by
John Stevenson
In late December 2017, an unarmed man was
shot dead in the doorway of his Wichita home by police. There had been a 911 call from a man claiming
to have shot and killed his father. The
caller claimed he was holding a gun on his mother and sister, and had doused
the house with gasoline.
The call had been made by a man in Los
Angeles, allegedly because of a dispute with a Wichita resident over a video
game. It was a hoax call, designed to
send a SWAT team to the home of his video-gaming opponent as a prank. He got the address wrong, and the police
arrived instead at a neighboring home where they killed the homeowner---who
they thought had murdered his father and was about to torch the house with his
mother and sister inside.
I had never before heard the term “swatting,”
which means to make a hoax call for emergency services (police, fire, SWAT) to
harass the resident at an address where there is no emergency. It has become common enough that in 2008 the
FBI labeled it “swatting.”
Swatting is emblematic of behaviors which
have arisen in the past couple of decades and which are particularly cruel,
often random, often anonymous, and show a shocking disregard for the lives or
dignity of others. Here are some
examples.
Laser attacks which seek to
temporarily blind airline pilots on takeoff or landing. On one day in 2009 a dozen planes were
attacked at Sea-Tac Airport.
Freeway overpass attacks, where bricks or
large rocks are dropped onto windshields of cars below.
Sniper attacks on multiple randomly
chosen victims---the D.C. sniper in 2002; Ohio in 2003; West Virginia also
2003; and Phoenix 2015.
Disruption of military funerals by Westboro Baptist
Church, ongoing since 2005.
The Knockout Game, in which an unsuspecting
stranger is sucker-punched. A nearby
accomplice of the assailant films the assault and the video appears on the
internet. This seems to have started in
2009.
Bumfights, in which teenagers goad homeless
people into fighting or performing stunts for cash or alcohol. There is a series of videos, starting in
2002.
There are other examples. But what do these behaviors tell us?
These behaviors are characterized by cruelty,
randomness, or disregard for the personal worth of others. Such attacks appear to have become more
prevalent. They have certainly become
more brazen. In fact, filming your
anti-social behavior for all to see seems like the very definition of
brazen.
Masses of teenagers invade a commuter train
to assault and rob the passengers. Or
they invade and loot a high-end store or even an entire mall. I’ll bet they didn’t do that when you were a
kid.
The source of these behavioral changes may
originate in the disintegration of family structure, or in chaotic and dysfunctional
schools, or in the steadily waning number of Americans who regularly attend
church. In addition, the military draft
provided a great civilizer of young men---but the draft is an institution now half
a century gone from American life.
Regardless of the root cause or group of
causes, these behaviors point to a societal change that will be very difficult
to correct.
