If you watch any news, history or crime TV shows or movies, you would be aware that in some cultures when one member of a family is threatened or accused of a crime, it is not just the person, themselves, who is in danger. The accusers will, while they are taking the law into their own hands, also round up, accuse, accost, hold an instant trial and execute the members of the accused's family.
We hear, read about or watch these horrible things occur and shake our heads and wonder at such barbarism. Yet, today, as I began to write the WeakDay Devotion; as is my habit, I searched the news to see if there was anything pressing for the Body of Christ to be praying about.
What I found was unexpected, yet suspected and very sad for me. Over this past weekend, a young man is accused of setting out and detonating a series of bombs in New York and New Jersey in the United States of America.
Radicalised To Be Terrorists
It is apparent, the entire world has become more -- and rightfully-so -- skittish about "hidden radicals" in every corner of the most unlikely and most likely countries. Nevertheless, New York would easily hold the title "poster child for terrorism". It is an ever-present, underlying edginess that accompanies us if we travel to this popular American destination.
However, few expected that on a casual and relaxed Saturday night, as people strolled around familiar streets in the Indian Summer warmth, that danger stalked. Friends sat with friends at local cafe's and favourite night spots for a good meal and maybe a drink or two.
At approximately 8:30 PM local time an explosion would occur and change many lives. Luckily no one was killed but 29 unsuspecting individuals were wounded both physically and psychologically.
Investigative Training
After the initial carnage was managed, experts began to sift through everything for acres in the same "needle-in-the-haystack" way we have become accustomed to if we watch any of the many forensic crime shows on television or at the cinema.
(It is because of these scientifically accurate programs that I actually have learned how to ensure law officials are greeted by a completely clue-free and neutralised crime scene, how to build a pipe bomb from grocery store ingredients, including what makes the best shrapnel, how to torture someone for the most pain and effect and so that they live a long time through the torture, how to escape with the least chance of apprehension, etc. Really good training for those who wish to DO harm.
And the new media is as much to blame. The investigation and analysis of data and security camera footage were played out step-by-step. Every nuance and bit of minutia were reported by hungry-for-ratings-and-more-advertising-dollars news reporters.
How to Build a Bomb and Not Get Caught
What always astounds me is just how they deliver so much educational information to the next erstwhile criminal! For instance, some cub reporter at the scene of this bomb blast, finding an unexpected crumb that might get them promoted to proper reporter, shared how they knew for certain the young man was the perpetrator because he left a fingerprint on the keypad of the mobile phone that was used to detonate the bomb.
Furthermore, there were detailed reports on just how the mobile phone was used as the detonation device timer; how the maker of the container for the explosives (in this case a pressure cooker - why didn't I think of that?) could be traced by this or that method.
More information followed including, the explosive materials used and in what proportion, the BBs and ball bearing shrapnel bits inside. And a picture of the completed bomb, to ensure that while building your own bomb in the back room of your house, you could see if it looked right. A satisfying and complete recipe for another attempt by someone even MORE clever. Salivating viewers and listeners lapping it up and some even taking notes
Manhunt
The manhunt was served by a series of short video clips from the ever present "security camera witnesses", showing over and again the central TV camera frames of the blast itself. They also focused more closely on a suspicious individual whose image was discovered at two of the four scenes where bombs were placed. The second bomb placed in New York failed to detonate.
A name appeared and the witch hunt began. Someone who could easily be racially profiled as potentially radical was identified. They were reported to have been born in Afghanistan, where radicals are as common as heroin poppies or so we are told by the trusty-greedy media.
Best friends of the identified suspect, acquaintances, employers and neighbourhood spies were identified and interviewed -- not by the authorities -- but again by the media, where opinion outweighed facts. Every possible lead was reported in living colour.
It is easy to imagine, the media sometimes is like a concert conductor, directing people to move to the rhythm of their motions and suggestions....from this side of the city to another in perfect harmony.
Where could this horrible demon BE? Who were his accomplices? How did we miss someone so dangerous? And most of all "Who is to BLAME?". A common question today where over-specified weapons are available as easily as buying a pack of "cancer sticks" giving access to weapons that can easily shoot a hundred rounds of ammunition with a single trigger shot.
The hunt went on.
The authorities appealed to the public, as they typically do, for calm and stability, so they can do their jobs. Asking the nation to not jump to any conclusions. It is, of course, important that someone is not tried in the media or it can hamper or thwart the legal process.
Sleeping Monster
Then strange and as unlikely as it sounds, a young man was found sleeping in the doorway of a restaurant in a nearby town (which is rather odd, when you think about it). The owner of the restaurant (an immigrant from India) who noticed the exhausted person, reported it. Police, FBI and a bevy of heavily armed police (and the press) came to awaken this sleeping giant who then shot at them. A hullabaloo shootout took place.
Peace officers were shot and so was the young man (in the leg by the way - a tribute to the myriad of accusations of rampant police brutality. Actually, who would want to BE a peace officer anymore? No matter what you do you are accused of doing something wrong...or you're shot at. A topic for another time!)
The young man, to be clear, is reported to have fired on the officers first, although no one volunteered any ubiquitous phone video footage that daunts many police operations nowadays, or CTV to substantiate this.
But then, why would they, the young man is Muslim (not Black), so racial profiling would tell you immediately there will not be anyone to protest as to whether there was police brutality or whether Muslim lives matter.
Cameras rolled as a bleeding figure, covered in white blankets was wheeled to near the back of the waiting ambulance. His light brown skin, dark eyes, hair and beard telltale signs that this was the monster, fully awake now as the world witnessed the start of his journey.
Meanwhile, forensic experts and psychologists, physicians and terror experts were interviewed to fill in the time while no new news was forthcoming from tight-lipped hospital administrators. Then confirmation of his identity, his past in detail, the charges to be laid that were laid, bail set and then quiet.
More Blame
The neighbourhood where the cafe bomb in New York was detonated was being swept and scoured. New cafe chairs were set out and the world was pretending to return to normal.
Yet anger lingered as strong as fear in a nation that has recently been led to think outside the rational dots. And so like a milling crowd people began to search for reasons and targets of blame.
They found it this morning when some clever person realised that the parents had a little family restaurant. Social media to the rescue as they posted a picture of it with address. The "mob" headed toward the little shop.
Just like in Nazi Germany, the social media information was not unlike marking the shop with the "yellow star". And this angry mob in the United States of America stoned the windows to shattered dreams of having a better life in America. The owners fled in fear for their safety.
So much for innocent until proven guilty or for that matter -- and so important is -- not guilty by association. As if the guilt of horrendous acts was as contagious as the measles!
What is happening that we have lost our senses so! And last but not least, If 60% of the individuals who live in the United States of America admit to being Christian, I wonder....
References:
1. New York Times, "Manhattan Bombs Provide Trove of Clues; F.B.I. Questions 5 People", 18 September 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/nyregion/new-york-explosion-chelsea.html
2. BBC News, "US terror blasts: Bomb suspect's father called FBI in 2014", 21 September 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37421074
3. http://www.newser.com/story/231348/yelp-reviewers-target-bomb-suspects-family.html?utm_source=8at8&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1636099697961099576&utm_campaign=20160920
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