Life in a City of Hidden Numbers

The city was buzzing with trouble. People were scared because the streets were full of fights and broken windows. A woman named Anna lived in a building that had shops on the ground floor. She could not sleep, worried that thieves would break in. State leaders sent a huge army of National Guard soldiers to help. The Border Patrol also put many agents on the streets in Washington. The city felt like a battlefield. In Portland, people clashed with federal police for months. They tried to take over a courthouse and set it on fire. Many in the country had never heard of “antifa” before this. The violence felt close to Anna. She knew the buildings in Washington because she had visited them as a teenager. Rioters used explosives and knives against police, even those from the Border Patrol who had helped her at the border. It was hard to see so many familiar faces in a fight. Anna’s mind mixed up the name George Floyd with her own attacker because of timing. When she saw his face on TV, she felt nervous. She told herself it was not the same man, but the picture still made her tense. Back in North Carolina, Anna’s parents tried to keep life normal. They went shopping, watched movies, and ate at cafés. They avoided heavy news on TV. Their goal was to keep Anna’s mood light, even though they didn’t fully understand her anxiety. Anna believed she would heal only when the world calmed down and her attacker was caught. But the 2020 election made things worse. Rhetoric about a threatened democracy added to her panic.One day, Anna’s dad asked her to look outside. He told her that if she didn’t follow the news, she would see a normal day. That advice helped Anna when the news became too much. Police found DNA that matched Anna’s attacker, a homeless man near her building. That gave Anna hope for justice. Anna worked as a reporter on crime in Washington. She used the police’s online map to study crimes. The map showed fewer incidents after March, which made her think crime was down. She checked the map for her own attack. No dot appeared at her address or any nearby spot. She wondered if the police had forgotten to add it. After asking the police, she learned that only first‑degree offenses were shown. Her case was a third‑degree sex abuse, so it wasn’t listed. Anna felt that the police were ignoring many victims. She realized that the map was hiding a lot of crimes. If the city made it look safer by leaving out many incidents, that was dishonest. Anna decided to keep this secret for herself but also hoped someone would notice. The city’s leaders seemed to care more about appearances than real safety. Anna thought the police might not even want her case prosecuted because it wasn’t a first‑degree crime. She concluded that victims are people, not statistics. The system was built to silence them. Anna wanted to expose this truth someday, but for now she tried to live with it.