My Open Letter to Thieves

This is not sports or running related per se. But on the two year anniversary of having my loft burglarized, my car window was smashed.  Undoubtedly unrelated these two actions light the smoldering fire I have within me against those who steal.  As I wish to have my unedited views to be seen by all, I am posting them here.

Dear thieves and vandals,

Your acts are the lowest of the low. You don’t just take “things” but you rob people of their safety. You steal away their peace of mind. By breaking and ransacking that which does not belong to you, you are taking away much more than items.You degrade trust.You remove the desire to help those who are in need. You make reasonable, giving people more cautions and wary.

Even if caught, your punishment never fits the crime. It is infrequent if the things which are stolen can get returned. But even if they are, you have eroded the fabric of a a trusting person’s mind. If this person can be stolen from, for no good reason, by someone who doesn’t know them, what is to stop the next faceless, nameless shape shifter from taking advantage of the smallest opportunity to smash and grab?

You are vile. You are disgusting. Instead of earning what you want you simply take it from someone else who has it. You are lazy. You are shiftless. You lack a moral compass and instead fill the black pit of your soul with the goods and items others have worked hard to acquire.

These words will barely make any of you stop your reckless actions. You are hardly going to be shamed into feeling bad if you already feel it is perfectly within your rights to destroy that which others own. But know this: after having been burglarized and having had my father’s ashes throw away by some drug-addicted piece of cockroach excrement as they searched for meth or money, there is very little I will not do to make sure every single one of you pays. Pays dearly.

Portland is a great city. But it has a thievery problem. It has a vandal problem. It has a vagrant problem. Even living in a nicer section of the town does not make you immune from the clutches of the sickening and nauseating scourge that is those who take that which is not theirs. This city is hardly alone, unfortunately.

However, this is my warning to all of you. You are being watched.

And I can out run you.