Reasons to kill: I'm pissed, Don't Like Mondays or texting in cinemas

Brenda Ann Spencer. "I don't like Mondays."

Usually, the first question we ask on hearing about a murder is, why? What was the motive? An answer to this doesn’t bring the dead back, but it can help a community understand and achieve some level of closure on an otherwise meaningless act of violence. The recent media and government attention on ‘one-punch’ kills in Sydney implies that intoxication is the cause or enabler of latent violent instincts among a small minority of men wandering between bars. But is it the only reason? As professional boxer Danny Green noted when launching his new ad aimed at knocking out ‘coward punches’, plenty of guys built like Thor get drunk and don’t feel the need to harm others.

January 29 marks 35 years since America’s first horrific experience of a mass school shooting. The perpetrator was 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who lived across from the Grover Cleveland Elementary School and opened fire one morning in 1979, killing two adults and injuring eight children and one police officer. Spencer, who remains in prison after being refused parole several times, showed no remorse.

Her explanation for her actions was, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." The sheer senselessness of what happened and Spencer’s apparent ambivalence towards it defied belief and inspired Bob Geldof to pen the Boomtown Rats’ hit, I don’t like Mondays. My Grade 6 teacher introduced our class the song, which had been released a few years earlier. It wasn’t a song that your average 10-year-old would find appealing musically back then, but it did receive a huge amount of airplay on the stations our parents listened to, and he explained the story that had inspired the lyrics. It was as startling to me then as the current spate of (mainly US) inexplicable outbursts of wanton violence.

Tell me why

I don’t like Mondays

Tell me why

I don’t like Mondays

I wanna shoot the whole day down

And daddy doesn’t understand it

He always said she was good as gold

And he can see no reasons

'Cos there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?

These days, the authorities might linger longer on questions such as why the hell “daddy” bought her the gun and 50 rounds of ammunition in the first place (Spencer had stated it was because she thought he wanted her to kill herself).  Or why he’d refused her access to mental health treatment when it was strongly recommended based on her behavior prior to the killings.

America is now so accustomed to outbursts of boredom or rage or whatever it is that drives someone to kill children that there’s a whole market opening up in bulletproof bookcases and other furniture innovations that can be used as barricades. But violence is also erupting elsewhere, and although guns are predominantly the weapon of choice, they’re not the only one.

The last month is littered with examples. Last week, in an affluent part of Illinois, a 14 year-old girl stabbed her 11-year-old sister 40 times, because she didn’t feel the young sibling was showing enough appreciation for what she was doing to keep the house running.  Kathleen Heide, a criminology professor from the University of South Florida, tried to help a nation fathom what would prompt such an act. “Multiple stab wounds can indicate rage as well as dissociation,” she said. Buried within the story was a line that authorities are investigating the girls’ single mother for neglect of her children.

A couple of weeks ago in Florida, a 71-year-old retired police captain fatally shot a theatre-goer who irritated him by sending text messages on his phone during the previews, and ignored his escalating requests to desist. What provoked him is clear. Less so, how it is that an apparently civilized, intelligent man formerly responsible for upholding law and order as a cop was unable to control and appropriately channel his anger.

In Australia, most of us are dumbfounded that President Obama’s attempts at very liberal gun control measures repeatedly fail in the wake of such incidents. John Howard’s decisive action following the Port Arthur massacre and the statistics since prove a direct relationship between the accessibility of firearms and acts of violence. In an absurdly funny segment, The Daily Show’s John Oliver investigated this in the context of why the US wouldn’t follow an example of country that took action on gun control and reaped the benefits.

But even if America ever manages to overcome the widespread fears of tyranny and police states and sentiments like the NRA’s “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun”, understanding and tackling the deep-seated issues that provoke people to be violent is a problem shared by all countries, including Australia, where fists and knives are equally lethal.

Last weekend, a gunman shot dead two people before turning the gun on himself in a busy shopping mall in Maryland in the United States. At this stage, his motive – the key question everybody needs an answer to – remains unknown.

A mall employee, present during the shootings spoke a candid, horrifying truth. "This country needs a lot of help,” she told reporters tearily. “When somebody is that angry to go to a mall on a Saturday morning and shoot people, we're in a lot of trouble. To push people to those limits where things like that happen makes no sense."

Controlling weapons is a good start to reducing deaths. But as a society, we also need to examine– beyond blaming alcohol and drugs and accessibly to weapons – what is driving people to hurt others in such senseless acts of violence.  

Boston marathon bombing response

  

"CAPTURED!!!" Boston's finest after securing the city

When I’d hear emergency services personnel responding to questions after doing heroic acts in the line of duty saying things like, “I was just doing my job” or “Any other officer in my position would have done the same”, I’d feel a bit frustrated. Why always the same trite and deferential sound bites? Why can’t they bask in the glory a little?

But it all became clear after I took in the aftermath of the Boston bombings and the now famous tweet from the Boston Police Department: 

“CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won."

Shortly afterwards, people stumbled out on the streets, eyes blinking in the blaze of flashing lights piercing the black night. They’d been holed up in their homes, glued to the TV, watching the drama unfold in 2D. Now, they gathered as the makeshift cavalcade of police cars, military vans, unmarked federal vehicles and ambulances rolled past. And in another hemisphere, we looked at the telly and felt the same sense of relief and happiness to see those people absorb what had just happened - kids in pajamas, men and women waving American flags and cheering.   

It was eerie to reflect that just days earlier, people had stood in much the same way – either side of a road, applauding the feats of other humans as they crossed a finish line. But as with the marathon after the bombing, the end point of this quest seems blurred. And the triumphant, tweeted declaration that “it’s over” “it’s done” seems apt for the battle maybe, but not the war.

As the seemingly endless procession of vehicles drove past, the early golf claps of a few gave way to a more hearty wave of jubilation and praise for the blackened windows of strangers passing by – those who had performed untold feats to deliver a victory savoured by all.

As the crowd grew more confident in showing their appreciation, so too did the recipients of their admiration. A car window wound down here and there to reveal a thumbs up, or a wave. A policeman smiling through pursed lips. And then, emboldened by the roaring cheers of the gathered masses, an ominous looking armoured black SWAT vehicle slowed in front of the TV cameras.

A faceless voice spoke through the vehicle’s PA system, “Thank you. Thank you. It was our pleasure,” it said to the escalating cheers. And then, “BPD! BPD! BPD!” for Boston Police Department. The crowd caught on pretty quickly, chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in response.

It was a uniquely American moment, as only non-Americans could understand. A brazen show of patriotism, in the shadow of an attack seemingly aimed at its heart. Some say sex is the antidote to grief, and is never more passionate than straight after a funeral. Using a similar analogy, it’s not surprising that many Americans turn to highly demonstrable nationalism at times when their way of life seems most threatened.

In the preceding hours, there was little freedom to be found as Bostonians were told to abandon work and school and lock themselves inside their homes, to be opened only to heavily armed SWAT teams. The relief that swept the city once the curfew and imminent threat were lifted was palpable and understandable.

Less so, the lack of professional humility in the wake of what had been a highly volatile and unpredictable build up. Even the usually circumspect President Obama blew on this flickering flame, inciting a modern-day incarnation of Manifest Destiny, in his post-arrest address. “One of the things that makes America the greatest nation on Earth...” he began. It was a speech designed to rally Americans feeling vulnerable in the aftermath of a horrible, illogical act, and to rouse a sense of united belief and pride in the nation’s cultural diversity.

But in the arrogant declaration of supremacy, the President – like the ill-considered Tweet and the faceless voice-over from the loudspeaker – gave the impression to the rest of the world that America just doesn’t get it sometimes. The US is our friend, ally, and first cousin. In this most poignant of moments though, America seemed like the popular kid in school, who makes a dumb, unfunny joke about another kid’s dead mother. The friends look on, shake their heads and say, “That wasn’t cool, man”.

In the supercharged atmosphere borne of adrenalin, fatigue and genuine fear that accompanies a crisis, I want my emergency personnel cool-headed. We can fall about ourselves, get drunk on New Year’s Eve and try to take a copper’s hat and kiss him, but in the end, we want that same policeman to give a reluctant smile and keep looking for trouble in the crowd behind us. I don’t want nurses to recoil when they see my injuries. I don’t want army officers to take ‘glory’ pictures of a fallen enemy. And I sure as hell don’t want police officers leading a chant of Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! after they secure our community. I want them to nod graciously at our adulation, celebrate a good day at the office in private with their colleagues and do it all again tomorrow, the same way. 

So next time I hear emergency service personnel brush off suggestions of gratitude or heroism from a thankful public, I’ll marvel at their humility and grace, as much as I stand in awe of their courage, selflessness and professionalism in doing what they do.

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