Today has been hard...

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and I'm counting my blessings. We got information today that has made me realize how oblivious I've been, and how I can't afford to be that way in the future. About 2 weeks ago, our daughter was leaving rather late. I was on the porch saying good-night as she went down the walk... I always stay there until I'm sure the kids are safely in their cars. She turned and came back, saying she was blocked in by police cars... we'd been out there for at least 15 minutes, and hadn't heard a thing. About that time all he!! broke loose... a kid came running down the street with 2 officers after him. They tackled him at the end of the street, then mostly dragged him back to the car, shoving him in the backseat. We went out to the gate, and there were 4 cars out there. An officer came to talk to us... it seems the kid had been hiding in our yard (!), then went over the fence and tried to climb up to a balcony on the building next door. He was spotted, and thats when he started running. I assumed that this was the person who'd been breaking into cars, and after we told the officers 'Good work', we came back inside. Today we found out that this kid (17 or 18) was trying to set fire to a house across from us. As you may know, the house behind us burned to the ground recently... he admitted to setting it. We found out that he's burned 4 houses in town in the last year... luckily, no one was ever home. The thing that has me really shaking, though, is what our neighbor told us... he came out one morning and found a rag stuffed in his gas tank. He figured someone had been siphoning gas and so hadn't said anything. Now the neighbor between our houses said he found the same thing on the same day, and reacted the same way. What they didn't notice was that the rags had been lit on the end... the kid admitted to being disappointed because they went out! I can't even imagine what the explosion would have been like... we have little kids on our block, and elderly people across the street. It would have killed everyone! When I told our daughter, she was terribly upset, because she has seen this kid nearly every time she's gone home, either in our block or walking towards town. He's scheduled for a competency hearing soon... I know he HAS to be crazy to do things like this, but he needs to be put away for a very long time. And I need to snoop out the window and watch whats going on... I swore I never would, but things have changed!