What went wrong? That is the one question I have been asking myself over the past year. Standing behind crime scene tape, shivering in the cold during a candlelight vigil and standing in a courtroom photographing yet another arraignment of someone accused of a crime I can’t keep from wondering how did things get so bad so quick?
This year has been like no other I can remember. It seemed like we had a new crisis, some kind of tragedy emerge every month. The year did have some bright spots, a championship run by Tracy High football team, the return of the Tour of California to Tracy streets and the opening of Kimball High School. But has high as those moments were the tragic events of 2009 plunged us into the darkest valleys of despair. The kidnap, rape and murder of Sandra Cantu, the brutal killing of Cynthia Ramos, the killer of Clayton Riggins still among us and the gang shooting of seven people ending in one death were just part of the dark times this year.
Throw in the various acts of perversion by a doctor, substitute teacher and a softball coach and add the rash of burglaries, armed robberies and occasional drive-by-shooting and you realize the small town is gone. What went wrong? We grew up and gained our big city status along with the big city problems and crimes.
As bad as things seemed to get we always had room for them to get worse. Tracy saw the first death of a soldier in the war in Afghanistan when Marine Staff Sgt. Matthew Hansen was killed by a bomb. Oakland Police officer Mark Dunakin a Tracy resident was killed in a shootout in Oakland with three of his fellow officers as our year of despair continued.
If I seem doom and gloom about this past year it has been a difficult time watching the misery that befell our city through the camera. Through tears and silence it has been a trial to keep a positive outlook on our town and what it has become. And before you think I am blowing the events that happened out of proportion know that I had to stop in the middle of writing this to go to the scene of a pair of bank robberies. It was truly no ordinary year, and I don’t think I will ever see a year of news like this again.
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