Picking on my kind

Allow me to digress from health and fitness: Do you ever notice how many news reports of, say, a murder, start out with something like this?: "Benlake, N.Y., is a sleepy little down of 350, that is until Swampy Smith of nearby Festavia slaughtered a group of eight puppies down at the dog shelter."
Or this: "Majesty, Neb., a hamlet by the Lazy J River, won't be the same after Johnny Jones wrested a pocket knife from his breakfast partner Sunday and stabbed waitress Lerline Lovelace 20 times in the arm." Or: "Residents of Armpit, Wis., which is nestled by Washed Up Creek, awakened to the news Friday that Miss Dumptruck 2004 ran off with Mayor Bill Jones, leaving his wife behind in Sunday school."
It's not always written this way, of course, but I wish I had a dollar for every description of a town that's "sleepy" or some similar idyllic description; I'm not picking on the word sleepy, per se, but I'm saying NO TOWN is a peaceful little hamlet--even when crime catches people off-guard. It doesn't matter if your city sits by the most gorgeous mountain stream with trout in it that smile, or has a snow-capped alp visible from every view. Crime or weird things don't just pop up in a place as if those things aren't going on already.
But I understand what writers do when they say things like this; they're trying to show some sort of contrast between negative behavior and what's happening at the moment of the crime--like a huge interruption. To show contrast between the "pure" townsfolk and the criminal. "Four retired truck drivers sat Monday at McDonald's on 14th Street, swapping stories from the road, when William "Big Jack" Crouch entered the restaurant with a gun in each hand and fire in both eyes." We may not all be murderers, of course, but our towns aren't as pure as we'd like them to be. And I will submit that something like a shooting, small-scale or large-, is an unwelcome, evil interruption to a simple activity like drinking a cup of coffee.
We have our moments of peace, thank God, but ... What exactly is a sleepy town? ... And I wonder why this is in my craw?
Thoughts? Similar pet peeves?