Fragile
I can hear sirens outside my office window right now. Our building is right along the path of the procession to the memorial service for the three police officers killed in this past weekend's tragedy in Stanton Heights, and literally thousands of officers from all over the country are on their way there right now.
I went yesterday to pay my respects to the officers as they were lying in repose at the City-County Building. I didn't know any of them, but I felt that it was the right thing to do. It was very sad.
It's just a stark reminder of how fragile we ourselves are, and how fragile our society's infrastructure really is. How much we depend on each other, and we have little choice but to implicitly trust that someone nearby isn't going to suddenly go berzerk. It's shocking the effect that one individual can have to destroy lives and families. And disturbing to realize that this is exactly what the perpetrator of this atrocity set out to do. This all comes right on the heels of the tragedy in Binghamton, NY, which was similar in that a single individual purposely set out to do as much destruction as he could, apparently just to show himself and the world that he could, in fact, do it. We don't really know a whole lot yet about the motivations of the police shootings in Pittsburgh last weekend, but I suspect it's similar to that. One thing we do know, is that the suspect said that he had actually planned to be killed during the confrontation, but in the end chose to surrender and be taken into custody - so that he would have time to write a book about what he'd done. Unreal.
Please visit the online information about the three fallen officers, and the two others who were injured during the confrontation.
http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/police/html/lest_we_forget.html
I went yesterday to pay my respects to the officers as they were lying in repose at the City-County Building. I didn't know any of them, but I felt that it was the right thing to do. It was very sad.
It's just a stark reminder of how fragile we ourselves are, and how fragile our society's infrastructure really is. How much we depend on each other, and we have little choice but to implicitly trust that someone nearby isn't going to suddenly go berzerk. It's shocking the effect that one individual can have to destroy lives and families. And disturbing to realize that this is exactly what the perpetrator of this atrocity set out to do. This all comes right on the heels of the tragedy in Binghamton, NY, which was similar in that a single individual purposely set out to do as much destruction as he could, apparently just to show himself and the world that he could, in fact, do it. We don't really know a whole lot yet about the motivations of the police shootings in Pittsburgh last weekend, but I suspect it's similar to that. One thing we do know, is that the suspect said that he had actually planned to be killed during the confrontation, but in the end chose to surrender and be taken into custody - so that he would have time to write a book about what he'd done. Unreal.
Please visit the online information about the three fallen officers, and the two others who were injured during the confrontation.
http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/police/html/lest_we_forget.html