Sniper Pay The Piper

Sniper To Pay The Piper

By Roy D. Follendore III

October 30, 2002

After the first four murders, like most people I began to take an interest in the sniper. There was obviously something very different about this killer. We did not know then that these murders were being carried out by two people. It was obvious from the beginning that these were not so much murders as much as they were executions. The people being killed had nothing to do with each other. There was apparently no common denominator. After the ninth murder, the fear that was propagated by the sniper rose far beyond rationality. Americans in the Maryland, D.C. and Virginia area were emotionally shaken to their roots. The police seemed helpless. The Government seemed helpless, and the sniper remained anonymous.

After twenty two days, the inevitable capture of the sniper was an anticlimax. The fact that there were two snipers was not surprising. It was evident through the news that he had been communicating with the Police.

For many around the world the most interesting aspect of the sniper's attacks was not the randomness of the homicides, it was the the societal reaction. It does not really matter if there is one or many murderers. What really matters are the number of murders. There were thirteen sniper attacks. The fact is that in the affected areas between Richmond and Baltimore, there have has often been more than a murder every 1.6 days. So what goes?

What goes is the media. Our society is consumed by media. What we are as a people is formed by the reaction of the media. If a murder is not reported, then the response is routine. If media collectively determines that a story is important, then the politicians that lurk within every organization begin to take notice. When an official gets a microphone pushed in their face, he or she becomes far more important. When a politician gets a microphone pushed in his face, he becomes a viable candidate. Criminal cases are three part plays. There is the crime and the sleuthing of evidence resulting in the capture. But this is where the real long term media opportunities begin, for then there is also the trial and execution stage. Every politician knows that is where reputations are made because that is where the drama of the murders can be replayed. More importantly for the politicians, that is the place where they can show their position to their voting constitutes and plant their name into the consciousness of the public. The longer the trial takes place, the better.

Trials are part of our ancient ritual for blood lust. Punishments are sacrifices which have an ancient history in the evolution of civilization. We originally placed the trial before the punishment not so much to protect the innocent as to increase the anticipation for punishment of the guilty. There was a time not too long ago when executions were opportunities for communities to come together for a celebration and that took time to prepare. Trials are also part of our societal concept of maintaining the principles of perfection. We expect the Universe we live in to exist within reason. Those who abandon reason through their actions should expect to be punished. Those who are not capable of such expectation are not punished because they are considered insane. What an scientifically enlightened way to think of insanity. Insanity perfectly fits the concepts we choose for achieving our preconceptions of justice because it is so perfectly constant. For the majority of Americans, punishment is the same thing as justice. We put criminals in prison to punish them, not to rehabilitate them. For most people, rehabilitation is up to the criminal, not the system. After all, this is a free country.

What the snipers have managed to accomplish has been to turn on the most base aspects of what we are as a society. Our politicians are not only prepared to execute these men prior to a fair trial, they are fighting over the prospect. These individuals who perpetrated these crimes have been tried in the eyes of the public and have been declared fair political game. The fact that the snipers were negros adds to the opportunity of a more interesting politically correct retribution for many white power mongers. None should be able to deny that bias exists. The evidence has been carefully explained to us all through our media. And through our media our politicians are publicly fighting over the bloody entrails of the case. All of this is occurring before the trial to determine exactly which legal precautions are important, apparently so that the maximum punishment or justice can occur to both individuals. Those prosecutors from Maryland who have no death penalty for juveniles are being asked to coordinate with Virginia prosecutors who do. Punishment in Virginia does not care about the age of the punished and that is supposed to be a positive reason for Maryland prosecutors why the sniper should be tried in Virginia first. Maryland prosecutors are being asked to forget that an essential principle of all law is that something should not be allowed to take place indirectly that is disallowed directly by law.

We should all be relieved that the two were caught. The snipers scared us and the societal machine of the lawyers and politicians is relentlessly grinding forward to it's bloody end. There should be no doubt by anyone that the snipers will pay the piper. But whether the process or the result will be justice or not, that is a completely different story. Only one thing is certain, our society has a long way to go before it should be defined as civilized.

One might pause to ask Jesus to help us, but apparently much the same political conditions happened in his particular case. Guilt and punishment has always been part of the politics of the judicial system. The murderer and thief who also died on their own crosses beside Jesus might agree because they were put there through the same judicial system. When Jesus said that we know not what we do I don't think he was just speaking in terms of his own murder. The predominantly Christian ethic of law within the United States has never demonstrated the ability to temper the retribution of justice with inclusive rehabilitation, forgiveness and love. The exact same thing can be said about the other powerful religions. Religions, like societies are exclusive and this exclusivity reflects the value of what we desire.

The nature of the society of mankind is to isolate, abandon, punish and destroy, rather than to include, nurture, praise and correct. This fact is the essence of why these snipers are so much a part of our society and why we celebrate their punishment.

These snipers will pay the piper. They will indeed pay the piper.

Note: Every human put to death represents another failure by our social system. It represents the abandonment of society of it's least citizens. It represents another victim that was not helped, another innocent child that was once lost and never found, many opportunities that were not taken and choices that were not made. The death sentence is not a victory over evil, but a failure of society to recognize and commit the necessary resources to intervene early enough to prevent failure. By treating the death sentence as a victory we politically perpetuate the economics of such failure.

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