Brian D. Wells and the strange device around his neck
There's enough news in the Post today to keep me busy for a week, stories and editorials of significance and portent, both national and global. Presidential debates, recalled elections, diplomatic train wrecks, snipers in the deserts and truck bombs in the miserable besieged cities. But what keeps drawing my attention is the violent death of one almost unbelievably nondescript pizza delivery man named Brian D. Wells. The circumstances are outlandish. They will require one hell of an explanation. The usual psychological and social post-mortem is already under way, and will by itself prove odd enough to write this case into the national memory. But what's got my attention, and what could, in my opinion, turn out to be globally significant, is the device that was used to lock a bomb around the neck of Brian D. Wells, a bomb that was detonated in full view of police and video cameras, killing him instantly.
Brian D. Wells was introduced to America by CNN Headline News on Thursday evening. He turned up hors de combat, in a strip mall parking lot in Erie, Pennsylvania, having just robbed a bank, a bomb locked to his neck, his hands already cuffed behind his back, even before the whole law enforcement apparatus bore down on him. He claimed someone made him do it. He refused to name this person. He begged the police to take the bomb off him. Then the bomb blew up and killed him.
CNN said he was a loner, a 40-something year old pizza driver. Fine, I said. Another disconnected male snaps and goes out with a bang. A nutcase.
Not so fast. True, the marginal men, the disconnected, are most likely to fall prey to the thing sociologists have always called anomie, and a tiny but very notable fraction of those respond with a suicidal bout of epic violence. But when that happens, it's never much of a surprise to anyone who knows them. In the Washington sniper case, we had a guy who hung around gun shops and firing ranges and tended to creep out the other people there. Guys like this, in candid moments, say things like "I would like to kill my bitch of an ex-wife," or, "sometimes I think it'd be awesome to take this automatic rifle and shoot a bunch of people at random." They laugh at cruel jokes. They have firearms around the home. They have reputations as persons who inquire about the manufacture of explosives.
So far, by all accounts, Brian D. Wells wasn't like that at all. He was just a guy of average intelligence and zero ambition. He was happy to deliver pizzas and live with his cats. He was cheerful but timid, and he liked to do crossword puzzles. So besides the "disaffected male going sideways" theory, there's another, which is that he was an "easy mark," as his landlady said. A sucker, a ready tool for the real violent nutcase.
Who this person might be, and what in hell's toilet he thought he was accomplishing, and what to do with him once we fiind him, will be the subject of endless, fascinating discussion. (They may have already found him, and what to do with him is bury him: A co-worker of Wells's has also turned up dead in his apartment of what looks like a drug overdose.) But at least as remarkable, and less likely to be remarked upon, is the thing around Wells's neck.
There's a picture of it in the Post today, and a drawing of how it can be used to fasten a bomb to a person. It's essentially an oversized metal handcuff, painted industrial blue, with a 3-digit combination lock and several holes for "keys," according to the Post. To the lock housing is fixed a pair of flanges, to which you could presumably attach some payload. Like, say, a bomb.
What the hell is this thing? The FBI says they're trying to identify it. They were going to hold a press conference yesterday but canceled. It sure doesn't look like the kind of thing a nut could put together in his basement. It looks like it was made in a factory. So is there a factory somewhere, cranking them out? Where? What for? Who is buying them? Are they being worn by someone, somewhere, right now? I want to know where and who. If these things are manufactured and can be purchased and can even wind up on a pizza driver in Erie, Pa., I want to know what kind of hideous marketplace traffics in such things, and what else they traffic in, and if we have anything to do with it. The FBI is acting like it doesn't know. Well, it had fucking better not know. I hope to Christ they are just as astonished by this neck-cuff as I am. It seems odd that a product like this would not be identifiable by the nation's top detectives, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief. I want to hear what they have to say about it, and I hope they don't just let the issue slide down the old memory hole.
What we know is that someone stuck one of these on Brian Wells, or maybe he stuck it on himself. That's disturbing enough, but its very existence hints at something far worse.
Brian D. Wells was introduced to America by CNN Headline News on Thursday evening. He turned up hors de combat, in a strip mall parking lot in Erie, Pennsylvania, having just robbed a bank, a bomb locked to his neck, his hands already cuffed behind his back, even before the whole law enforcement apparatus bore down on him. He claimed someone made him do it. He refused to name this person. He begged the police to take the bomb off him. Then the bomb blew up and killed him.
CNN said he was a loner, a 40-something year old pizza driver. Fine, I said. Another disconnected male snaps and goes out with a bang. A nutcase.
Not so fast. True, the marginal men, the disconnected, are most likely to fall prey to the thing sociologists have always called anomie, and a tiny but very notable fraction of those respond with a suicidal bout of epic violence. But when that happens, it's never much of a surprise to anyone who knows them. In the Washington sniper case, we had a guy who hung around gun shops and firing ranges and tended to creep out the other people there. Guys like this, in candid moments, say things like "I would like to kill my bitch of an ex-wife," or, "sometimes I think it'd be awesome to take this automatic rifle and shoot a bunch of people at random." They laugh at cruel jokes. They have firearms around the home. They have reputations as persons who inquire about the manufacture of explosives.
So far, by all accounts, Brian D. Wells wasn't like that at all. He was just a guy of average intelligence and zero ambition. He was happy to deliver pizzas and live with his cats. He was cheerful but timid, and he liked to do crossword puzzles. So besides the "disaffected male going sideways" theory, there's another, which is that he was an "easy mark," as his landlady said. A sucker, a ready tool for the real violent nutcase.
Who this person might be, and what in hell's toilet he thought he was accomplishing, and what to do with him once we fiind him, will be the subject of endless, fascinating discussion. (They may have already found him, and what to do with him is bury him: A co-worker of Wells's has also turned up dead in his apartment of what looks like a drug overdose.) But at least as remarkable, and less likely to be remarked upon, is the thing around Wells's neck.
There's a picture of it in the Post today, and a drawing of how it can be used to fasten a bomb to a person. It's essentially an oversized metal handcuff, painted industrial blue, with a 3-digit combination lock and several holes for "keys," according to the Post. To the lock housing is fixed a pair of flanges, to which you could presumably attach some payload. Like, say, a bomb.
What the hell is this thing? The FBI says they're trying to identify it. They were going to hold a press conference yesterday but canceled. It sure doesn't look like the kind of thing a nut could put together in his basement. It looks like it was made in a factory. So is there a factory somewhere, cranking them out? Where? What for? Who is buying them? Are they being worn by someone, somewhere, right now? I want to know where and who. If these things are manufactured and can be purchased and can even wind up on a pizza driver in Erie, Pa., I want to know what kind of hideous marketplace traffics in such things, and what else they traffic in, and if we have anything to do with it. The FBI is acting like it doesn't know. Well, it had fucking better not know. I hope to Christ they are just as astonished by this neck-cuff as I am. It seems odd that a product like this would not be identifiable by the nation's top detectives, but I'm willing to suspend disbelief. I want to hear what they have to say about it, and I hope they don't just let the issue slide down the old memory hole.
What we know is that someone stuck one of these on Brian Wells, or maybe he stuck it on himself. That's disturbing enough, but its very existence hints at something far worse.