Shangri-La doesn't exist

"That never happens here" is the typical reaction in Conejo Valley when something horrible happens somewhere else. We live, after all, in a mostly quiet, almost bedroom community.

Oh sure, Southern California bank robbers occasionally stop by, but only because they go wherever the freeways take them. They grab the money and run. Sometimes they show a handgun, sometimes they don't.

It's rare when anything really goes wrong.

The crime rate in Conejo Valley is so low that cops pull up in multiple squad cars for almost anything. Police officers around here like to show force and lots of it. There's safety in numbers. You never know when a business executive might go postal over a speeding ticket. Show him three black-and-whites, and he'll calm down.

Every time we get too complacent, too cozy in our almost perfect world, we get a reality check. Sunday night served as a wakeup call and a brutal one. For reasons we may never totally understand, somebody killed a 6yearold boy with a meat cleaver.

Not in some far away ghetto or in the sticks of rural America, it happened right here in Newbury Park.

It was a crime so vile, so heinous, that it would have made headlines anywhere. For it to happen here is bizarre, unimaginable.

It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that nowhere on earth can anyone ever say, "That never happens here."

Repeat after us, "Never say never."

A final thought. We're bothered by comments like, "He didn't deserve to die like that."

It's a clichéd and pointless remark.

Why do newspapers and TV stations even use quotes like that?

Instead, let's hear a comment about the perpetrator. Something like, "Only a psychopath could do something like this" or "How could anyone be so evil?"