Raw

This week has been . . . difficult.

On Wednesday, a shooting spree in the nearby Mohawk Valley locked down schools and terrorized residents. I have friends whose children were in those schools, who teach in those schools. Another friend had planned to have her car washed at one of the locations where people were murdered, but a troublesome scene kept her writing at her desk instead driving to the car wash.

The shooter's final victim was an FBI dog.

Then on Thursday night, there was a carjacking/abduction at a local mall, during which a mom was stabbed to death and a 10-year-old girl was raped. Many of my friends knew and/or worked with the deceased woman and her daughter. Their children are students in the school where the woman worked.

Me, I know who the alleged perpetrator is. He worked at my local supermarket. When I think of the weekly shopping trips with my daughter in tow . . ..


You see, the alleged murderer/rapist was already charged with having child porn -- a lot of child porn -- on his computer, and was out of jail until his federal trial and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet. Which he disabled and removed.

My former colleagues in the TV new business were busy. Upstate New York police/sheriff/troopers were busy. And the rest of us are raw.

Lots of primal reaction on social media.

• The shooter was himself shot and killed. "Saves the taxpayers the cost of a trial."
• The alleged murderer/rapist was beaten up in jail. "I hope he gets worse," and "Attica is stocking up on KY." 

Someone suggested implanting a chip in the private parts of sex offenders, like the chip implanted in a pet's ear. That would be a little more difficult to remove than a bracelet. I rather like that idea. Recidivism rates for sex offenders is supposed to be pretty high -- but even those numbers are hotly contested.

I buried myself in basketball. The final Big East Tournament. My team made it to the final game, beating our "arch rival" to get there. We lost the final game to a team that really doesn't even belong, and there's a lot of woo-ha about bad refs (consistent part of the Big East conference), bad guards, and the team falling apart in the second half. The tournament was a much needed distraction this week.

Now, I'm not comparing losing the Big East Tournament final game to the Herkimer shooting or the Great Northern murder/rape. Basketball merely offered a brief escape from a hideous week in Central New York.

I ache for the victims, pray for the survivors, and hope that the justice system has the wisdom and strength to do the right thing with the alleged murderer/rapist. The federal judge thought he'd done the right thing before; turns out he was wrong. I hope the system isn't wrong again.

The coming week can only get better.