Sarah Hulett, assistant news director of Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor, talks publicly about a tough decision that countless Detroiters discuss with family, neighbors and friends.
The main difference is that she's a 39-year-old northwest Detroiter with a media platform that broadcast her reflections and posts them under the headline "Should we stay or should we go: A reporter’s notebook on living with crime in Detroit."
I’ve lived in Detroit for the last 15 years. When I moved here, I knew that living in a city raised my chances of being a victim of crime. But the benefits, I thought, outweighed those risks. I loved – still love – the energy of the city, the history, the people.
Then I had two kids. And the calculus changed.
Sarah Hulett: "We want our girls . . . to believe that you don’t just leave because things aren’t perfect, or easy." (Facebook photo)
Hulett, a Michigan State graduate, describes "three troubling incidents that hit too close to home:"
- A woman moved in February after an armed mugging while she and a friend walked their dogs "right around the corner from my house."
- "That very same day, my 81-year-old neighbor was mugged in her driveway."
- A home invasion suspect was killed during a spring shootout "a dozen houses away from mine."
Earlier, one of her family's vehicles was stolen and a "rock that came sailing through our dining room window one evening."
She and her husband, Brian Wybenga, have had several risk-benefit discussions about their situation, says the journalist. They're staying -- for now.
A lot of the time – even most of the time – I’m really glad we’re raising our daughters in Detroit. I feel like they’re getting rich cultural experiences. I like that they’re around kids from families with different backgrounds and perspectives. And we want our girls to grow up with a sense of responsibility to their community, to believe that you don’t just leave because things aren’t perfect, or easy.
But with every frightening story I hear, it gets harder to do that calculus and still arrive at the conclusion that the correct answer, for us, is to stay.
-- Alan Stamm
Earlier at Deadline Detroit:
2 Car Thefts Push WSU Board Member Kim Trent Closer To Leaving ‘My Beloved City’, March 22, 20154
