. Buses are getting hit by trains and children getting nabbed as they wait for the buses. Teachers are having sex with students and running away to Mexico when they get found out. Students are shooting teachers and principals who try to discipline them. Everywhere is mayhem and murder! Does the media have something to do with the national paranoia? Absolutely, but do you want your life to be one of the unfortunate ones broadcast on the news if you do not pay heed to the terrible warnings that crime is horrible, real and touches everyone? It seems like the safest thing to do is work from home, order groceries by computer, bank by computer, shop by computer and just hope that someday someone doesn't steal your identity from your computer. If only people could go back to the days of innocence when unlocked doors at night were common, and the scariest movie starred Linda Blair and your biggest fear was her floating on a bed. Nowadays the demons are real and they have possessed too many.