This morning I woke with the letter "S" on my mind and SAFETY has been in my thoughts all week. 

Monday a horrific crime was committed in Cheshire, Connecticut.  Two career criminals that were recently paroled spotted a Mother & Daughter in the local super market Sunday night and stalked them.  Reports do not mention any contact that evening but they followed the pair and found out where they lived.  Seems they returned to the area in the middle of the night, left their car over a mile away and walked to the home.

Cheshire is typical of many surrounding towns where crime is never given much thought.  Many people leave their homes unlocked and enjoy the peaceful tranquillity of suburban life.  At 3:00am the criminals entered through a basement door and terrorized the family for hours.  The father & husband, a local doctor was severely beaten in the basement of his modest colonial home on Sorghum Mill Drive.  His 48 year old wife and 11 year old daughter were sexually assaulted.  No details have been released concerning the 17 year old girl.

When the bank opened Monday morning one of the intruders forced Jennifer Hawke-Petit to withdraw $15,000 and she was able to alert the teller of trouble.  Within a half hour she was strangled in her home, her two daughters were tied to their beds as these ruthless x-cons set the house a blaze.  When officers arrived one heard a girl's scream but both died of smoke inhalation.  Dr. Petit was staggering out of the home as the suspects fled ramming the police cruiser that was in their way.

"Suspects" doesn't quite seem like the appropriate word to describe these guys.  They were witnessed by police leaving the burning home in the stolen vehicle owned by the Petits and crashed into two more police cruisers in their attempt to escape...

This is clearly a case where Deadly Force would be completely justifiable and in my opinion preferable to the years of appeals that will drag on for this Capital Crime.