Homicide in Norfolk 2009

Already in 2009 there have been ten homicides in the city of Norfolk (http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-now-norf-homicides.m23,0,5436063.story). The last of these homicide's was perpetrated in a garage on Waterside Drive and I was in that garage only four hours before this incident took place. I left the garage around 10 p.m. Saturday the 21 of Marts and at 2 a.m. Sunday morning Juan Carlos Ovalle-Peralda was shot dead this very place.

It is a bit scary to be in a city that has so many homicides when you are use to live in a city, Aarhus in Denmark, with practically has no murders at all. The two city's has approximately the same population around 250.000 people, but as Norfolk has had ten homicides this year Aarhus has had none. If you google "homicide Norfolk 2009" the first page is news stories about homicides, but if you write the same in Danish for Aarhus the first link is about a theatre play you can go and see in the city.

This just goes to show that all the police cars you see around town are there for a purpose. One of the first things I thought to myself when I arrived in Norfolk was "Is it really necessary with all these cops around here?" and apparently it is. I feel somewhat safe walking around campus at night and have not really given my safety around the city a lot of thought even when I am off campus at night. After these statistics have come to my attention I will be more careful where I go Friday or Saturday night and I have thought to myself "what if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time?".

You can not let fear control your life, but you can keep yourself out of the exposed places and keep away from the wrong crowd. I will continue to go downtown Norfolk to have a laugh and a beer or two, but I will be more aware of the crime problem that haunts this city.