Published August 23, 2010
Trails should be safe
JANET REED; Tumwater
We have such wonderful bike trails, but are they safe?
There have been a couple of murders, most recently the murder of Vonda Boone. What can we do to make us safe as we are merely going along through our lives and using the facilities that have been put there for us to use?
I would love to ride my bike on the trails but with all the recent news I do not feel they are safe. I have a daughter and boyfriend who use them all the time and I fear for them. Now I am reading that these trails are places for criminals to prey on people.
Can’t we just have a place to enjoy ourselves and not have to deal with being prone to being a victim of crime or death? What is with this society and people preying on innocent people intent on having a good time?
Does this mean we need to be afraid of leaving our house and not use the parks, the trails, etc.? We need more money for our police to protect us from these morons who, for whatever reason want to keep us from having a nice ride through the county.
The police can’t protect us as their budgets have been cut. So now the trails go unused because they are not safe? Please someone give me an answer.
Vanda Boone did not deserve her fate. She was victim and I hope that we all remember her and pray that her attacker meets justice.
Read more: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/08/23
I ride a different part of the same trail almost daily, and Vonda's absence and the brutality of her passing keep me company sharply every morning.
ReplyDeleteI have a good friend whose facts I trust who says that, according to domestic violence statistics, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home. I'm sure also that for whatever risks I take biking, the risks I take driving instead, or choosing to increase my chances of dying from cancer and heart disease by not biking are much greater.
What seems to hurt so many people the most about Vanda's death is being forced to confront the fact that no matter where we move, what we look like, how much we earn, this could happen to us. How often when I hear about a particularly hard fate do I twist my mind around ways it couldn't happen to me--I take vitimin D so I can't die of cancer the way my great-uncle did, I wear a bike helmet so I won't get paralyzed like that girl I went to high school with. When something like this happens to someone we care about, who we identify with or look up to the way we do Vanda, our hearts don't let us do the mental gymnastics, because it feels too much like blaming her. So we're forced to do what we should have been doing all along: using all these wonderful peoples' suffering to remember that we are all fragile and nobody gets out of earth alive.
I miss Vonda and I'm angry I didn't get a chance to know her better. Her death happened at the hands of a man who was obviously mentally ill. I'm deeply sorry for both of them. I hope the light that shines through the hole she left is enough to heal up the damage done.
SERAFINA YOU HELLY DID NO VANDA SKAU BOONE SHE WAS
ReplyDeleteA BRASILIAN BUT ALSO A NEW YORKER SO AS A NEW YORKER SHE TRUST THIS PIACE PLACE APPERANTY NOT PICIFULL AT ALL AND TO SUGEST THAT THIS MAN IS A MENTALLY ILL BECARFUL BECAUSE MAYBE ONE DAY YOU FIND YOURSELF IN THE SAME SITUATION WITH THIS NICE CRASY MAN AND THEM I WOULD LIKE TO KWON WHAT YOUR FEELING WILL BE