Saturday, July 16, 2011
If we were living in a police state he'd still be alive today
This seems to be the thrust of NYS lawmakers in the wake of the Leiby Kletzky tragedy. Known as "The Leiby Initiative" incentives would be offered local merchants to set up surveillance cameras around their places of business. As everyone knows 8-year old Leiby Kletzky was abducted by a stranger by the name of Levi Aron early this past week on his first solo trip home from day camp and he got lost in Borough Park, Brooklyn and asked Mr. Aron for directions. Leiby was smothered to death sometime later after probably putting up a great struggle and dismembered by this monster ironically of the same faith. I knew I would be blogging about this of course but at first my thoughts turned to such philosophical things like The God Problem, why does a loving God allow such tremendous evil? However it takes but a day or two after a tragedy or disaster or some type of social calamity of this sort (think the LIRR massacre or whatever else fits here) for our heroic legislators to step up to the plate and what I am against is the politicization of tragedy. Now we have Caylee's Law being enacted in several states. Bill O'Reilly is for that and it means if you don't report a child missing within a very short period of time, say a day or two then you can be charged with a felony. Evil has been around since the dawn of time and recorded history and yet our lawmakers seem to think they can somehow legislate it away or at least contain it or reduce it or modify it or circumscribe it or mollify it or something. Anyway that's just my view and I'm sure there will be disagreement. The other thing, hindsight is 20/20 of course and now people are coming out of the woodwork as they always do saying Levi Aron was weird, this and that and the other thing, the way he sliced meats down in that kosher deli in Tennessee and do you wanna know how many weird people I worked with over the years? To be weird is not a crime so let's not malign the whole community of the weird here however you define that and OF COURSE he was a loner. Now the vast majority of loners would never even think of doing such a thing and I think we can go out on a limb here and say while the majority of these type killers may be loners the majority of loners are not killers. Finally not that long ago we had a good rollicking discussion, still going on apparently on Race and Crime and while blacks do commit a disproportionate share of everyday crime (I hate to make crime sound so prosaic) whites seem to commit the more bizarre acts of a kind of mind-boggling evil that defies all logic and this goes all the way back to Charles Manson and beyond. This latest tragedy has brought together the Hasidic enclave in Borough Park and shows a tight-knit faith community and that is heartening. There are no more words I can say except don't push the latest atrocity in order to set up some kind of police state as we all know what the road to hell is paved with. That's not the way to go and if folks would just come out of their prescription drug induced fogs or whatever the hell everybody is in these days maybe someone would have noticed something wrong in this situation and taken action without the use of the extra surveillance network the Albany lawmakers are advocating. See Something Say Something. Prayers:)
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A tragic case for sure but how would surveillance cameras have saved this boy's life, only if someone were monitoring the video footage in real time and would have known that an abduction was taking place could it have been prevented.
ReplyDeleteI see it the same way you do. Even if you were watching this in realtime you would probably assume it was a young boy out with his Dad. There is nothing wrong with a shopkeeper or local merchant installing video cameras and such technology around his or her place of business, that's to be expected but something like this coming from our lawmakers makes it dubious for me. I actually penned this blog with soap in mind and thought he'd chime in.
ReplyDeleteSoapie gets busy, he still may chime in. But to think surveillance prevents is giving people false security, it mostly helps find the bad guys after the fact or is used as evidence to convict.
ReplyDeleteFalse sense of security sums it up. Security cameras began as a means to thwart crimes against property. I'm not an advocate of a CCTV society. Of course the argument goes "Well if you're not doing anything wrong....."
ReplyDeleteLet me ask you if you prefer driving with or without a cop tailing your ass?
We live in a police society. The government makes criminals of ordinary citizens all the time.
Have I answered your question(s)?
I knew what you'd say but I like when you say it.
ReplyDeleteBrooklyn DA Charles Hynes just held a press conference at 5:15 yesterday afternoon to say that the alleged killer (the alleged killer who gave a full statement to cops but somehow we have to still keep using the word alleged), Levi Aron first drugged the young boy with various prescription-type drugs it seems before smothering him to death and there were ligature marks on the boy's wrists which indicate he was tied up in a chair. The boy's feet were kept in his refrigerator and the other parts were in a suitcase in a dumpster and he directed detectives there. One of the most disturbing crime cases in NYC history and I got to thinking it must be real hard being a cop these days. Stuff like that has to stay with you your whole life. I've a kind of new found respect for the whole profession.
ReplyDeleteVery difficult job, that is for sure, I thank God for the brave men and women who protect us and who do these difficult tasks.
ReplyDelete