Why did you do it? Did you know what you were doing? The roof was high... Why the roof? Why us? Why me? Why my family? I have so many questions for you about that night but I know you cannot answer them all as you weren’t in the “right state of mind.”
I know, it sounds crazy, right? It was just another regular day in life. I was sipping on a mango milkshake from probably Costco. But then, you came along. It may have been different from your point of view, so I’ll tell you what happened on my side.
I still remember all of it pretty clearly. The vivid details in the few moments that mattered to me is the reason that this letter is being written. Anyways, it all started on a warm night in June at around 10 pm (I know, classic start to a story). I was chilling on the sofa looking thing in the living room watching Iron Man for the hundredth time. But then, all of a sudden, I hear a faint thump on my roof. I did nothing to check it out, since I thought it was a racoon or something. It’s still a mystery how you got up there by the way. Anyways after a minute or so, I hear loud screams coming from the front of my house. I paused the film and went to the front door to look outside and saw my mom run up to me and yelled “Call the cops. Right now!” I honestly thought she was kidding, but then my dad went through and immediately called the cops. Within minutes, my house was swarming with police, detectives, dogs, random neighbors, and pretty much the whole police force. I was still confused honestly but then my mom explained what happened in a more calm matter (since you were long gone with our car). Anyways, she told me that you ran up to the car, and pushed my mom out. Afterwards, you threatened to shoot my mom’s friend until she left the car. And then, well you drove off with lots of goodies and a new car. We caught you through find my iPhone in case you were wondering. You seemed to not have noticed that my mom’s iPhone was left in the car. After long hours of waiting and transitioning between different cops and detectives, you had supposedly been found by the police. At this point I don’t know what happened but we were asked if we wanted to press charges, and well, here we are today.
In all honesty, the crime has been done and there’s nothing really that can be done immediately that would eliminate all crime on this planet, or even in this city. There will always be people that will try to commit a crime. That’s not going anywhere. Millions of people will be affected by these people’s actions and the cycle will repeat. I know that I thought that this sort of stuff would never happen to me. What were the odds? Therefore, everyone should be careful on their own terms so that they can try to prevent this type of stuff from happening again. I see crime in a payoff sort of way, or a balance. A crime is committed when the payoff or gain from the crime is weighted by the crime committer as greater than the risk of loss. By that I mean that people will commit a crime if they see a benefit in it, rather than a loss. If we as regular people try our best to prevent this issue from happening, we can essentially tip the scale.
The best way to decrease small scale to large scale crimes in our neighborhoods is to learn from such occasions that occur. I know you won’t come back to our place and try to do anything anytime soon due to our preparedness for such a matter. I think that the biggest way to decrease crime is to just be ready for it. We had security cameras and that is what really caught your identity and you in action (We still have the video of you jumping the roof, and I got to say, it’s amazing). Having cameras and other security measures that are visible will alter the intended plan of anyone trying to commit a crime. In addition to security measures, neighborhoods can get together and just get to know one another and basically look out for each other. Many neighborhoods across America do not collaborate and many neighbors do not even know the other neighbors. Creating a sort of fellowship would most definitely allow for better collaboration and accurate mapping and slowdown of any crime committed in the area. When neighborhoods come together and work on issues and petition for changes such as increases police patrolling, crime can be decreased almost instantly. I could go on about different ways to decrease crime in our own ways, but that would be a whole other piece on its own.
As for you Kyla, I’m not mad at you; I just have a lot of questions. I think it’s fair to say that you would not be committing a crime anytime soon but let this scenario be an example to all those that try to commit a crime as well as to all those that want to prevent something like this from ever occurring. Tragedies happen, all we can do is try to avoid it. I wish you luck in future endeavors.
With love,
Ray, A concerned human being
