Article Description: A Focus in the Petit Family Massacre No One is Talking About
Article Title: The News Media Whispers the Truth about the Petit Family Massacre
Keywords: Petit, unlocked door, Crime, security, Walk-Ins
Word count: 916

shhh! the Petit door was left unlocked…
The News Media Whispers the Truth about Crime

On July 23 2007, two paroled burglars entered a home in upper-middle class Cheshire CT through an UNLOCKED door, beat and bound the male resident, Dr. Petit, tortured and raped his wife and two daughters for six hours, then poured gasoline on the females and set them afire. Neighbors were shocked that any crime could happen there.

Three guests on Larry King’s July 30 TV show droned on about reforming parole regulations to prevent such home invasions in the future. Fine, reform the system. But remember that not all predators are paroled felons – they might well be felons already released from parole or up-and-coming young monsters with clean records. What about them?

Inexplicably, the unlocked door the killers had entered was never mentioned on Larry King (and just barely mentioned four times in hundreds of media reports). The glaring flaw in basic home security that led to the fiendish destruction of a family was glossed over as though it was a minor detail. The elephant sitting in the middle of the room was nearly invisible.

Now, had the door been locked, the invaders likely would’ve looked for other ways in, and if that failed, likely would’ve moved on to look for unlocked doors elsewhere (few doors in that naïve "safe" neighborhood were locked – as one report mentioned) and a different family likely would’ve been attacked instead.

The media also had their eyes wide shut during the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping in Salt Lake City in 2002. The kidnapper had entered through an open window (after quietly cutting the screen), yet the danger of leaving a window open, as usual, got scant attention in the massive media coverage. Since then, the father, the ironically named Ed Smart who’d recruited the Charles Manson-like panhandler/kidnapper to shingle his roof (and also left windows wide open through the night) sometimes guests on TV panel discussions (as an expert, no less) where his spectacular security blunders go politely unmentioned. How could his opinions on crime prevention possibly matter when he’s never owned up to his blunders?

Of course the media doesn’t want to "blame the victims." It would almost seem cruel to add insult to injury – to blame those unwitting naïf’s for contributory negligence. But, as a result, the one possible silver lining in the Petit tragedy – explicitly warning the public of possible horror from leaving doors and windows unlocked – was squandered, lost forever. We’ll never know how many future victims of such crimes might have been spared. But just the possibility of sparing even one innocent soul from such a hideous fate would be well worth the tiny effort.

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