I’d like to relate the story of an unfortunate encounter I had yesterday afternoon while I was taking a walk around my neighborhood. Before I do, I need to fill you in on the details of a far more unfortunate story. Shortly after 2:30 on Friday morning, a 70 year old man named Barry Mason drove his Lincoln Continental into 19 year old Jamil Burton, throwing Burton from his bicycle. Mason got out of his car and shot Burton 5 or 6 times in the head and chest. Why did he do this? Mason claims it was because Mr. Burton ripped a necklace from Mason’s neck. The shooting occurred in Kahn Park, which sits on the Northwest corner of the intersection of Pine and 11th streets, about half a block from my home. Here’s a picture of the stuffed animal memorial which was left at the spot of the shooting.
Now on to my story. Yesterday afternoon I was taking a stroll around the neighborhood and stopped by the park to have a look at the memorial. As I approached I noticed a well dressed older man with bright white hair and beard, leaning on his cane while attempting to write something on the white piece of paper you see in the foreground of the picture. I attempted to have a look at what he was writing, assuming it was some expression of sympathy for the dead man. He quickly straightened up, gave me a wide smile and said “this was the last time that ingrate will ever rob somebody.” He was not there to express sympathy, but rather to rejoice in an execution. He mocked the teddy bears for a moment and ambled off with a bright smile on his face.
Now I’m not given to confronting people on the street, but I was a bit stunned by this bloodthirsty old man and felt like asking him a few questions. I began walking with him and peppering him with questions. I asked him if he felt that public execution was the proper punishment for petty crime. He said that it was. I asked him if he was happy the man was dead. He said he was overjoyed. He referred to the murderer as the victim. As we made our way down Pine street, he began to sense that I was not his friend and began to talk about his own gun and how much he’d like to use it one day. A curious turn in the discussion, to be sure. I asked if he thought that I should be shot for holding the view that people shouldn’t be executed in the street. He declined to answer. I asked if he felt I should be killed for holding him in utter contempt. He again declined to answer. He instead asked me what charities I contribute to. When I answered that my charitable contributions didn’t seem to be relevant to the discussion, he laughed and called me pathetic and a hypocrite. I asked him to elaborate, but he could not or would not. He wrongly assumed this would shut me up. I asked him again if it was appropriate to run down somebody riding a bike on the sidewalk and shoot him 5 times in the head. Getting more defensive, he told me that wasn’t the story at all and that my head is full of lies. I asked if there is any crime which doesn’t warrant public execution, and I asked what it was like to be full of blood lust and depravity. No more answers. We’d made it a few blocks and he refused to speak to me any longer. An odd encounter, to be sure. He probably feels the same way.
There is something very peculiar in the air and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I keep coming across this sort of thing, but I’m not bright enough to pull it together into a coherent observation. It’s easiest to find on the internet, but apparently you can find it wandering around on the street. Take, for instance, some of the comments left on a recent Philadelphia Daily News story about prison overcrowding. There are over 12 pages of comments and they’re filled with calls for public execution and pysical brutality. Here’s a particularly awful one.
That is it!!! I have had it with these morons who believe that prisoners should be entitled to decent conditions. PRISONERS ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!!!! I DO NOT CARE WHAT THEY ARE INCARCERATED FOR!!!!! THEY ARE THERE FOR A CLEAR REASON, YOU IDIOTS!!!! And to top it off, this degenerate professor at Penn suing the city for “prisoner mistreatment”. Just wait until he’s a victim of crime. I’ll bet while he’s in some hospital ER getting fixed up, he’ll be more worried about the scumbag who attacked him and whether they’ll have a nice cot to sleep on.
Here’s the solution to prison overcrowding: Get rid of all prisons. Instead, put two in the head of ALL the criminals. No long sentences, no appeals; straight to execution. I don’t care what color, race, religion or creed the loser is. Plain and simple: commit a violent crime/hurt someone, you gotta go. BANG!! I guarantee you that would be the greatest crime deterrent known to man. Plus, it eases the burden of us taxpayers. I would personally sign up to be an executioner. I can’t think of a better way to help serve my community.
He doesn’t just want them dead, he wants to be the one who kills them. I expect to see that sort of thing posted on The Free Republic or in Jeff Goldstein’s comment section, but this stuff is bubbling up on a mainstream newspaper’s web page. We have a sizable segment of society that feels execution or torture is always justified and they aren’t illiterate street thugs or gang members. Instead, they’re members of respectable society. We have a government that routinely breaks the law, violates constitutional rights and engages in torture and we have a sizable portion of society begging for more of the same. So what is going on here? Is this just a normal dynamic that I’m just now waking up to? I’m at a total loss. Any thoughts?
The short and not so sweet answer is that yes, this is probably a normal dynamic that you’re just now noticing. I can on any given day find for you at least a few fine and respectable folks who would endorse all manner of cruelty from bombing entire countries into oblivion in order to take their oil to execution and torture of common prisoners. They’re very nice family people, many of whom are gainfully employed, in pursuit of an education or already have at least one college degree, and even go to church on Sunday.
Welcome to America.
Unfortunately you’re right. I was first exposed to it as a teenager in Philly in witnessing the comments of my own relatives and neighbors leading up to the election of Frank Rizzo as mayor. My own mother is still a firm believer that rapists should all be castrated.
What’s even worse than when people think this way is when politicians start to play to this crowd, and it’s happened throughout Amrican history – the Salem witch trials, the know-nothings, the KKK, and McCarthyism are just some of the better-known examples.
I had a similar conversation last night with a young man of about 24. A Democrat, a Catholic, actively working on a state rep race. We were discussing Israel and Lebanon.
He started out with some of the more typical arguments.
a) Israel has a right to defend itself
b) Hizbollah needs an ass-kicking
c) the Lebanese government should control its own territory.
All solid points, in their own way. So, I began my argument.
a) Israel’s right to defend itself is indisputable, but it gives them no license to do something that will make matters worse for their security.
b) Hizbollah isn’t going to lose this battle unless Israel forcibly depopulates southern Lebanon and then stays there.
c) far from encouraging the Lebanese army to intervene against Hizbollah, they are now fighting with them.
His response to this was that Israel should just depopulate the south then and we could come in and finish the job and take out Syria.
I then began probing him to see how many Muslims we should be willing to kill to protect Israel’s security. He didn’t have a limit.
He was impervious to any practical considerations, like troop strength, fiscal considerations, a draft, etc. He even advocated using tactical nukes.
When I pointed out that the Pope was against what Israel was doing and what we are doing, then he began to calm down. I evoked some scripture for him and be started to reconsider his position, told me was young, and that he didn’t have everything figured out.
There is, indeed, something in the air. And it ain’t good for peace.
Also, check this out.
That’s one shooting a block from my old house and another shooting in my front-yard, here.
one of those is 3 blocks south from my house. i live around the corner from a whole foods, not a company that puts stores in traditionally violent areas. shit is going from bad to worse here in philly all over town.
3 women were attacked and robbed in the early evening on a quiet suburban street in Palo Alto, CA (home of Stanford University — go Cardinal!).
I remember my mom and one of her neighbors would go for walks together in the early evening; to my mother’s annoyance, my brother referred to them as “the Palo Alto Streetwalkers.” lol Our neighborhood was very similar to the one where the women were attacked. How many people will now feel too afraid to set foot outside on a warm summer’s evening?
While Bush and his cronies spread fear of foreign terrorists in the hearts of voters, they totally neglect the “terrorists” created by lack of jobs, lack of opportunities, and lack of hope…
i got one of those confused, I was thinking 2300 block of 16th, not Jackson. Anywoo, the other one was on my block. And since the bullet missed, that means it landed somewhere on my block.
I evoked some scripture for him and be started to reconsider his position, told me was young, and that he didn’t have everything figured out.
That’s interesting. If only that worked all the time. Let’s hope he doesn’t find someone who can make the pro-war case wtih scripture.
Wow! you just placed me in a great dilema. Should those in this administration be shot or not??!!. Nah, not even them, as tempting as it may sound.
They, as in the administration should be rounded up and sent on a Dutch holiday….right to The Hague.
Remember, “Do not ask for whom the empty cell of Milosevic years, Mr. Bush. It yearns for YOU!”
years? No, Yearns.
stoking this kind of thinking is part and parcel of the Republican political agenda … it feeds into their power, their worldview. As it spread, it creates MORE need for war, for aggressive policing, for more prisons, for more weapons. David Neiwert over at Orcinus always has worthwhile insights into this dynamic.
In an older piece than the one linked above, he notes:
Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be.
Look at the following of blood lust panderers like John “Assrocket” Hinderaker, or his buds, “Elephant Puss, and the other one who thinks he’s an owl or something, you know, “Monkey Nuts.” Then there’s Michelle Malkin, that charming concentration camp lover. Consider Captain Ed, Rush Limbaugh, and even Josh Trevino, you know Josh, the one who brought his friend Armando to grief. How about O’Reilly?
Just in this list of names, you have voices of extreme hate and depravity reaching MILLIONS, daily.
As Fascism begins to permeate the discourse, do you recall the writings of Solzhenitsyn? Remember, how the folks would volunteer readily to take up the rifles and “guard” the other zeks on the Belomor Canal project? Even those these guard zeks were fed the same Stalin Ration of 10 oz. of bread and a bowl of gruel a day, just like the sloggers.
You are seeing the dynamic that comes from a law and order saturated society that finds that law and order isn’t working, so obviously there has to be more extreme measures, and then still more extreme measures, and then finally “Inquisition-like” madness.
The old man feels he’s better, a better citizen, and a better person….and the others? Sudras and Untouchables in the eyes of the comfortable man who is filled with bitterness and hate.
We are a “Law and Order” saturated society. Folks see it on TV every night. Yep, Sam Waterston gets ’em everytime about, and when not, well how does the public feel about it’s own rights, as the anger overflows into a feeling of, “that’s not right!”
Funny times we live in.
I really like what you’ve written here. Great input. Thanks. To answer your question, I’m always surprised. Even though I shouldn’t be, I can’t help but be shocked. I’m not entirely naive, but I’m always surprised by this stuff. I dismiss some of this crap as nothing more than pro-wrestling taken to arenas where it doesn’t belong, but I know better. I read it online and I’m horrified, but coming face to face with it in my own little corner of the world is something altogether more disturbing. That’s new to me.
Most people have no idea of why they hate. Certainly some people exhibit hate when they lack a sense of security. The crime throughout our country is on the rise and I so regret this. Clinton had put in place “Cops on the Street” program that reduced crime. As well the good economy that greatly lowered unemployment helped to lower crime.
In Bush’s world, we build more and more prisons and denounce certain people as unfit and we have to “deal with these rejects one way or the other.” This message from the top is conveyed not only through the Rush Limbaugh’s, Pat Robertson’s and so on but also through our community role models like the local cop on the corner, the local alderman, the locals hanging out at the popular bar, the church deacons and so on.
Too many seemingly ordinary people hate, think their own world is going to hell and always think “it” is the recent immigrants, the minorities or any segment representing a perceived lower class citizenry who is responsible for evil doings.
Further, we need cultural outlets that expresses the reality of our multi-cultural country. Few realize how their own individual make-up and traditions come from the many cultures who immigrated to this country. For example, few know that the tradition of baton twirler who leads our parades comes from the men who danced with sticks to induce rain in Western Africa. The dance “Charleston” from the 1920s is a form of an African-American dance.
Right now, I am mostly thinking that at least 50% of our national budget goes toward “defense.” How many people know this????
Sadly, it’s nothing new at all. A normal dynamic that has been the running undercurrent of the US (and maybe other countries too, I don’t know) probably since its founding.
It runs under the surface from time to time but periodically, in welcoming climates, it’s right out front and in the open. And there is certainly a welcoming climate for it now, as mentioned above, with all the eliminationist rhetoric from the right wing (which is usually where it comes from at any point in time) as well as sometimes the left wing, but it’s never really gone – not from church pews, dinner tables, or political parties, not from family picnics, not from farm communities or big cities.
This is a very unsafe country for many people in the best of times – in the worst of times (and we are not there yet) it’s unspeakable.
what churches that man and the writer of that comment are sitting in today…hope the sermon doesn’t wake them up from their slumber.
It’s a common MO around here . . . “kids” (often in groups) on bicycles knock down a pedestrian (often resulting in injury), grab purses, wallets and other possessions, and flee the scene. It is not safe for the elderly or women to walk on public sidewalks at night (and risky for adult men) and some of these attacks occur in broad daylight as well. Marauding gangs of “kids” and other predators have made the local University campus unsafe for women at night, and there are “rape alert” posters and “emergency” phones (useful to report an attack, but not to prevent one) scattered across the campus.
Vigilantism is not the answer, but when society abrogates its responsibility to maintain public safety it should come as no surprise . . .
I’ve walked by this memorial about 4 times in the last few days. I was gonna go back to take some photos and think about what happened. I may do so tonight.
I saw this story of a 78-year old man who carries a .38 revolver with him at all times. He shot a carjacker and noted that he was glad that his windows were rolled down when he shot his assailant so that he didn’t mess up any of his glass. People are fucked up man. We’re living in a fucked up society with some fucked up sense of how to handle things.
I’m not sure if you saw the 8×11 paper announcing a neighborhood meeting in the park on Thursday at 7p.
and the shooting story i point to is about 1.5 mi from my job. there is about 1 shooting every 3 days or so within a mile or so of my office over in west philly.
I did see the paper. That’s actualy what the guy I described in the post was writing on. Here’s a picture of his weird attempt at a public statement. I have a funny feeling about the meeting. We’ll see.
I should add that the words you can make out in the picture are “This was his” The guy gave up trying to write when he saw me take interest in what he was up to. He was trying to write that this was his last crime, or something of that nature. Sick, sick stuff if you stop and think about it. If you read the background stories on the person who’s tribute was being marred, you’ll find that he didn’t have a criminal record.
i wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up on thursday waving a gun around showing how we should all protect ourselves
Suppose he misses his target — what innocent bystander is going to lose an eye, a limb, or a life?
“I shot a bullet into the sky,
It came to earth in someone’s eye…”
The only thing that has changed is that they’ve come out of hiding. Civilization, for most people, is a thin veneer, easily removed. That, ultimately, is what is so dangerous about Bush and his torture policies. By legitimizing depravity abroad, he has set the stage for letting it bubble out back home.
There’s a purely selfish reason for opposing torture and execution and other forms of subhuman brutality: they require you to develop a group of professional torturers and executioners, people who excel at, and often enjoy brutality and cruelty — and who go home at the end of the day to live next to you and send their (invariably abused and brutalized) kids to school with your kids.
This is why open hatred cannot be tolerated and must be actively suppressed. Covert hatred will always be there, but when it is allowed to come out into the open, we get the mob lynchings, pogroms, random killings, gulags, and Camp X-Rays that characterize the periods when the human mask peels away to reveal the animal underneath.
Thanks for this comment. I was wondering how to say what you have said.
I’m shocked by this violent hatred, but certainly not surprised – we’ve been here before.
When will we ever learn?
This so sickens my heart. To think that anyone values a “thing”, a necklace, or anyTHING else that is a material possession over and above a life. . .freakin unbelievable.
All I can hear in my head/heart is “What you do to one, you do to all.”
Where and how did we manage to grow so much hatred? Yes, rhetorical for sure, but shouldn’t we all be asking the question.
And for those who hold such despicable thoughts that “all prisoners” should be shot! Shot for smoking or buying a little weed? Shot for stealing a stereo? And those unfortunate ones that are there and not guilty?. . .just collateral damage? What next, shoot the homeless street people? These people have no ability to walk in anothers shoes. I dare say, they have no connection to their soul or spirit.
This thinking must stop, and it must stop NOW.
I am somewhere between unbelievable anger and absolute disgust. Going to go cleanse my lesser light thoughts this has provoked.
Shirl
link:
Perhaps the center could could also help parents learn new skills, helping their teens avoid problems.
As a teacher, I see way to much of this. In the last year, I have had one former student kill two people, another former student almost charged as an accomplice to a killing, and a student charged in attempted murder.
I could really rant, but I think I’ll go play with my child, give him love, support, and limits.
The Administration is making it okay to HATE.
Hate the GAYS!
Hate the POOR!
Hate everyone before they take something from YOU!
Hate. HATE HATEEEEEEEEE
They hate liberals. They hate children who write poems. They hate people who spoon out soup to strangers. They hate people who don’t pray to their G-d. They hate people who don’t like torture.
They hate because they feel powerless and afraid. Just how Bush wants em. Easier to herd that way.
The hate will only grow… and one day they’ll be knocking down your door to take you away because it’s okay to hate you.
It’s really very simple. Cut taxes, cut social services, everyone for themselves – anarchy.
I think it’s a sort of existential despair that is settling on everyone, making us anxious and impatient. We no longer believe we have control of our destiny and so we are all moving individually and collectively to simplistic, violent “solutions” because in our impoverishment we can no longer see the outlines of a more prudent strategy.
Imagine a president so at loss for a strategic vision he has substituted religious beliefs for analysis…….
I can’t say that I have too much sympathy for young Mr. Burton. He was the one who decided to steal the chain & the ring. Snatching a chain & running is one level of theft, but how do grab a ring off of someone’s finger without getting right up in there and assaulting them?
Anyway, He must have thought a 70-year old man would be an easy mark, that he would be able to fight back. Didn’t count on the old guy having enough gumption to chase him down with his car, didn’t count on the old fellow having a gun.
Now, did he deserve to die for his crime? Maybe not, but he made the choice to do the deed – not just against some amorphous, faceless, ‘society’ that was keeping him down, but against an actual human being.
‘Boo’ may be missed – but he made his own choice & suffered his own consequences.
The facts don’t seem to be all sorted out. It may not have been a robbery at all.
No?
The article was pretty specific in saying that the old man’s chain & ring “were recovered.” It didn’t sound like they were found behind his carseat.
A tragic situation, but not obe I’d blame the old man for.
As for the “depravity” part, why is it “depraved” for an old man to defend himself from assault & robbery, and for another old man to be happy that there is one less reason for him to be afraid when he walks the streets?
Isn’t it rather “depravity” for the streets to be so dangerous that people cannot walk, or even drive, without fear of assault & robbery?
Burton [the 19-year old shot to death] was openly gay, and relatives wondered whether his slaying – in a gay-friendly, racially diverse neighborhood – had been motivated more by racial or homophobic reasons than robbery. Burton was black; Mason [the shooter] is white.
The area where Burton was slain is a hangout for gay prostitutes. Mooney declined to reveal the contents of Burton’s conversation with Mason, and wouldn’t say whether either had solicited sex from the other. Burton and Mason both are “known to police,” Mooney said, but he declined to share details. Neither has any adult criminal convictions in Philadelphia, records indicate.
Hmmmm … so it looks like the old man was soliciting gay sex from the kid – explains why his window was open & why his chain was an easy grab – and it makes the whole story pretty different than what was implied by the article linked to in the original post.
I have a lot less sympathy for the old man, under these circumstances.
Under the circumstances that the lowered his window on a hot night or that he was soliciting sex or that he was soliciting gay sex?
Door #2 Carole.
If he was just driving along with his window down, perhaps stopped at a light, minding his own business, & was assaulted & robbed I feel that he would be justified in chasing his attacker & even in hitting him with his car & possibly even in the shooting & killing of his attacker.
OTOH, if he was there soliciting gay sex & was robbed by the kid, who was presumably a gay prostitute – there are a bunch of other scenarios that come to mind. Perhaps the old man insulted the kid or otherwise provoked him, maybe he welched on the transaction – maybe the killing was an attempt to cover up his sexual activity.
Much more to be considered in that case than simply someone startled who has the old-fashioned guts to chase down his attacker.
Nothing is depraved about defending oneself from assault. I think that driving the wrong way down a one way street in order to run a person over on the sidewalk and then getting out of the car and shooting him in the head 5 times while he’s lying injured on the sidewalk probably constitutes something above and beyond self defense.
was that Death Wish II or III?
Action Jackson.
i love that movie. Apollo Creed rocks.
The best movie review ever written was a review of Action Jackson.
that is awesome. And I think he could be right.
oh man that is great. i think i pissed my pants.
Thanks for that! A much-needed piece of comic relief. Pauline Kael never reached such heights.
Shoot-outs on the street is not the way to solve crime. Thank god that idiot didn’t accidentally shoot innocent bystanders.
I guess so, but it was 2:30 in the morning. Just how many bystanders were there?
Quite a number, it’s a very busy area. The cop who disarmed the shooter was there disbursing a crowd from the park when the shooting took place. This area of town is densely populated as well, around 40,000 people per square mile. Nearly all of the housing is multi-unit, so it’s not surprising to find upwards of 500 people living on a block.
People tend to congregate around that park late at night after the bars close down in a drunken trance on their way home, it’s an intersection between several strips of bars.
When we good Mericans allow the MSM hate mongers to divide us into the “thems and uses”, unfortunately what you see is what you get. I sincerely wish we could get past the differences that they use to keep the American nation fragmented. When “we” get in some real serious trouble, I am afraid our lack of a sense of community will be a very serious chink in our protective armor, perhaps even a fatal one.
Fantastic diary. Now I remember why the hell I moved out of the Uniteed States.
Pax
Be sure to read this highly relevant story in today’s NYT on recent changes in the laws covering self-defense in Florida and elsewhere.
Apparently this is quite the trend, and the latest cause celebre for the NRA, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, sums up the rationale with admirable succinctness:
To review: In every “crime” (which can include the unlawful and accidental entry of another’s home) there is a criminal and a victim. Criminals, by definition, are bad people; consequently (?) victims, by definition, are good people. (This seems to be derived from the well-known Good-Bad Axiom: In every two-sided confrontation, one side is Good, the other is Bad.)
Good people by definition make good decisions.
Consequently, any decision made by a victim of a crime (however minor) is, by definition, a good decision.
A weird synthesis of Aristotle and Charles Bronson, this.
Yep, I read this earlier today. Self defense, as in being attacked, is one thing. Not running away when you have the chance, turning around and facing up like you’re at a shootout in the wild west on purpose is another thing.
The craziest part was the guy who shot a neighbor for putting out too many trashbags.
Technically, he shot him for “forcible entry.” They were arguing about the garbage bags on the shooter’s (the good person’s) doorstep; the good person claims that the bad person “stuck his foot in the door” (presumably as it was being slammed in his face) and “tried to rush into the house.” So he shot him. Twice. Well, naturally!
The bad person was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and clearly had no weapon. Still, the good person says, “I have a right to protect my house.”
It all reminds me of a remark I once heard from a visiting English academic. “The difference between America and England,” he said, “Is that if an American comes home to find a complete stranger asleep on his couch, he goes to his bedroom, pulls out his nine-gauge shotgun, shoves the barrel in the stranger’s throat to wake him up, and snarls, ‘Hey, buddy, what’s the idea?'”
“The Englishman,” he continued, “sits down in an adjacent chair and waits for the stranger to wake up, at which point he steps forward, extends his hand, and says, ‘I’m sorry … have we met?'”
Over two bags of garbage! And the shooter was a fucking retired Virginia cop!
Yup. I know, Albert, I know. I hope the above didn’t come across as any kind of defense of the shooter’s action.
It did make me worry just what is sufficient to constitute “forcible entry.” Would sticking your foot in the door as it’s being slammed in your face during an argument, maybe even trying to push the door back open, be enough?
Having grown up in Virginia, I was unsurprised to learn of the shooter’s professional background. But, hey: that just makes him doubly qualified as the Good Person in the transaction!
People are mean when they are afriad.
That is why “freedom from fear’ is one of the four foundational freedoms. The elder man shot the younger not just because of the loss of material goods, but because of the loss of his dignity. The shuffle of his feet and quick checking behind him when he walked down the street. Feeling safe only when he walked his german shepard.
Notice the “freedom from fear” was a goal in a more dangerous time.
Is the rude old man your enemy? He certainly threatened you but you don’t want to kill him. You were not afraid. He was really really afraid. The death of the 19 yr was to some extent the “death of fear”. That is what all these wars on ideas are about: the war on drugs, the war on terror, and even the imaginary war on Christmas.
The daily menu of fear is what the current “centrist” and neocon leadership offers us.
Booman, you are brave. You were brave in that moment. You are brave to say things in public that many people will hate. Cowardice and not bravery are now the currency of the land of the (not) free.
So see the nasty old man not as the nasty old man he is 80% of the way down, but the 20% that is frightened and angry child in the center.
And then work hard to take away his right to drive,but not out of anger ;->.