Over the last two weeks, politicians and law enforcement officers have lashed out at the sniper who has terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. They have called the sniper a "coward," and the governor of Maryland urged the killer to turn himself in. This is all stupid. This is not likely to get the killer to stop, and may in fact encourage him to kill more. Police and elected officials should concentrate on catching this murderer rather than taunting him.
Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening issued a statement Oct. 8 that is typical of much of what politicians and police chiefs have been saying. "We're talking about a person here who is basically a coward. This is a person who is shooting elderly men, shooting women and now shooting little children. And I really think that if there is a message, it is for this individual to turn himself in, to stop the insane killings" ("Jittery residents aim for normal routines," The Washington Post, Oct. 8).
By calling the killer a "coward" and then pointing out that his victims have been women and little children, and categorizing the male victims as elderly (at the time of that statement, male victims included a 72-year-old, and the other three ranged in age from 39 to 55) Glendening is basically telling the killer that he is a spineless wimp and needs to turn himself in. This would be all good if it convinced him to do so, but it has not and probably will not, because it does not seem that the way to stop a psychopath is to question his resolve and manhood.
U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge made a similar comment to that of Glendening and said, "You get nauseous thinking about how cowardly, how inhumane it is" ("Boy, 13 shot by sniper at school, The Washington Post," Oct. 8). Like Glendening, these comments do not help the situation and could antagonize the killer.
The killer who is committing these heinous acts is a bad and evil person. No one disputes that. But it is counterproductive to call the killer a "coward" in front of the media. This is completely illogical. There is no rational purpose for this. The killer is psychotic to begin with and is not going to decide that he should stop and acknowledge that killing innocent people is wrong because he has been insulted on television.
Harvey Goldstein, a psychologist who consults with law enforcement agencies nationwide, wrote a piece in the Washington Post on Sunday ("News we should lose," Oct. 13), in which he addressed the issue of insulting the killer. Goldstein noted Glendening's and Ridge's comments, as well as those of President George W. Bush, who called the shooting "cowardly and senseless." Goldstein noted that this is not an effective way to prevent more killings.
Goldstein said, "This is not a war against terrorists with political axes to grind. It is a life and death struggle with a homicidal psychopath. Far from chastening the killer, these challenges to his manhood make him even more determined to show us who's in charge: him."
Goldstein is exactly right. The labeling of people who commit atrocities as "cowards" or anything else does nothing to help the situation. U.S. government officials have traditionally declared that all terrorists attacks are "cowardly." While it is unlikely that terrorists care about what the American government says about them, it is even more unlikely that these rebukes dissuade them.
The issue is not whether these people are cowards. If they are cowards, that is only the least of the vast lexicon of negative words which they could be described with. The point is that calling the sniper a "coward" does nothing to help anyone.
University Professor of Psychology Jon Haidt said in an e-mail interview, "it's like calling the Sept. 11 terrorists cowards. What they did was terrible, cruel and even evil. But to describe them as 'cowards' is an incorrect use of the English language. In my opinion, commentators who called the terrorists 'cowards' were really just trying to make themselves and their audience feel good by heaping every possible insult on the terrorists. I suspect that the police chief who calls the current sniper a coward is doing the same thing."
The only thing which will catch the killer is luck and good police work. The police and politicians should focus on catching the killer as quickly as possible, not posturing in front of the cameras.
(Harris Freier's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hfreier@cavalierdaily.com.)
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