New Fear Year

So I usuallly try to only post about happy fun things and perpetuate a positive attitude, but there's been a lot of crummy stuff going on lately. Some family members are now or have been laid off / taking pay cuts / not finding work, which is always tough. And thank god, no one I know personally has been touched by violent crime, but it's now at two degrees. Friends of friends have been robbed / attacked / etc.

But what's inspiring me actually getting this out on (virtual) paper was an incident late last night. One of the bar-restaurants we go to sometimes, The Standard, was robbed at 4:30 in the morning as they were closing, and a worker was shot in the head and killed. This is just tragic and unnecessary. Offical AJC article is here. But gist of it is, the bartender and a girl who worked there were closing up when 4 armed gunmen threw a brick through the front door, came in, and made the bartenders lie face down in the office while they took money. The girl somehow hid, but the robbers shot the guy, who was only 27 years old, twice in the head and twice in the legs and then took off. He died a few hours later at the hospital.

This is the third or fourth incident I know of in the last month that has been in the East Atlanta general area. It's getting out of control.

UPDATE: Yay for the community - there were so many donations that the reward for finding the murderers went from the standard $5,000 for a "heinous crime" (as opposed to $2,000 for a normal one) to $21,870!