A lot of judgement will be passed...
...on ALL of the people who conspired, by action or by inaction, to allow Jaycee Dugard to be stolen and kept from her family for nearly 2 decades. Naturally, the people who possessed the responsibility to care for Jaycee will be publicly adjudicated. The police and her parents are the likely targets at which a "publicly innocent" citizenry will aim their indignant arrows. We'll eyeball the cops first, saving the parents to subjugate only after we give them a week or so to mourn their loss. That's because we are SO perfect, isn't it?
We may give Jaycee's mother a while to grieve, but you and I are thinking the exact same thing...her daughter wasn't very far, why didn't she find her sooner? We can't mention those thoughts at a point "too soon", so for now law enforcement officials are publicly to blame. They now MUST go into a self defense mode and seriously, nothing outside of public relations will benefit when an organization is defending the past instead of learning from it. How often do we say that the real sin is NOT in making a mistake, but in not becoming better for it?
We wonder how the police could respond to a call about something "in the back yard" and never go any further than the front porch when sent to investigate. There doesn't seem to be any excuse for that, does it? If you think about it, there are only 2 possible explanations for this behavior by law enforcement...either they are co-conspirators or they simply couldn't fathom certain actions by a human being. I may not always agree with police but I do think that most of them are well intentioned so the latter must be true. The cops didn't look any further because they didn't think to prepare for the unthinkable.
Do we expect the cops to check our car trunks for dead children when they stop us for speeding? It probably never occurs to one to do so yet if a cop had pulled over a speeding Casey Anthony in the middle of June, 2008, would we blame him for any of the dreadful things that happened to Caylee?
I understand that this man was a KNOWN sex offender and that the keepers of our safety should have done a better job. Well...they didn't. The point isn't that they made a HUGE bonehead mess of this situation, but where do YOU want them right now...at a microphone studded podium or at a meeting discussing Quality Control for the system?
We all know of the guilt felt by the step-father who witnessed the kidnapping. That's too bad because he was the only person who COULD have stopped the kidnapping and he DID try. He ran as fast as he could, it just wasn't fast enough. Like most victims, he never stood a chance.
This decent man was in the middle of his law abiding life one day when 2 calculating psychopaths, who had plenty of time to plan their strategy, waited until just the right moment to pounce upon a little girl. They might have even set up the circumstances that took the step-father's attention away for the time needed to snatch that little girl. You can't stop a tiger from taking it's prey and you certainly can't stop a creature intent upon stealing one of our young. Like the hungry tiger, the attack is not personal. It's an attack of opportunity and if it hadn't been Jaycee that day, it would have been another little girl down the street.
And what of the mother? How could she have gone for 18 years without finding a little girl who never went terribly far? At times like these we like to say, "I would NEVER have stopped looking for MY daughter!" Well, really, how much time of your life can you spend looking for a missing child? Maybe some of us could search 24/7 for years. But really, could YOU do any more than the police? Of course we know that we would be screaming for our child should, God Forbid, she go missing, but how long can you search before your life becomes victimized even further? The fundamentals of life don't allow most of us to do too much more than the other parent who loses a child to a sneak attack by one who is truly a thug amongst thugs.
I understand that Jaycee's mother has taken off a week of every year on the anniversary of Jaycee's abduction. That must be a tough week for her. But after living without knowing the whereabouts of her child for every single minute of every single hour of every single day for 18 years, I think we can allow for a week of non-productivity from a desperate mother. But, much more than that would not be any sort of tribute to the missing child and we all owe it to the missing to be strong for the day that they return.
Some people use their talents very well and become unfathomably successful. When that happens, we all seem to benefit. But there is always the darker side of people and some of the dark folk are very good at what they do...and they also become unfathomably successful. It's difficult to keep up with professional perverts and their inspired methods of operation. How much time can one group of people divert to keeping up with the ingenuity of hideous people with hideous ideas?
Yep...it's brow furrowing isn't it? There isn't much of a new lesson here...we simply aren't perfect and it's our moments of imperfection that will get us every time.
...on ALL of the people who conspired, by action or by inaction, to allow Jaycee Dugard to be stolen and kept from her family for nearly 2 decades. Naturally, the people who possessed the responsibility to care for Jaycee will be publicly adjudicated. The police and her parents are the likely targets at which a "publicly innocent" citizenry will aim their indignant arrows. We'll eyeball the cops first, saving the parents to subjugate only after we give them a week or so to mourn their loss. That's because we are SO perfect, isn't it?
We may give Jaycee's mother a while to grieve, but you and I are thinking the exact same thing...her daughter wasn't very far, why didn't she find her sooner? We can't mention those thoughts at a point "too soon", so for now law enforcement officials are publicly to blame. They now MUST go into a self defense mode and seriously, nothing outside of public relations will benefit when an organization is defending the past instead of learning from it. How often do we say that the real sin is NOT in making a mistake, but in not becoming better for it?
We wonder how the police could respond to a call about something "in the back yard" and never go any further than the front porch when sent to investigate. There doesn't seem to be any excuse for that, does it? If you think about it, there are only 2 possible explanations for this behavior by law enforcement...either they are co-conspirators or they simply couldn't fathom certain actions by a human being. I may not always agree with police but I do think that most of them are well intentioned so the latter must be true. The cops didn't look any further because they didn't think to prepare for the unthinkable.
Do we expect the cops to check our car trunks for dead children when they stop us for speeding? It probably never occurs to one to do so yet if a cop had pulled over a speeding Casey Anthony in the middle of June, 2008, would we blame him for any of the dreadful things that happened to Caylee?
I understand that this man was a KNOWN sex offender and that the keepers of our safety should have done a better job. Well...they didn't. The point isn't that they made a HUGE bonehead mess of this situation, but where do YOU want them right now...at a microphone studded podium or at a meeting discussing Quality Control for the system?
We all know of the guilt felt by the step-father who witnessed the kidnapping. That's too bad because he was the only person who COULD have stopped the kidnapping and he DID try. He ran as fast as he could, it just wasn't fast enough. Like most victims, he never stood a chance.
This decent man was in the middle of his law abiding life one day when 2 calculating psychopaths, who had plenty of time to plan their strategy, waited until just the right moment to pounce upon a little girl. They might have even set up the circumstances that took the step-father's attention away for the time needed to snatch that little girl. You can't stop a tiger from taking it's prey and you certainly can't stop a creature intent upon stealing one of our young. Like the hungry tiger, the attack is not personal. It's an attack of opportunity and if it hadn't been Jaycee that day, it would have been another little girl down the street.
And what of the mother? How could she have gone for 18 years without finding a little girl who never went terribly far? At times like these we like to say, "I would NEVER have stopped looking for MY daughter!" Well, really, how much time of your life can you spend looking for a missing child? Maybe some of us could search 24/7 for years. But really, could YOU do any more than the police? Of course we know that we would be screaming for our child should, God Forbid, she go missing, but how long can you search before your life becomes victimized even further? The fundamentals of life don't allow most of us to do too much more than the other parent who loses a child to a sneak attack by one who is truly a thug amongst thugs.
I understand that Jaycee's mother has taken off a week of every year on the anniversary of Jaycee's abduction. That must be a tough week for her. But after living without knowing the whereabouts of her child for every single minute of every single hour of every single day for 18 years, I think we can allow for a week of non-productivity from a desperate mother. But, much more than that would not be any sort of tribute to the missing child and we all owe it to the missing to be strong for the day that they return.
Some people use their talents very well and become unfathomably successful. When that happens, we all seem to benefit. But there is always the darker side of people and some of the dark folk are very good at what they do...and they also become unfathomably successful. It's difficult to keep up with professional perverts and their inspired methods of operation. How much time can one group of people divert to keeping up with the ingenuity of hideous people with hideous ideas?
Yep...it's brow furrowing isn't it? There isn't much of a new lesson here...we simply aren't perfect and it's our moments of imperfection that will get us every time.
posted by Meg Kelso | 3:00 AM
2 Comments:
Very interesting. I like how you write. Only two people were to blame, noone else. I agree.
Thank you. I get so sick of hearing people micro-analyse every dreadful thing that happens. It rarely serves any purpose.
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