Horrified passers-by tried to intervene by yelling and pushing the infant's attacker, but the man pushed them away as he repeatedly kicked, punched and stomped the child against the pavement."In the shadows and light it looked like he had hit an animal," said Dan Robinson, the chief of Crows Landing Volunteer Fire Department, who came upon the chaos driving home from a late dinner in Turlock. "As we backed up again, I could see that he had blood on his arms. I could see that it was a small child."
Robinson jumped from his vehicle and confronted the man, who lunged at him. Robinson said the man wasn't screaming and wasn't loud, but was forceful, saying "demons" were in the boy.
"Give me the knife. Give me the knife," the man said as he grabbed for a pen in the fireman's front pocket.
"There was a total hollowness in his eyes," Robinson said, "like I could see right through to the back of his head."
Congratulations to the Modesto police. That dude needed killing.
UPDATE: Let me explain this. I am against the death penalty, not because I believe that murderers have the right to live, but because I don't trust our criminal justice system to determine guilt with unfailing accuracy. As much as I hate the thought of it, I would rather see killers spared the needle than innocent men go to their deaths at the hand of the state. This case in Modesto, though, was a clear example of a killer carrying out as especially brutal murder, and being caught in the act of so doing. I can't pretend that I'm not more satisfied that the cop had no choice but to take that child-killing monster out than to subdue him some other way. Maybe that makes me a bad person. But I really don't care.
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Rob, I'd say that I'm speechless, but I'm rarely that. I am bowing to you in my heart with deep respect for a very fine post that expresses so much that needs saying. My experience parallels yours. That's why I posted up-topic that I cannot afford to give rage free rein, even in my imagination.
That's also why I am deeply disturbed by the shame-based ethics that are so much a part of the more authoritarian outlooks on society. Dumping shame and scorn on people with the flawed personalities you describe is one of the best ways to make them crack in a potentially fatal way. it's like going into a hospital, dumping the patients out of bed and beating them up to motivate them to heal faster.
Trouble is, when you have a flawed personality--as I do--you can feel seriously threatened by the "wrong" things that other people do. And then you are in danger of going off on them instead of responding with a deep breath and the understanding that right now, they need kindness too. I work on that. It's a work in progress, a life's work. So there aren't really words to express how much I appreciate the encouragement I get from posts like yours! Save one person, and you save a whole world. ; )
There's so much referencing to God and Christianity here about this tragedy. It is a tragedy from any perspective. One has to wonder how many of the righteous would have reacted to the slaughter of innocents because of God's command in Numbers 31?
Rod states that this sick man deserved killing. Yet he subscribes to life at conception because of his Christian faith. His Christian faith says God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That God killed David and Bathseba's baby for the sins of the parents.
The Christian God through Moses ordered the slaughter of thousands of women and babies who were prisoners of war. The only ones not slaughtered were virgins and those were divided amongst the soldiers and priests to do what they wanted with them.
Think about Numbers 31. Consider thousands of women and children prisoners of war huddled together, thousands and thousands according to the Bible. Imagine the soldiers ordered to slaughter all but the virgins. Keep in mind this wasn't a situation of pulling the soldiers back and then calling the bombers. This was knives and spears one on one looking them in the eye butchery.
The concept of virginity puts a special kink in it I think. Who decided that thirteen year old girl was still a virgin and how?
One man stomping a baby and Rod gets righteous. What would have been his reaction to God in Numbers 31?
14And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
To put things into perspective consider this.
35And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.
Thirty two thousand virgins spared death to become the property of soldiers and priests. If the virgin girls were half of the children then we can do a little math and suppose Rod's God made His men of God slaughter sixty to ninety thousand innocents?
It doesn't make you a bad person, but it does put you out of step with the Church you loudly proclaim affiliation with. I assume the police shot the man hoping to save the child (and possibly themselves). While that probably is justified, had they subdued him without killing him, then the Orthodox Church would not advocate capital punishment even if the guy was not out of his mind, which he seems to have been.
harvey lacey:
God has His good days and His bad days, too.
I have no answer for the long portions of scripture which describe genocide. Same as I have no really satisfying answer for why evil exists, why it is that a man would even be beating a toddler to death. I've heard some long-winded theological arguments, some of them very complex and pretty, but they all set off the (very healthy) B.S. radar in my head. Things have gone all wrong in our world.
All I know is that it will be all right in the end, though that may be a long time in coming. In the here and now I must do all that is in my power to fight the darkness in the world, and in my own heart. And I must hope that things have already begun to change. It's all one person can do, and it isn't enough.
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