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[Prophet 451]

194. I think it's a tragedy when anyone dies by violence

I think it's a tragedy that Dorner killed four innocent people. I think it's a tragedy that Dorner himself is dead. Not because I sympathize with his actions but because, from what I've been able to gather from over here (the UK), he was obviously mentally unstable (which is quite different to being legally insane). I would have preferred that he was taken alive and stood trial for his crimes (but that was never going to happen, rampage killers rarely let themselves be taken alive) or that he had received some help before his mind unraveled to the point that murder became logical to him.

But this isn't new. Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Catherine Eddows, Mary Jane Kelly. Did any of those names ring a bell? Probably not but I bet you know the nom de crime of the man that killed them. His nickname (probably the creation of some enterprising reporter) was Jack The Ripper. When I was a teenager, I first read about the Ripper. It was 1988, the centennial of his crimes and I became fascinated by this killer that couldn't be caught because society so utterly failed those five women that the least they were owed was to put a face on their killer. Right now, I'm studying criminal psychology. If I am ever well enough to work again, I intend to spend the rest of my life helping to catch and convict criminals. The killers are always remembered, the victims are usually forgotten. That's a horrible fact of human nature, I'm afraid. We remember the aberrant far more easily than we remember their victims. If you want me to wax philosophical, I suspect it's because humans thinks in stories. The story of the monster, the killer who jumps out of the shadows and comes to a grisly end, that's easy to remember but who remembers the monster's victims? We're so used to this story that the details, the victims, cease to matter. One victim, we might remember, if it were especially heinous but more than that and they become just numbers, tally marks. We remember the killer because he was aberrant, unusual. We forget the victims because they were normal, unremarkable but for the way they met their end.

And there are always people who sympathize with the criminal. Do you know which inmate in US custody gets the most mail? Charles Manson. Some of the mail is doubtless from people like me who are looking to understand the criminal mind. Some of it is doubtless death threats or hate mail. But a lot of it is from people who sympathize with Manson or have convinced themselves that he was innocent. Dorner killed two law-enforcement officers, as I understand it. For some, the police are a hated authority, brutal and corrupt (and, in some cases, they're right). And finally, one doesn't need to sympathize with the killer to question how he died. I don't have the full facts at hand so I'm not saying the police handled the matter properly or improperly but if there are questions, they need to be answered.