… And People Wonder Why?

One of the questions I’ve heard people ask the most over the years dealt with the question “Why are things like this?” It seems that whenever something tragic happens, especially when something happens that is tragic, people seem to become perplexed and question why people can do the things they do. The following incident is a prime example of such an occasion.

According to an article found on the Fox10 Phoenix site, entitled “Photo-Radar Van Driver Shot to Death”, the outrage against the photo radar cameras put along our highways was taken to another level. Fox10Phoenix reported:

“A suspect was arrested Monday in connection with the shooting death of a man operating a photo radar unit in Phoenix, but police said it’s too soon to know the motive.”

According to the article:

“Thomas Patrick Destories, a 68-year-old Phoenix man, was booked into Maricopa County jail on suspicion of first-degree murder after he made “incriminating statements,” Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said..”

It was also stated:

“Doug Georgianni, 51, was shot Sunday night as he operated a photo radar van on a Phoenix freeway and later died at a hospital”.

According to the article, Sgt. Hill said investigators believed that Destories pulled his Blazer up behind the photo-radar van around 9 PM on Sunday and when he felt it was the right time… he slowly pulled alongside of the van and then fired a gun into the vehicle multiple times. At the time, Mr. Georgianni, a RedFlex Employee, was sitting in the driver’s seat and was hit several times by the gunshots.

This article was picked up on the social media site called Digg, commonly known as “Digg” by it’s members, in a submittal to the site called “Violence goes too far with photo radar cameras in Phoenix” where it referred to the MyFoxPhoenix article and stated:

“A man operating a state police photo radar unit was shot to death while parked in his vehicle along a stretch of a north Phoenix freeway. Police say the victim died a short time after he was taken to a hospital. He worked for RedFlex Traffic Systems Inc., which operates photo enforcement vehicles on state highways.”

Who’s to Blame?

One of the first reactions people have, whenever some tragedy occurs, is to try to understand what has transpired and to levy blame. Many people will make an honest attempt to lay the blame where it belongs in a logical and reasonable way, while others will use such an event to try to further some personal or political agenda they wish to promote.

In an editorial on the AzCentral site, entitled “Who’s to blame for photo-radar killing?”, the Arizona Republic editorialist Laurie Roberts stated:

“The escalating war of words boiled over, onto a guy who was just trying to make a living. Since then, there’s been a knock-down-drag-out fight under way in this state about who is to blame for Doug Georgianni’s death.

She outlined the situation rather well by saying some want to blame the Department of Public Safety and Redflex, while others wanted to praise the act as some type of patriotic thing. Laurie summarized her answer in a more rational way. She stated:

“The real answer, of course, is that neither group is responsible for Sunday night’s tragedy. The blame rests with one nut job who saw a photo radar van on the side of the road and decided to end a man’s life.”

Although it is true that Mr. Georgianni’s death may never have occurred if he worked for someone else, if Redflex never had the contract to handle these photo-radar units, or if the State of Arizona didn’t put these photo-radar cameras out on our highways… a rational and logical person could not lay blame with Mr. Georgianni, Redflex or the State - unless what was being done was deemed illegal by a court of law prior to the shooting incident. Even if the cameras were deemed illegal the fact is that it’s illegal for average “Joe Citizen” to take the law into his or her own hands – such acts are considered as vigilantism.

Vigilantism

According to The Free Dictionary by Farflex, Vigilantism is the:

Taking the law into one’s own hands and attempting to effect justice according to one’s own understanding of right and wrong; action taken by a voluntary association of persons who organize themselves for the purpose of protecting a common interest, such as liberty, property, or personal security; action taken by an individual or group to protest existing law; action taken by an individual or group to enforce a higher law than that enacted by society’s designated lawmaking institutions; private enforcement of legal norms in the absence of an established, reliable, and effective law enforcement body.

Although it is claimed that the history of vigilantism in the United States began with the American Colonists on December 16, 1773 with the Boston Tea Party, it is deemed that with each case of vigilantism the vigilantes risk starting a cycle of lawlessness and violence in which the victims of vigilantism take the law into their own hands to exact pay-back. This is one of the reasons why no state or federal jurisdiction offers any kind of “vigilante defense” to criminal prosecution and vigilantes must rely on the moral rectitude of their cause to justify their acts.

The foundation of the American legal system rests on the Rule of Law, a concept embodied in the notion that the United States is a nation of laws and not of men. Under the rule of law, laws are thought to exist independent of, and separate from, human will. Even when the human element factors into legal decision-making, the decision maker is expected to be constrained by the law in making his or her decision.

Anonymity and Responses

Mark Curtis, of 12 News in Phoenix, wrote a very good article called “Not da man” on his AZCentral Blog. It’s a short article, something that I obviously have a hard time doing, but never the less it’s a good article. In that article he stated:

“I want to talk about anonymity. Writing this blog, doesn’t afford me the luxury of putting my views out there anonymously. Everyone who reads what I write, whether they like it or not, whether they like me or not, knows who I am”.

Mark then went on to tell us how this observation pertains to the news story about the photo-radar shooting:

“The same can’t be said for those of you who respond. Most of the time, that’s not a problem. I take the good with the bad, and appreciate your honest responses. But that’s not what this blog is about. It’s about spineless anonymity from folks like “Todd-Da Man” who wrote in to the anti-photo radar website “CameraFraud.com” praising the killing of Doug Georgianni. There’s no way a guy like “Todd” would ever show some backbone by signing his real name or going in front of TV cameras where someone could see his face. It’s only because “Todd Da Man” knows he can remain anonymous that he felt secure in spewing his venom.”

On the personal level, I’ve watched Mark Curtis doing his news and sports reports over the years and in my opinion he always seemed like a decent sort of chap. He always gave an air of being a nice and unflappable type of guy. So what exactly did “Todd da Man” say to make this “mild-mannered reporter” upset enough to lose his composure on a public blog site? According to Mark’s Blog, Todd stated:

“The more these radar vans get shot up and/or burned, the better!! This will be our version of the Boston Tea Party; only this will involve shooting up DPS enforcement vehicles!! Hooray for guns!!”

Reflections Upon Change

In the 60s and 70s public responses to the news and information we heard or read was pretty much limited to writing letters to the editors of the newspaper or reply to the station managers of their local TV Stations. Some areas did have evening radio talk shows, but other than people talking to workmates or family and friends – writing letters were pretty much the only way for Joe Citizen to voice their opinions in a public forum.

The past 15 to 20 years changed all of that with the rise of “The Internet”. The Internet offered chat rooms, message forums and other online social communities where anyone with a connection to the Internet could voice their opinions publicly to others in the community they belonged. This phenomenon took the nation and world by storm and Internet Communities sprung up by the tens of thousands. Today millions of people use the various forums and communities on the net. ICQ (pronounced “I Seek You”) has boast to having anywhere from 40 to over 100 million users, while Digg shows a membership of over 5 million (according to the last number I’ve heard).

Many of these forums allow it’s members to use ‘Nicknames’ or “Handles’ in place of their real name and they boast about guarding it’s members private information faithfully. In theory the only way one member knows who another member is, or where they are located, is if the member gives out his or her personal information. Those who are more experienced at the Internet Messaging game know that this isn’t always the case, but still many users of the net out there feel confident that their anonymity is in tact and no one has any idea of who they are. This ‘sense of anonymity’ and ‘feeling of security’ on the net has given rise to the type of Internet user known as “The Troll’.

What is “A Troll”?

According to Dictionary.com, an (Internet) Troll is:

An individual who regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net.

In short a Troll is a person who intentionally and regularly makes deceptive arguments and insulting remarks meant to incite anger in order to cause upset with other members of a community or insight disharmony and discord within the forum. According to what I have read about Todd da Man, I think he stands as a fine example of the entity known as the “Internet Troll”. Todd, to me, sounds more like a younger teen, or immature adult, who is trying to present himself as some type of “big man on campus” by making comments that he doesn’t fully understand that sound ‘tough’ and ‘patriotic’.

Caution: Trolls at Work

Todd da Man isn’t the only one on the net spouting inane comments. If you bother to look around the net then you will find that there are many like him and worse who are using this tragedy to spew inane and venomous commentary that have little or nothing to do with the story. They are simply using the story to further some political or personal agenda.

For example… Digg is a social media site that allows its members, commonly known as “Diggers”, to not only submit and “Digg” (vote on) items… but the site also allows for comments to be made about the items submitted by the members of Digg. The item concerning the photo radar story harbored, at least, two responses of a similar nature to the comments made by Todd da Man. Take a quick look at the two responses I selected for my examples.

“To me this is the Arizona government using a ‘Human Shield’ system to keep the cops out of harms way and put regular citizens in the cross hairs of the public’s obvious anger. If you are going to treat everyone like criminals, then you ought to have police officers out on the front line doing the work, not regular citizens.”

And:

“This is simple physics - the state pushes, the people push back. Of course there are more civilized ways of pushing back….this is just one approach.”

These two responses are similar to Todd’s in respect to the comments totally ignoring the content of the original story. The commentators opted to ignore the fact that the story was about a man who was murdered by another and this act indicated a rise in violence against photo-radar units. The story was not about the moral ramifications of the photo-radar camera upon our way of life, but rather the fact that some misguided idiot decided in his infinite wisdom that it was proper to go out to destroy or damage property that he did not own and murdered a man in the process.

Now notice that all three posters above made a feeble attempt to justify a murder of an innocent man in order to push their own opinions about the photo-radar unit use on our public highways. These people don’t even mention that cameras are used to keep track of shoplifters or used for security in public places on a regular basis. Their only concern is the camera use on the highways. So I guess it’s ok to ‘spy’ on shoppers or people walking through parking lots, but it is some constitutional crisis to take a picture of someone who is breaking the law by speeding.

Let’s move on to other sites on the net and see what types of comments are being made. A comment on the Fox10 Comments page states:

“The Second Amendment is to blame. Another senseless act of gun violence has claimed an innocent person’s life.”

Another person replied to the Fox10 site:

“I’m glad to see that the guy was killed. Anyone that works for RedFlex should be gunned down like a dog. These people are out to make a profit on the mistakes of others. They make the red light cameras, speeding cameras on freeways, and pretty soon sidewalk cameras so they can make a profit if you spit on the sidewalk.

No pity from me. The dead guy deserved it for working for RedFlex. I hope that criminals kill them all. In my opinion there is nothing better than a dead RedFlex employee and I hope the guy that killed him is never found.

Good to see an American take up arms against a repressive government. The state and police will whine that they are only trying to protect you. You know they are only doing it for money. There is no question of this. Are you going to be their ATM machine?”

Yet a 3rd person on the Fox site stated:

“I went through Phoenix at 77 MPH at 11 PM on a Sunday night and received two tickets in the mail. The camera operator was killed. That’s good. The killer should be given 72 virgins and a million dollars.”

All of these people fared no better in understanding the story that Todd da Man and the two Diggers. My favorite is the person who was caught going 77 MPH through Phoenix. I presume this person was not driving down Central or Adams in Phoenix, but rather on the 10 or 17 where the speed limit is 65 MPH. If this person would have used more sense and kept to less than 10 MPH over the limit, i.e. 65 to 70 MPH, then the cameras would have never caught the speeding driver. At any rate the laughable, but sad, part is that this person thought that the Killer did a great thing and should be awarded for killing an innocent camera operator.

The Point

The point needing stressed is that the original article was not concerning Redflex, its employees or whether photo-radar cameras are illegal, immoral or just plain fattening. It wasn’t about gun control or the 2nd amendment or some political agenda. It wasn’t even concerning the moral or ethical issues of the photo-radar unit. The article was about a person who took it upon himself to not only try to destroy or damage property, which was not his to destroy or damage, but also that he shot and killed a man in the process.

What’s not to understand about these simple facts?

When reading such replies I wonder what views these people making some of these comments have on such issues as the Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, ‘drive-by shootings’, or the taking of a life for the preservation of children or innocent people?

I can’t help to wonder how they would respond if a loved one of theirs was shot and killed because someone decided that he or she didn’t like something that involved the job the loved one was doing.

I wonder how they would feel if someone tried to say that their ‘Loved One” deserved death because of the job they were doing?

Most of all… it makes me wonder what type of hypocritical answers one would get from these ‘Trolls’ spewing their venomous commentaries or twisted views about this particular incident.

Noli nothis permittere te terere.

Noli nothis permittere te terere, or as commonly put “Non Illegitimi Carborundum” is about the way to sum this up because (as we all seem to know) everything sounds better in Latin, or pseudo-Latin. In English I would say with a sigh “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”. Mark put it well by saying, “take the good with the bad”.

I firmly believe everyone has a right to his or her opinion, we should all be able enjoy the freedom of speech and freedom of expression. On the other hand this doesn’t mean that if you or I say something that there won’t be some form of repercussion coming our way for saying it.

On the Internet the repercussions we receive for our words are angry words in reply, rarely does one Internet user take the time and trouble to seek out another to give him or her a good old-fashioned punch in the mouth for the words that were spoken. Many on the net realize this and it instills a false sense of security in them, which makes them ‘brave”. In the world outside of the net many people would think twice about what they say before saying something that could send them to the hospital by the person they have angered.

The coward that Mark referred to most likely never thought in terms of cowardice or bravery, however Todd da Man probably did feel pretty proud of himself for the words he wrote. People like Todd most often will have a blustering retort to being called a coward, but the reality of it all is that he probably didn’t have the ability to think of his comments as being brave or cowardly. The comment itself shows he didn’t think much at all.

On the Internet you find people like Todd quite often, it’s just the way life is in the world of Internet messaging. Take heart, people, not everyone on the net is a blithering idiot. Digg, like every other community on the net, has it’s own brand of trolls, nut jobs and normal people simply citing their own opinions. On such reasonable Digger stated:

“This isn’t about whether or not traffic cams are right. I don’t like them either, but the fact is that someone who doesn’t even have any traffic tickets chose to act violently and now there’s a widow, a bunch of other camera operators not working, a previously successful business which will surely now fail (his jeep tour company), and even more anger from the general population. What did this act accomplish? Don’t blame the cop or the state for this.

A question I had. If he didn’t know that someone was in the van, why did he choose to shoot into the window, rather than shoot at the side or back?”

“What did this act accomplish?”

I can only give my opinion on this, and I am sure there will be many who disagree with me, but I can say with confidence that this act accomplished absolutely nothing… unless you figure that the incident set back any progress made by the anti-photo-radar crowd.

The photo-radar cameras are still in use along the highways and streets, the lawmakers seemed to have wavered on the idea of removing these cameras entirely, and the people became outraged over the incident – even numerous people who are against these cameras find the crime so heinous that they refuse to use the incident in their battle against these units.

… And People Wonder Why?

Now we have come full circle and back to the question with which we started.

In today’s society we find that Morals and Ethics seem to be a thing of the past. The sheer numbers of people who protest against anyone teaching their children any type of morality, then don’t bother to teach their children the proper morality themselves, are rising at alarming rates. The question of “whose Morality?” often only serves the teaching of no morality at all. It also seems that Good Manners and Common Courtesy seems to “have gone by the wayside” as well, along with Respect for self and Respect for others. It seems that everyone wants these things, but not everyone wants to give it.

As far as Spirituality and Religion are concerned, the right guaranteed us by our founding fathers for the Freedom of Religion seems to have been replaced by “The Freedom From Religion”. Unless you happen to be a member of ‘the religion of the week”, then religion is generally put down and one of the things to blame for anything from constipation to murder. Spirituality seems to be still all right, as long as you don’t preach your spirituality too much and it’s of one of the philosophies that are deemed acceptable to the anti-religion crowd.

The idea of Consideration for Others is something often brought up when one feels that others are not being considerate enough of them personally or their views, however it is something completely different when one is expected to give it to others.

The concept of Selfishness and the wants of the Individual have became far more important than the needs and wants of the group. People have always been self-centered and selfish for as long as I can remember, however over the past 20 years or so the “Me First” ideology seemed to just blow the ideology of ‘everyone has rights’ right out of the water.

Most of all it seems that People want to find blame in others for everything, while they go to great lengths to exonerate everything they do wrong. People simply do not want to feel responsible for the continuing problems. It seems that people are more susceptible to the belief of great conspiracies going on than to be willing to say “Hey, I contributed to this mess”.

Final Word

It may not be apparent to many readers out there, but all of this and more contribute to the way things are today. There are approximately 300 million people in America today, according to the US Census Bureau. The American Society is one of the most diverse groups on the face of this planet. That means that people will disagree with other people and most will honestly believe their views are the right views, but more so it means that everyone has rights to be protected.

Rights are not all encompassing, nor are they permanent. The only reason why it seems as if our rights are “God-given” or a “Birthright” is because our society and our government (to some extent) have demanded that it be that way. A truly knowledgeable person knows that many times this idea of “rights” fall into a gray area where if the rights of one conflicts too badly with the rights of another then that issue has to be resolved in a court of law. In order to make the decision of the court truly binding then all parties involved must accept the decision of the court on a permanent or temporary basis until the ruling can be overturned. This is what makes the rule of law work and helps keeps us from falling into utter chaos.