Officer William Campbell reports: "At 1325 hours, I arrived at Swedish Hospital ER to investigate an assault. I met victim, and he told me the following: He is a teacher at Cleveland HS in Seattle. Today around 0900 hours, he was assaulted by one of his students. He had asked the student to complete his work in class, which he refused. The student got angry and began to rip up his papers. The student then tried to remove a laptop from the teacher's desk and without warning (using his right hand) backhand slapped the teacher on the face. The teacher was struck on the right side of his upper lip and suffered a laceration with bleeding and minor swelling, and had to get four stitches from the hospital. The teacher also believes a button from the cuff of the student's jacket caught his lip and he may also have caused tooth/gum damage—he will see his dentist tomorrow. School staff emergency-expelled the student and called his father to pick him up..."

As we can all perfectly see, this young student has little to no future. For sure, the one thing that is waiting for him in America is a crowded cell in some prison complex. He will spend much of his life in this cell, which will only make him more and more stupid. This is the reality. Movies like To Sir, with Love; Blackboard Jungle; and Dangerous Minds do not come close to this sad reality.

Officer Audrey Lavett reports: "Victim called to report that unknown suspect(s) stole her purse and listed items, which were left unattended under a table. Victim stated that when she called to cancel her stolen debit and credit cards, her bank advised her that the suspect(s) used her Bank of America debit card and Southwest Airlines Visa credit card to make the following unauthorized charges:

The Bank of America debit card had two charges from:

• 1/25/10 Walgreens, Rainier Ave—unknown amount

• 1/25/10 USA Petroleum Gas Station, Renton, WA—$145.00

The Southwest Airlines Visa was attempted but declined.

"Victim was told by the USA Petroleum Gas Station attendant that they do have video surveillance of the suspect(s) using her debit card on 1/25/10. The manager stated that they will burn a copy of the surveillance video onto a disc for Seattle police detectives to arrange for pickup."

It is nothing but surprising that with all of this surveillance (grocery stores, cash machines, parking garages), crime still exists in our world. How can a criminal even hope to escape this sophisticated network of cameras and digital records? Crime in its raw or physical form (robbery, murder, theft) should by now be a thing of the past, and day-to-day life should be something like the stuff of utopia. But the technology is overrated—and the smarter criminals know this.