Living with crime: Erin McCleary

At the end of March, my husband and I were robbed at gunpoint in our garage after we had come home from a restaurant.

The person who did it seemed young (18-25), was black, and scarily enough was very calm and collected. He had the gun right in our faces and took our wallets, cell phones, and keys and left.

For a couple weeks after it happened, I tried justifying what he did. In a way, I romanticized the experience by thinking that he robbed us for rent or grocery money. Also, I wished so much that he wasn't black because I felt like people like him fuel racist stereotypes.

All that changed when I received my next cell phone bill. The person who robbed us downloaded over $100 of hip hop cell phone ring tones to both of our phones prior to us shutting them off with our cell phone company.

At that moment, everything changed for me. I felt and still feel so angry but worse, I realized that we were robbed by someone who at some degree did it for fun. That idea scares me more than anything else. I am not the same person that I was.