Island Infamy

I went to my Homepage this morning, only to be greeted by the photo on the right & a national story on the Today Show, weekend edition featuring the island's most infamous Home Town Boy, Colton Harris-Moore! (No, that's not a link.)

We have the national media nosing around, looking for angles to report on a local island criminal who happens to be a very elusive teenage thief. Apparently he even has a fan club on Facebook & people are selling tee shirts & other items with his likeness stamped on them. His fans seem to think it's, what, cute or something that he's terrorized everyone on our island as well as the San Juans nearby, stealing boats, an airplane, cars and electronic stuff? Well, it's not cute if you've been one of his victims.

How this kid has eluded the law is a mystery. He's burglarized innumerable homes, including our next door neighbors, who are only part time residents. He seems to smell when a house is empty, breaks in & makes himself at home, eating things he finds in the freezer or refrigerator, then stealing what he wants. Word is that he lived in one house for over a month, even driving their car, before he moved on.

After being caught the first time & turned over to the juvenile justice system (he was 18 then), where he was "incarcerated" then escaped from a minimum security facility, he's been on the lam ever since. It's certain someone's helping him--maybe more than one person. One of his previous friends was interviewed for the NBC story said, "Colton & I used to say we wanted so much money we could bathe in it." The trouble with people like this is they are somehow instilled with an entitlement personality. They want what other people have, but the only way they want to obtain it is to steal it. With Colton's intelligence there's no end to what he could do putting that mind to work constructively. But it seems we're seeing more of this all the time. You want something? Take it from someone else! my theory is the government's "generosity", in terms of entitlements, helps promote this mentality.