VigilanceVoice

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Wednesday--November 27, 2002—Ground Zero Plus 441
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Scrambling For Terrorism Droppings--Money & Blood
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by
Cliff McKenzie
   Editor, New York City Combat Correspondent News

       GROUND ZERO, New York City, Nov. 27 -- When money and blood mix, it gives off a foul stench.   Currently, the odor rises above a truck driver, a Catholic priest, a rest stop attendant and a woman who liked to pass on gossip.
       The problem is reward money for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the Washington-area sniper.   There's $500,000 on the table, and a number of hands reaching for it.

         There's Ron Lantz, the truck driver who called in the sighting of the 1990 Chevrolet Caprice containing the two snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo.   And, the man who helped him keep an eye on the suspects until police arrived, Whitney Donahue, a rest stop attendant.   Then  there is the Catholic priest in Ashland, Va. who got a call from one of the sniper suspects boasting about their shootings in Alabama.  The priest tipped police to investigate.   And, finally, a neighbor woman in Tacoma where the alleged snipers lived who reported the suspects shooting at a tree stump has her eye on the pot.
        Reports indicate that more than 60,000 people called with tips and information about the snipers during the killing spree that took thirteen lives.
       The reward fund is being administered by Montgomery County officials who would like to disburse it immediately.  But Virginia prosecutors have warned them if they do, witnesses who received reward money may be challenged as "paid witnesses," injuring their credibility.
       I thought about the idea of mixing blood and money.   I'm sure that in the heat of any battle with Terror, money isn't a prime motivator for doing the "right thing."   When people are being shot and killed, and you could be the next, it isn't hard to pick up a phone and call an information center without regard to a reward.   The big reward at that moment is getting the killer off the streets, returning to a state of "normalcy" rather than constant "terrorism."

        But as the passion of the moment dies, and in its place is a pot of gold--$500,000--a new Terrorism exists--"who gets claim on the reward?"  In this case we have four primary candidates, a truck driver, a washroom attendant, a priest and a nosey neighbor.   All were, in some way or another, direct links to the culmination of a manhunt.   If you take any link out of the loop, perhaps the snipers wouldn't have been caught as early as they had, perhaps more people would have been killed.
      If the priest hadn't called the police and told them the "weird call" he got about a shooting in Montgomery, Alabama might be linked to the snipers, the police would not have found Malvo's fingerprint and ran it through for a match that led to the identification of a blue Chevy.   If a truck driver hadn't been alert and seen the car parked along a truckstop, and if the washroom attendant hadn't been there to help perhaps the criminals would have driven off.   And then there was the woman who complained about the two men shooting into a tree stump....
      Each one at the time performed an act of Vigilance, an act of "citizenship" regarding the concern and safety of others and society as a whole.   Now, however, the purity of the act has evolved into a mercenary category.  Money is on the table--blood money.  
      On Thanksgiving Eve, 2002, it seems a little strange that one of the bigger moral issues facing America is whether or not to distribute the sniper reward money.   If it is awarded, it could injure the prosecution of the suspects.   Prosecutors have always been gun-shy ever since John Hinckley used the "Twinkie Defense" successfully to escape penalty for shooting President Reagan.  Any attempt to discredit any witness would be welcomed by the defense.
        It still troubles me to think of a bounty on human heads.   Putting an amount like $500,000 on the snipers makes you wonder about the value of life.   If you divide $500,000 by thirteen victims--the dead ones--it makes their lives worth about $38,461 each.   That doesn't seem quite enough.

      Worse, if you compare the bounty on Osama bin Laden's head--$25 million--to that of the snipers, that seems a disproportionate amount for Osama.  It's 50 times as much value for Osama than for the snipers.   I'm not sure the Terror of the bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon were as terrifying as the idea that a sniper was running loose killing innocent women, children and men without being caught.   Personally, I felt more insecure over the sniper than I did over a plane-full of Terrorists.   
        Proportionately, the reward for Osama isn't that large.   Based on the number of people he is alleged to have ordered the killing of, his reward of $25 million represents five times less the value than that of the sniper when measured by the value of a human life.
        The $25 million reward for Osama divided by the number of deaths on September 11--3,000--amounts to a per capita reward of $8,333 per death.   Compared with the sniper's per capita reward of $38,461, ($500,000 divided by 13 deaths)  it makes the reward for the snipers intrinsically more valuable.  
       Of course, there are massive differences between the two situations.  In one case a madman plots the demise of thousands at once, in the other, a madman plots the demise of thousands one at a time.   See the difference? 
       It's not easy, is it.   Madness is divided by a thin hair, sometimes invisible.   It is clearly evident by the money-for-blood reward system, the bounty we place on human life.

       It is never enough.  Are the lives of the World Trade Center Victims worth $8,333 each to bring their murderer to justice?   Or should that number be $100,000 each?   What is the price of Justice?   What is the cost of revenge?
       If the per capita reward value of each Nine Eleven victim was $100,000, the bounty for Osama would shoot up to $300 million dollars, twelve times higher than what it is now ($25 million).
       On the eve of Thanksgiving, I'm a little sad to think we mix blood and money to seek and prosecute Terrorists.   The aforementioned 'good citizen' right actions seem like such civic duties and putting reward money up soils the idea of Vigilance.   It makes me think a truck driver, a priest, a washroom attendant and a nosey neighbor (or Vigilant one) were after the money all the time.
       I don't think that was the case.

       Mass killers ultimately threaten everyone's family.   Osama bin Laden and snipers Mohammad and Malvo, all threatened to kill indiscriminately everyone's family--mother, father, children, grandkids, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, associates.   When Osama or the snipers struck, they weren't after anyone in particular.    That was the root of the real Terror.
       They were after everybody and nobody.
       Dick and Jane Nobody was the target.
       Race, color creed, economics or religion didn't matter.  Kill 'em all, was the hue and cry.   Kill 'em all.
       But in the smoke that follows the fire's arrest, there's a stigma.
      This is the stench of the reward money.
      It lingers over the bodies of the dead, limiting their value as Sentinels of Vigilance, predisposing them to commodities worth $38 k.
      I guess that bothers me.
      I want to think Americans act against Terrorism with Vigilance, not for monetary gain.
      I know at the moment of the act, that is true.   No money is worth being killed to acquire it, and guys like the truck driver and washroom attendant who stood by as the snipers slept in the car were brave indeed. 
      The priest and the stump woman I have to stretch a little to see their Courage, Conviction and Right Actions combining to make them Vigilant, but I can if I stretch far enough.
     

 The Osama reward.   It seems like a total impossibility.   Even if someone claims the bounty, I'm sure there will be a zillion challenges.  When the CIA and FBI can't find Osama, it would be an ultimate insult that some average citizen would bump into him at Macy's and call and collect.
      So as I eat turkey dinner, I'm going to try and focus on the lottery as a form of wealth and prosperity for those who wish to gamble.   I'm going to put the idea of bounties out of my mind, and try and be thankful for people who are driven to protect one another, more than lacing their pockets with gold pieces.

  That way I'll have a Vigilant, Happy Thanksgiving.
       I hope you do too!