"[P]ursuing criminal charges would be too hard legally and politically and too easy morally. Prosecuting Bush and his men won't absolve the rest of us for what we let them do." – Jacob Weisberg in Slate
MOBSTERS KILL 29 IN MALL SHOOTOUT, POLICE DECLINE TO PRESS CHARGES
PARK CITY, May 2 (DKP) – A drug deal gone bad erupted into violence yesterday at the Park Plaza shopping center, a popular downtown strip mall. What triggered the shootout was not immediately clear, but when it was over 29 people, mostly shoppers, lay dead.
Police were quick to peg the perpetrators as members of the city’s Cerrano gang, which has dominated the city’s drug trade for the last eight years. "We have surveillance videos of the incident. We have more than thirty eyewitnesses to the killings," said Park City Police Superintendant Daniel Kaffee. "We know who the shooters are. We know where they live."
Nonetheless, police indicated that there will be no prosecutions for the killings. "Sure, putting the killers in jail would be the morally easy thing to do. But aren’t we all really responsible as a society for permitting this kind of violence to flourish?" Kaffee asked. "And if that’s the case, how can I single out one person just because they happened pull the trigger and splatter some brains against the dollar store’s wall? Wouldn’t it be hypocritical of this Police Department to prosecute this case, where we already know who the killers are, when we’ve allowed more than fifty unsolved homicide cases to build up over the last eight years?"
Kaffee also indicated that prosecuting the killers would be a difficult and time-consuming task. "Apparently there would have to be these complicated things called ‘hearings’ and ‘trials’" he said. "I don’t think we want to waste precious government resources on that kind of extravagance, not when there are more pressing matters that demand our immediate attention. There’s the Policemen’s Ball, for example—that’s coming up next month."
Juan Martinez, a witness to the killings who survived only by hiding in a liquor store ice chest, agrees that the community as a whole bears responsibility for the killings. "We all knew there were mobsters in Park City. I mean, I once bought a DVD player in an alley from a guy named Gino. He said it fell off a truck, but I didn’t really believe him. That makes me just as responsible for this horrific act of violence as if I’d taken a shotgun and blown someone’s head off."
Paul Kersey, head and sole member of the city’s Conservatives Opposed to Permissiveness organization issued the following statement: "We at C.O.P. do not believe in the namby-pamby moral relativeness that is all the fashion these days. Those responsible for this atrocity must be held fully accountable for their actions. We therefore demand that the Park City police arrest and prosecute all the so-called ‘innocent bystanders’ who stood by and allowed these senseless killings to happen. Some of these moral deviants went so far as to hide in ice chests when the shooting began instead of resolving the situation bare-handed, as anyone with any real moral courage would have done. Why is the Park City police wasting time talking about ‘gunmen’ when countless innocent bystanders remain at large?"
Maria Toscano, chair of the Mothers Against Mobsters organization, has been fighting gang violence her entire adult life. "I was against these gangs before the killings and I’m against them today," she says. "Not only does their violence cause misery directly, but their lawless ways undermine the very ideals that are supposed to make America great." But even she concedes there’s no point in prosecuting the Park Plaza killers. "It’s really all my fault. If only I had tried a little harder, staged a couple more protests, bought a couple more tickets to the Policemen’s Ball, all this never would have happened. I’m a monster who does not deserve to live."
Ron Livingston, manager of the Park Plaza Mall, just wants to move on. "Some people look at this senseless massacre and see a reason to question their complacency about the way the world works, to look deep within our community’s soul and ask ‘Can’t we do better?’ I, on the other hand, look at this and say .... Hey, the Park Plaza Mall has four fully renovated storefronts now available for lease! Or at least we will once we’re done scraping the brains off the drywall."
Senator Bill McKay, campaigning for re-election to his sixth term, vigorously opposed charging the killers in a speech at the Park City Convention Center last night. "Prosecuting these men would not reflect our values," the Senator said. "You know, my father Heinrich knew something about responsibility, growing up as he did as a white man in Germany during the 1930s. He told me something that has stayed with me through the years. He said, ‘Son, someday someone is going to try to hold you morally and legally accountable for what you’ve done. And when that happens, hold your head high, look them straight in the eye, and say these three simple things: I was just following orders, everyone else was doing it too, and anyway it’s all your fault because you didn’t manage to stop me.’ Those are the values my father taught me, and those are the values I hope to pass on to my children. God bless Park City, and God Bless America."