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The Tarot Killer, or whatever urban myth name may be stuck to him, continues at large after making the multijurisdictional taskforce appear foolish. On Monday, Oct. 21.two undocumented aliens, a Mexican and a Guatemlan, were seized and taken into custody when they innocently stopped at a suburban payphone.
Monday, Oct. 21, 2002: Warm, overcast, autumnal
I don't know if observers from other nations may be pointing and laughing at our panic and confusion regarding these killings between Montgomery County, Maryland and Ashland, Va. Ashland is a scant 20 miles or so north of Richmond and the weekend shooting of a man standing next to his wife in the parking lot of the franchise Ponderosa steak house was chilling. Suddenly, the unreal nature of the shootings up north became quite real.
Today, schools were closed throughout the region and may remain shut up tomorrow. Public nerves weren't soothed when in the morning, an apparent arrest was imminent, but, instead, two men, described by one witness, "as not white and not black," which seemed to indicate they were card carrying members of El-Quaeda turned out instead to be two Spanish-speaking, undocumented workers who merely stopped at a suburban payphone. The two were released later in the day.
Meanwhile, in the Ashland shooting case, I heard on the radio news that investigators thought that the shooter may have ridden a bicycle into the woods behind the restaurant. It was a rainy night and I suppose--the newscast didn't detail this--tracks may have been left. Meaning the killer or killers rode in, took their position, assembled their weapon, waited for a target, then pedaled away, with the gun probably in a backpack. Nobody was looking for suspicious bicyclists. In fact, it may have been an entire set up by the killer to completely mislead authorities.
So in other nations where sectarian or otherwise street violence is common, something like this probably wouldn't make the news at all. Here, though, where "traditional homicides" are still occurring, that is, with apparent motives, or suspects, this one stands out.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that "since the sniper attacks began, there have been 19 'traditional' homicides in the area..." During the weekend, in the Richmond region, nine people died in automobile accidents. And this kind of death toll we absorb into our daily lives with nary a blink, it seems. Like the insidious character in the film "Seven" (who tortured his victims) this guy or duo or whatever wants people to sit up and notice.
Yet, I walked to work this morning, pleasuring in the wet leaves decorating the sidewalk in their fall hues of red, orange, umber and ochre. The cool air was good to breathe in deep. Yet I did pick up my car later, to go to an interview for the magazine, and later, when driving to pick my wife up from the Handworkship Arts Center, I found myself looking over my shoulder at a bedraggled bearded fellow with a lumpy pack riding an old bicycle behind me.--HEK
 Police release two in custody
Sniper Attacks Archive
 comments [3]
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comments
Covered Wagon Circle - 22/10/2002, zebu kluth,
berlin
Harry, it was not exactly the fact the we are all mortal - if i count all the folds in my face with my young fourty years, I should be daed already. It was more the fact of being threatened in an indirect but absolute way. Lets take a picture for our postmodern construction of self - the community of settlers - their community was in a way like our personality, lots of interests that are not easily to be brought together. The community would not be one, if the Indians riding around the covered wagon circle would stop wanting to kill them. (I know the picture is a little racist in every possible direction).
The community is defined by the pressure (the enemy) from the outside.
And in this way I think the threat by the (in our days UNKNOWN) enemy makes us feel more concrete, makes life easier, because we don't have to discuss everything in ourselves - shall we go west, through the montains, shall we wait until the next summer to go on...
In this way the Tarot Killer is like Osama Bin Laden - someone who wants to kill us (you) all. He can be like the devil at every place at any time. Behind you. In this certain moment.
Death On The Installment Plan - 22/10/2002, harryk@richmag.com
Zebu:
Well, if we are to examine it intellectually, and only intellectually, yes; what this reminds us of that we are all going to die, one way or another, probably in ways not as dignified nor as dramatic as we hoped. But for that indication, all I need to do is look at my widening "crop circle" bald spot, the grey in my beard and the occasional ache in my knees. Its all a down hill slope. Better to make art while you can.--HEK
Threat as a help of feeling yourself (important)? - 22/10/2002, zebu kluth,
berlin
Might it be that beeing theatened by some kind of serial killer that will kill you/me/somebody else by the chance of 12 to how many millions? gives our postmodern torn up social constructed and psychological deconstructed soul enough pressure from the outside to make us feel real and ourselves for a moment?
I have this theory since I was visiting the streetfights we have here once a yoear where urban youngsters reconstruct their deconstructed classic street fighter as an stong MAN feeling in front of a water pumping police car...
Do we need this kind of threat sometime to forget, that we will not even die of love but die of things like cancer or completely unspectacular accidents by accident?
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