Well I was chatting on the phone with Nora Bombay and she related to me what was going on in Alexandria. Only Nora can make a tale of fearful urban suburbanites and MS-13 funny. You can read it for yourself, it is number #3 on her list. Apparently, MS-13 gang members have been hanging around the local 7-11 in near-Fairfax Alexandria trying to shoot at each other. The problem is, these guys don’t know how to shoot and keep missing, thusly making themselves very dangerous to everyone else who is around. Nora is not afraid. Then again, Nora watches COPS to see if she recognizes anyone from her high school on the program.
Of course Nora is not the only suburbanite I know with a slightly apathetic view of the crime in their area. Glenn up in southern Maryland, sometimes throws in “well at least there wasn’t a dead body in the parking lot” in conversations. He says that because, occasionally, a dead body or bodies, wind up in his apartment’s parking lot. Crime doesn’t scare him, trying to move all his crap does, and that’s why he stays there.
Now I live in the city. I knew this area had a higher crime rate when I moved in. I live where crime doesn’t usually make the evening news. So I will admit that I do have schadenfruede moments when I hear of crimes in the supposedly safer suburbs. Te he.