The Blame Game

Every time someone goes off and commits a horrendous crime (like the film student who slashed a Muslim cab driver in New York), reporters seek out the perpetrator's neighbors to ask what kind of a guy he was. Every time the neighbors say the same thing--that they can't believe it. He was never in any trouble. He was always polite and helpful.

Other people higher up the food chain, such as columnists, then comment on the neighbors' remarks, complaining that they always say the same thing--"he was such a nice boy." It is almost as if they feel contempt for the neighbors for not having noticed all along the perpetrator's propensity for violence.

I don't know why. The police or school officials never detected it. And why is it hard to believe that a person with no criminal record goes nuts and commits a terrible crime. People do that every day. We are not so stable as the columnists suggest. Actually, it is worse than that. When something bad happens columnists want somebody to blame. In their opinion, someone should have known, intervened, or reported the person and the tragedy could have been averted.

The old blame game. When something bad happens it is always someone's fault, beyond that of the person who actually committed the crime. The neighbors didn't notice anything because there was nothing to notice. The rabid act came out of the blue.