Quite often a brief news story sums up the collective pathologies of postmodern American society. Here is a recent tragic news item from my local paper, followed by some commentary:
Police call slaying of Hanford woman a random act Posted at 06:04 p.m. on Thursday, July 28, 2011
By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee
A woman found slain at a Hanford car wash this week was killed randomly when a 17-year-old gang member happened to see her while taking a walk, Hanford police said Thursday.
Denise McVay was washing her car — something she did several times a week — early Tuesday morning before work.
The teen was wandering the streets after leaving a party when he saw McVay at the Royal Car Wash on Garner Avenue at about 5 a.m. and decided to kill her, police said.
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The teen “simply wanted to kill somebody that night” and McVay, 49, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Capt. Parker Sever said. “It was a purely random act.”
The teen stabbed McVay several times and slit her throat.
The teen took McVay’s money and her car, Sever said, and drove to the home of a fellow gang member, Mauricio Ortiz, 18, of Hanford. Sever said the teen was covered with blood and told Ortiz what he had done.
Ortiz helped him ditch the car at Tachi Palace Casino and went with him to Visalia Mall, where the teen used McVay’s money to buy clean clothes, Sever said.
The teen, whose name was not released because of his age, was booked into the Kings County Juvenile Center on suspicion of murder. Ortiz was booked into the Kings County Jail on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact.
Walk through this story to learn something about our confused American society. First, note the discrepancy between the employed Ms. McVay — washing her car in the early morning hours on her way to work, apparently intent on having a clean automobile when she arrived — and the unidentified youth who, we are told at first, was “taking a walk,” later expanded into “wandering the streets after leaving a party.” How did we go so nonchalantly in a mere two paragraphs from “taking a walk” to “wandering the streets after leaving a party”?
In our present society, an able-bodied young man of 17 has leisure to walk about at 5 a.m. after a night of partying, while a hard-working woman squeezes in such an early morning moment to wash her car in order to appear presentable at work.
Note, furthermore, that our society has no compunction about letting the world know the identity of Ms. Denise McVay, who was horribly murdered and left dead on the pavement of a car wash. But it is worried that we might learn the name of the “17-year-old gang member,” also known as an anonymous “teen.” Yet why are we, as a society, more sensitive to disclosing the identity of a gang-member and suspected killer than of a slain productive worker?
In the transition from a shame culture to a guilt culture, America has become a confused society that values the sensitivities of the felonious living far more than respect for the law-abiding dead. Could it not simply waive anonymity protocols in cases of capital crimes? If 16- or 17-year-old would-be murderers knew that their names, addresses, and photos would be published on commission of a crime, would that create any deterrence to their viciousness — or at least provide solace to the community that barbaric killers do not slide so easily through the special exemptions afforded to immature “teens”?
Unfortunately, the story only becomes more depressing. We next read that the anonymous teen “simply wanted to kill somebody that night,” and, unfortunately, Ms. McVay, 49, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” So a Capt. Parker Sever goes on to characterize the fact that “the teen stabbed McVay several times and slit her throat” as “a purely random act.”
The law-enforcement officer, who no doubt means well, nonetheless describes a productive worker, striving to clean her car, as “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” But in fact, it is the anonymous teen who is in the wrong place at the wrong time — as if civilization could possibly continue if the majority followed his wrong hours and wrong behavior. Ms. McVay, in fact, was in the right place at the right time, and she should have had every expectation that that she could go to the car wash before work without worry that a murderous gang-banger would slit her throat.
Yes and if you have an Anglo last name (like here in Ventura County), the incompetent and corrupt judges, (uneducated) cops and DAs see dollar signs. If you have a Latino last name--unless you're dressed very nicely--better to let you go, you won't help with pensions anyway!
And that is not to mention the fact that America takes nonviolent offenders and locks them up for years with violent monsters. (Every industry may be failing but we're producing dangerous criminals more efficiently than ever!)
Go spend two years with people who want to stab you every day and then tell me how it's all about choices and has nothing to do with environment.
I'm all for fair punishment, but does a kid who paid his rent for a year with check fraud money really deserve to be locked up with someone who raped and killed a child or murdered several people?
Some of these righteous judges of other men might not appreciate meeting God, he may show them what it would be like if they were forced to reconcile their own characters with the level of judgement they apply to others.
We are not producing dangerous criminals more efficiently than ever. Violent crime has dropped substantially ever since California's three strike law went into effect. I live in Ventura County and we are lucky with have an Hang'em High District Attorney and all those corrupt judges your referred to. If you can't do the time, then don't do the crime.
If there is any hope for your future education, you need to experience what this woman experienced, then you might get a clue. You would have knowledge but only for the few moments left to you. My jurisprudence professor in law school didn't "get" this problem until he and his wife were mudered in their bedroom. I'm pretty sure he finally understood the answer I gave to one of his exam questions on criminal conduct. In any event, you are what is commonly referred to as a useful ... Well you know the rest of the term. We all do because your side so depends on the proliferation of the clinically stupid.
We had a recent similar episode in Charlotte, NC. A hospital executive, a Marine officer, after breakfast with his wife, a nurse, decided to walk home 2 blocks at 10 am while his wife drove to work.
He was killed by young thug who was "looking for someone to rob."
Within a few days he was arrested. Then our wonderful newspaper, the Charlotte Observer, was describing this thug as a victim-- A 18 y/o unmarried father of 3, just trying to make ends meet.
Of course, the prosecutors decided they would not seek the death penalty.
The only personal solution is to be vigilant land be armed.
Thanks for another outstanding and thought provoking article. I probably would have just glanced over that story and thought it a shame, but you have made me go much deeper.
Try reading the first few paragraphs of Hanson's piece without getting the feeling he's the kind of guy who gets really upset that it's called a "near-miss" and not a "near-collision," or that people park in driveways and drive on parkways.
Seriously, Hanson's indignation is rightly unbounded. Who among us does not despise this perp?
Hanson does just about everything he can do, however, to stop himself from saying . . .
This righteous judge understands we are at war and is armed accordingly.
I believe there are still more people like Denise McVay in our society than violent thugs like her killer, but it's obvious there are more bad guys than the police can handle. So I don't rely on police for my personal safety any more.
If Ms. McVey had been armed, and had shot the murderer, she would have been facing both criminal and civil legal processes, with no assurance that she would come through those things unscathed.
The world has turned upside-down.
If those among us who live law-abiding lives really understood how many thugs there are out there who would kill them for no articulable reason, they would be shocked and terrified.
But if Ms. McVey had been armed and presented the misguided yute with the business end of of a nice heavy caliber it is likely he would have continued on his merry way. Perhaps after wetting himself. This, incidentally, is how the vast majority of law-abiding possessors of firearms -vs- potential perps get resolved...despite the media's insistence that we'll shoot the place up an any available opportunity.
Anyone who lives in an area where they routinely lock their house doors or their car while driving around town ought to consider legally arming and training themselves. One action is no more paranoid than the other. If you live in an area where you can't do so legally...then move. Since the police obviously consider a public area at 5 in the morning to be no-mans-land...if you have to be out in it you're on your own.
I couldn't agree with you more, but here in California the pistol packing law-abiding citizen has just made himself non law-abiding.
Since we are ruled by Democrats and will be until eternity ends, we are forced to make the choice of protecting ourselves (and facing the legal consequences)* or remaining prey for after the party meandering psychopathic gangbangers.
* A large campaign contribution to a local sheriff can sometimes result in the issuance of a Concealed Carry Permit. More California corruption at its finest.
Authorities had not previously named the 17-year-old Saldana because he is a juvenile. But because authorities decided to try him as an adult, they made the information public on Friday.
I once lived in Hanford. It was then a racially tiered society, with well-heeled Anglos at the top of the heap. When a highly successful Chinese family tried to move into the upscale suburb, the barriers went up. Blacks knew their place; so did Hispanics, though their propensity for violence was tolerated, in part as a means to intimidate less affluent but uppity Anglos. Intellectually gifted kids learned to keep a low profile. If, no, when they ran afoul of the hoodlums, the inevitable response was that they somehow deserved whatever they got. That was more than a half century ago. I'm sure there is now an overlay of guilty liberalism that has only made things worse. All I know is that I happily left Hanford for Europe and never went back...
Although I agree with VDH completely about the pretzel like PC language contortions - it's actually not as bad as he portrays.
The reason is: the press, the academy, the entertainment industry (and those pressured to talk their language - like police chiefs and D.A.'s) perpetrate this fraud in the face of the way most Americans think and speak about it. It's an elite driven mindset mostly.
But regular Americans are largely immune to its effect - I think evidenced by the return of the death penalty, three-strike laws, conceal & carry laws, castle doctrine laws, and expansion of the prison population.
Somehow, people's natural sense of justice has withstood this inter-generational reeducation program.
My question is simple, why should "regular Americans" have to tolerate the poor choices of "the press, the academy and the entertainment industry"? Why don't these pillars of our society more accurately reflect the values of us "regular Americans"?
Why should we be forced to read between the lines that are routinely handed to us by these dysfunctional yet important industries? Shouldn't the people who inhabit these places reflect the thoughts of the people who fund them?
The effort it takes to decode the messages sent to us by the liberal elites in their ivory cocoons requires energy that could readily be used elsewhere. For me, I'd rather have the truth and I'd rather have prominent members of my society act more as VDH describes. Where is the outrage on behalf of the innocent victim? Does hollywood or the McClatchy group really care? If not, how can they be made to?
