Not sure How to Title, "Crime."

Let me start by saying that this is nothing that has happened to me or my family, more a realization from reading the Police Blotter constantly.

Here's the thing I just realized tonight, and perhaps it's always been at the surface, but it's never been a "wait a second," thought. When I said it to Brian, it makes sense:

It seems that to bail out, the bond is always higher on drug crimes, then sexual assault crimes. Maybe it just seems more. Maybe I am more aware? Not the difference in statement and question.

For the most part, people that do drugs choose to do them. They choose to take the cocktail. They pay for the illegal heroin, crack, cocaine,..etc..They bring it in, distribute it and you opt to buy it.

In a sex crime act, for all guilty, the victim is NOT given a choice. They do not pay money for this. Prostitute is entirely different, to me, then sex offenders, and sex crimes.

It all boils down to whether you chose or someone took that value away from you in the most private and emotional way?

They should have bond right up with anyone on a 1st degree murder charge. Harsh, I know.
But what's the difference of what I say, vs what they get?

It scares me. At least lately. In the papers.
STOP READING THEM!!
I know, I should, but again, what's wrong with some awareness. Is it better to be in the dark? Ugh.

I hope I haven't confused you because I've already managed to "confusion myself." To think that this is where I go to actually get out the right words and phrases on online paper..

With that I blame it all on the "fall back" hour change. It's killing my kids.
Today, up at 5:01am.

That doesn't include the recent rekindle Ben has experienced of Ho-Ho Nightmares.
It's been fun.


wanted on drug charges, then in this cirumstance(s), then for sex offenders. Or is it just my ignorance.

Do I have a problem with the crime? No. What bothers me is bond is set higher, almost everytime I

EXPOSED WITH WALKING

Tuesday morning arrives and arrives with a RING as my red wall phone (MY BAT PHONE!) begins to ring in my house at 6:47am. There I was, just about ready to head down to the family room (English basement) to where all of THIS happens, coffee mug in hand, my BDD still getting ready for work upstairs in our room, and with a quick turn on my heels wrapped up in a black slipper,(right foot) white slipper on my left foot, I spilled a bit of my first steamy mug and had that immediate concern because of the early am ring.

It was a relief though for a split second as I'd been preoccupied with thought because my dear PAM was due to arrive July 28Th and as of Tuesday she still wasn't here-the 5Th of August, so the ringing of the phone was a nice distraction although I was calm because, well, I had had my tubes tied last November so why the concern, right?

More on THAT later.

Anyways, in the brief second that the phone ringing relieved my thoughts on the missing bitch of my Pam, I began to worry because of the phone ringing. BDD was still here and if anyone calls that early, it's only him, so something must be wrong I thought to myself.

Matter of fact minutes earlier from all of this I heard an ambulance and although we're south a block or two from a main busy road, and the ambulances are always using that road, I've grown to tune them out. This time I didn't tune out, rather I tuned in, and for whatever reason I got one of those "funny feelings" in my tummy. I call it instinct.

Even earlier then that was when I woke up to prepare for my solo walk, as my neighfriends are no longer able to make it up that early, but I was too busy being annoyed about the missing link of dear Pam so I opted to roll over and go back to bed instead.

Okay, back to the present past of 6:47am on Tuesday morning, the phone rings, I spill some coffee and pick up the phone and it was my mom....

Uh-oh.

What's wrong.

Two things were wrong, but here I shall only talk about one.

My mom was calling to tell me that just a short time ago my parents had been down at my Grandma's (they help her out since my Grandpa died back in January of 2003, things like garbage day, and the lawn, things around the house, meals, trips or naturally when she's fallen ill).

So my parents are down at my Grandma's doing their routine. Sadly there aren't many that help her, and yes getting old is awful, and having a personality that is rather set in ones Alpha female ways, well, that's challenging enough. Let's just say my Grandma isn't "always" such a nice person, although she never thinks she's the one at fault, rather it's always "their fault. " I respect my parents so much because they give and help her above and beyond what they should, and not many people operate that way. Not to mention how constantly and unconditionally forgiving they are with her.

Back to the story,..

My mom was in Grandma's house, my dad in her driveway, when suddenly my dad turns around and there is this woman approaching him,rather running up to him, shaking and in tears and terrified out of her wits end.

She was crying and scared and in between the shakes she managed to get out what was alarming her. About two blocks down on the same road of my Grandma's just southwest of where my Grandma's driveway sat (another main road that many people travel on thru our town) she was out walking and as she walked past some bushes near a Church (one of many in my town) a man jumped out from the bushes, exposing himself, masturbating, some more lewd acts, and then he began to follow her. In panic she didn't know what to do, she didn't have a cell phone with her, nor any means of protection (like mace or pepper spray).

So, she began to run.

She ran down this busy road on a rather bright sunrise Tuesday morning terrified because where was she going to go? Let's face it how many times have you paid attention to sidewalk people when you're busy driving paying attention to the road? There are homes after homes on this street but many of them are seniors, the odds of them up with their curtains or drapes drawn, slim to none, I know this from living here. Seeing activity down the street she ran towards my dad that was standing in the driveway at my Grandma's house.

My dad called 911, stood by her side until help had arrived and didn't leave for work, until he knew that this woman was safe and being taken care of.

So you can imagine what my mom was calling to tell me.

If you're not sure why, don't worry, I'll remind you here;

Have I mentioned that I live about 1.5 miles west of my Grandma's house?
Have I mentioned that I walk past my Grandma's house on both of my two different routes because I stick with busy roads and stay clear of anything that is more hidden and less traveled?
Have I mentioned that the very area where this jag-off jumped out and terrified this woman, is the very route I take every other morning (when I'm walking that is)?

Have I mentioned that this also occurred about a block east from where one of our many public elementary school sits?

So just because you live in a peaceful never-ever-any-problems town, where people are pulled over for not utilizing their turn signals, the DUI's late at night from people passing thru using the main roads, well, I guess that doesn't mean we should assume we're safe.

A busy area nonetheless.

So the day goes by and I continue to look for the announcement about this mornings incident, in our local paper, online... NOTHING! Not one thing mentioned.

By nighttime I was ticked off. I wanted information! If it hadn't been for the woman finding my dad, I'd have never been made aware of this, and I'm a damn walker! Was the guy caught? Is there a sketch of him? Why isn't our townspeople being notified of all of this? Things like that don't happen here, and there are quite a few of us that walk alone, walk their dogs or just go for a bike ride/stroll. You could play devil's advocate and say, "well maybe the alleged victim was lying,.." True, however, my dad is a terrific judge of character, always has been able to determine the good versus the bad and unless this woman was an award winning actress from Hollywood, well, she wasn't lying, the shaking and sobbing and trembling and paleness cannot be invented.

At least not with this woman.

I called the non emergency police line that evening and nicely inquired about the incident. The main dispatch woman that sits behind the front desk of the town police department advised me that she couldn't comment, and was unaware of any incident like this occurring. I gave her more details about the incident that only the ones "on scene" would know about, and again she said that she wasn't aware of any incident like this happening.

I asked her to put me through to someone that would know about the incidents in town, because, as I told her, I'm not a damn reporter (no I didn't say damn to her, I was very professional and calm and matter of fact-maybe that's why she thought I was a reporter), just a woman that goes walking occasionally alone, and I had a right to know if the subject had been apprehended.

She put me on hold for a good 5 or 6 minutes and returned finally with information that pissed me off. "Yes," she said, "the incident did occur (DUH!) and no, the subject had not yet been apprehended." When I asked her when our town would be notified about this- "because there are quite a few of us that go walking in that very area as well as alone"- you'll never guess what she said to me....

The rude moron replies, "Well, you shouldn't be out walking alone, that's not the right to do."

The right thing to do? Uh,...I'm confused.

Thank you, you dumb broad, for making it seem like WE'RE the ones guilty of a crime here. Pardon me if I sound like I'm playing a victim right now, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the dude that was yanking his wanker and following the woman that is in the wrong here?

As someone said to me the other day, "okay, so we're not supposed to be driving late at night because there are drunk drivers on the road and we're putting ourselves at risk, but what the hell is being done about the ones that are actually breaking the law? We're in the wrong place for being on the road but what about their decisions? "

The dispatch broad made it seem as if "we" were the ones at fault for being dumb enough to go walking, alone, on a busy street, on a sunlit morning, in a peaceful town.

Are you kidding me?

I could've been rude towards that comment of hers, but instead I said, "well what I'd like to know is when will the public of -INSERT NAME OF OUR TOWN HERE- be made aware of this? Regardless of whether there are women out walking alone, they need to be made aware of this as a way that IF They are going to be out and about alone, they'd be more cautious and aware of their surroundings. Because lets face it, not everyone is prepared when out walking alone." You don't think there will be any danger in a small -what was once a dry town- while out taking your pup for a stroll.

"When may we expect to see a sketch on the subject at large or even a bulletin about this in the paper?"

She said that she didn't think there would be any sketch made available to the public people of our town, nor did she know if there was going to be any mention of this in any of our newspapers.

As of Thursday, yesterday, when one of our local town papers were delivered, there wasn't any mention in any part of that paper about this rather disgusting exposure. Sadly this is the same paper that will list any and all crimes in the police blotter section, like when a dog poops on someones lawn and the owner doesn't pick it up and the homeowner proceeds to report them to the police for trespassing.

Exaggerating? Yes, I am, but the point is, they can print about DUI's and if some out of town freakshow tries to meet up with a minor (undercover) for arranged sexual activities at a nearby local park that is always used as the local STING park, but yet they can't mention something about a subject still being at large? So we can read about Juana Marianne getting busted on a ROUTE ROAD for transporting an illegal drug in her ashtray(marijuana) but nothing mentioned about the following penis yanker-wanker?

Sorry, that's just jacked up.

Sadly it makes me feel like our towns 'political folk' (if that's even the proper title to refer to these jokers) are more concerned with preserving (COVERING UP!) the innocence of this well known peaceful town, versus preserving the innocence of the residents that pay to live in this expensive yet peaceful nothing-ever-happens-here-town.

Welcome TO Crustybeef~
As of last night all that had been mentioned, and mind you this would be Thursday, was an EBULLETIN* sent from the City of OURTOWN mentioning lightly about the incident with the man and the lone female walker. Really all that was announced was that a man had exposed himself to a woman Tuesday morning at 6:30something AM and then went on to give the details about the description of this white male that was still at large, and what he was wearing, leaving out the brand name of attire that he had on, just mentioning the colors of his clothes instead.

*The only people that receive these bulletins are those that sign up for enews releases from our town.

Remember that ambulance that I had for some reason zoned into that morning? That ambulance was related to the issues that my Dad had to deal with on Tuesday Morning in my Grandma's driveway. Thank goodness that he and my mom are so involved with helping my Grandma, because if they hadn't been, there'd have been no one out and about, and for that matter standing smack at the edge of a driveway to where the woman could run to for safety.

I guess everything happens for a reason, and for me, I won't be walking alone, despite how prepared I am, it's just not worth it in this peaceful town. (Even if the Political side of our town would rather keep everyone that isn't signed up for ebulletins from knowing what happened basically in "your own backyard.")

Just another reminder that no matter how safe you think you are, in today's world, you're not as safe as you assume, no matter how peaceful your town is viewed. Not to mention you can't rely on public safety to keep your needs first, it's up to you and you alone to keep your interests and needs safe.

At least I am able to alert my fellow females in this town about safe aware walking, and I doubt by doing so, by telling them about what occurred this past Tuesday, will somehow screw up the investigation of finding the man responsible. After all, we're the ones at fault, right? According the the police department we are. If we're dumb enough to be out walking alone that is.