“Not On Our Watch”

In a pivotal scene in The Killer Trail, Chris Ryder comes to realize the wide-ranging effect Ray Owens’s high-profile criminal acts is having on the larger community. Up until that point, Chris had viewed his struggles with Ray Owens as a personal battle to protect the ones he loves and bring the killer to justice.

However, during a discussion with Sergeant Ryan, Chris realizes that in the eyes of the larger community, Ray Owens has come to symbolize all that is wrong with the justice system: A society living in fear of brutal gangland shootings taking place in public settings and a police force seemingly powerless to prevent them; A society growing weary of a court system which has become backlogged with criminal cases; A society which is becoming increasingly intolerant of a system in which the wheels of justice appear to have grinded to a halt.

Amidst this backdrop, Ray Owens’s brazen attempts to make a mockery of the mental health and justice systems run the risk of further disillusioning the general public and causing the larger community to lose faith in the systems designed to serve and protect them. In that crucial scene, Chris and Sergeant Ryan discuss the fact that if their society loses confidence in these systems, the ultimate result can be widespread chaos. This prompts Sergeant Ryan to boldly declare, “Not on our watch,” and leads them to form an alliance to prevent Ray Owens and the Ray Owens’s of the world from achieving their goals.