| Kyleigh Sousa |
"Heartache all day, up all night, non-stop tears, sick to my stomach...only to start all over again the next day. Day in and day out. The pain grows worse..., the tears don't stop, and the only thoughts in my mind every second of the day are of my daughter."
These are the nightmare musings of Karen Montenegro, mother of Arizona State University student Kyleigh Sousa who was murdered in downtown Tempe on May 26, 2010
Last week's news about overall crime going down in Arizona no doubt made some people happy -- especially those who tie their professional worth to the crime numbers regurgitated by the FBI every year. Numbers that, according to some we know in the policing business, are easy to manipulate to make some cities look safer on paper than they really are on the street.
One of the Tempe Police Department's assortment of pitchmen just distributed an e-mail touting how crime was down and how safe Tempe is, all thanks to the police department. The message was designed to give those who want to believe the boogieman can't reach into their cozy enclave a warm and fuzzy feeling. The message failed to mention that murders were up from two in 2009 to 10, with five unsolved so far in 2010.
Unfortunately, the continual self-promotion by some police officials and their political handlers does nothing for those who have suffered at the hands of violent criminals and who still don't have answers about who victimized them or their family.
That's where Montenegro is after her daughter was robbed and murdered in that downtown Tempe restaurant parking lot across the street from a police station.
