Greer McVay’s Web Log (BLOG)

Volume 1, Issue 4

March 28, 2009

Last weekend four Oakland, CA, police officers were brutally murdered. Since their assailant also died in the subsequent gun battle we may never know the real motive behind his actions. We can probably assume safely, as do the police, that he simply did not want to return to jail, given the fact that a no-bail warrant had been issued for his arrest. Others, however, seem to feel that this person’s actions were in some way heroic and potentially inspired by retribution for the killing of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police. Whatever his motives, he was indeed a monster, despite claims to the contrary by his family.

Some supporters of the gunman want to suggest that his personal and financial situation compelled him to do this heinous act. He was struggling to find a job in this down economy; his criminal record exacerbated his failed job search; his parole officer neglected to adequately provide support; his dog barked; his car overheated; his big toe got stubbed; and so on. Who gives a shit?!? Perhaps he did get some tough breaks that propelled him into a life of crime. Perhaps he didn’t have the tools to excel in the dog-eat-dog world we live in. Perhaps his parents didn’t give him enough hugs and kisses as a child. Join the club. None of those things are or should be factors in his decision to kill the officers who had the audacity to just do their jobs on a late-March afternoon. A lengthy discussion with a friend yesterday revealed a possibility that I hadn’t considered: Perhaps he was high on drugs and police would rather not divulge that he was temporarily incapable of making coherent decisions, so that they could perpetuate the monster stereotype versus the stoned out-of-his-mind stereotype. Again, who cares?

By showing anything other than disdain for the behavior [murders] and results of the behaviors [five families shattered beyond recognition], supporters of the gunman are hurting any future opportunities of obtaining any real gains in much-needed race relations or police reform because the credibility of those who seek such outcomes will be forever impaired. The man who killed these officers was no Rosa Parks. He is not a cause that any thinking person would or should embrace. Like the boys of the Jena 6 and countless other “causes,” once it becomes clear that the “victim” either provoked the situation or at minimum, lacked innocence and therefore may have contributed to their own dire circumstances and consequences, the do-gooders who support them are fighting a battle that they should not win. There are enough true victims out there that we don’t need to martyr the likes of this cold-blooded killer in order to make a point that in many instances police practice brutality. This is not one of those instances.

The individual who committed this crime against at least five Oakland police officers (one was treated at the hospital and released), was not trying to get his life together, as his family would have us believe. Ex-convicts who are trying to get their lives together do not drive around with loaded guns in their cars, nor do they possess assault rifles that they use in gun battles with SWAT. On the contrary, it is a monster that would flee the scene of a murder he just committed, and head to his sister’s home, where she lives with her four year old child and then proceed to have a shootout with police in her home. Who would put their own sister and niece in harms way like that? The fact that he went into her closet with a rifle suggests that he knew he would likely be tracked to that location and might need to defend himself.

The difference between a human being and an animal is the human’s ability to control animal instincts. Humans can weigh consequences and make rational decisions—even in the heat of battle. Animals cannot. Monsters are worse than animals because they have malicious intent, where animals do not. This man was a monster and should be reviled as such. His grave should be spat upon. I would recommend sympathy for his family, but their attempts to justify his behavior by making him a victim of a failed system doesn’t make them any better than him. There is no justification for the brutal murder of four men doing their jobs and to suggest that there is is unconscionable.

Let the healing begin for everyone associated with this series of unfortunate incidents. And may God have no mercy on the soul of the gunman.