More Crime in South Bend
Sometimes, it’s gets a little depressing living in the city. Sure, everywhere/everyone has their problems. There were two murders in the last 2 years that I lived with my parents in Osceola (one of them buried in a sub-division under construction). But the constant and encroaching nature of the crime in South Bend has become something of a problem lately.
Today, while I was at the office, someone stole the bike out of the store-room adjacent to our office (basically, just a smaller office that we have some furniture and servers, etc in). I sit in the far back corner of the office, and was alone at the time. Typically, when I am alone in the office, I shut the door, because I can’t see or hear what is going on in the hallway, and if the mail comes or something, it tends to scare me a little. But in this case, i was waiting for the other person working with me (Ben) to return from lunch (he left a while before me, and I had been back for about 15 minutes).
I thought that I heard some noise in the hallway (like the elevator, etc), but expecting Ben to return, I didn’t think anything about it. Then, when Ben did return abotu 15-20 minutes later, Joe, the building owner shortly followed. He said that the woman who runs the cafe on the first floor saw a black man come in without a bike and leave with one. We looked in the store-room, and sure enough, the one that had been sitting in there for a couple weeks (we bike to work cyclically (ha!) ) was gone. Joe called it in, and an officer came up to take a statement from the bike owner on the phone, but he was long gone (and honestly, are they going to pursue a bike theft?).
It’s just so difficult to stay optimistic at times. Granted, living anywhere in the metropolitan region is not going to get you sufficiently far from criminal activity. I have some family members (extended) who always talk to me derisively about how they could never live in South Bend, mostly citing reasons like crime and other environmental factors. Yet, I would venture to guess that Elkhart’s crime rate (or at least violent crime rate) is higher than in South Bend, just given the amount of storiese and the greatly differing number of people in each area. So it’s not isolated to a single city or community. It’s a problem not just here, not just in this state or this region. It’s a problem everywhere.
It’s also hard not to judge those who have been perpetrating the crimes. Recently, a Mexican man (drunk driver) jumped the curb and nearly hit our house. Some teens (either Mexican or black) vandalized the signs leading into Twyckenham Hills with graffiti (which the city hasn’t cleaned up yet). My house was burgled in September by a young (15!) black kid. Two cops were shot across the street from my house 2 years before i moved in by some drug dealers. I see a drug deal go down in a hoopty with 36-inch rims about every week on my way to work or just driving around.
With homes directly to the north of me dropping dramatically in price (going from $65,000 to $40,000 for some), the area is becoming populated more and more with people that are well undesirable to my area. The cops caught some kids robbing wealthy homes in Twyckenham Hills and chased them all the back to that same neighborhood. Crime is a disease, a cancer that has to be excised from the community. But what I’m looking for is not a local solution, or a regional solution. I want a culture solution.
I want to live in a country and a culture that matches the values and desires that I have. I don’t want to have to constantly worry about making a mistake in securing my possessions or protecting the safety of those dear to me. I worry a bit now about the safety of my home with just myself and my wife living there, but can you imagine if we had children? I’m not one to worry about things of that nature, but if things are spreading, becoming more evident, then I’ll be looking for a solution to that.
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