(News We Should Lose 2020)
October 13, 2002, amidst the Washington DC sniper siege, I wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post entitled, “News We Should Lose.” A series of homicidal sneak attacks had struck down seemingly random targets, causing widespread anxiety and panic. A foreboding loomed around the region with anticipatory dread akin to a western showdown.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, police and government officials pontificated assuredly on air as to the psychological nature of the culprit. Similarly, news outlets abounded with coverage featuring a constant stream of experts “profiling” the psychiatric state of the elusive murderer. The message of my piece was simply that we have to presume the sniper is always watching what is publicly said about him. “He is a coward,” intoned President Bush. Montgomery County Police Chief Moose at a news conference bizarrely remarks that he, “hasn’t yet made schools a target.” Until of course hearing you! …
The lurid almost macabre murder of George Floyd will not easily dim from our minds eye. Our nation cannot and should not turn away from transfixed horror and moral revulsion at indifference in taking a life. This and a string of recent incidents has raised the heat from a simmering stew of social injustices to a boiling caldron of suppressed and unattended grievances. Against a backdrop of rising hate crime, the broad coalition of protesters have unleashed a reservoir of ill will toward police as a lightning rod for institutional distrust and disgust. In a civil society, innocent loss of life is always tragic and matters. The broad-based firestorm of protest springs from a blatant visual that confirmed the worst fears of all peoples. This betrayal of “legitimacy “by four police officers has ignited the most negative portrait of police service. …
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