The cost of fame in America

On Wednesday, a 19-year old (boy? man?) walked into a department store in an Omaha, Nebraska mall with an assault rifle he had stolen from his stepfather and fatally wounded eight people before killing himself. The gunman, who has since been described as a "lost puppy" by his landlady -- and who will forever remain anonymous here -- had apparently spent "four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002" before "state supervision was terminated by agreement of the court, the state, his therapist and his father" last year. In an effort to explain the rampage, apparently brought on by a breakup with his girlfriend and the loss of his job at McDonald's, he left a hand-written suicide note at his home that said, among other things, that he didn't want to be a "burden on the ones that I care for my entire life" and that he "just [wanted] to take a few peices (sic) of shit" with him.

"Just think tho," he told his friends, "I'm gonna be (expletive) famous."

And he is famous. If you do a search for his name through Google's news search engine, you will find about 5,000 results, most of which include pictures -- either a high-school photo, or a still from security footage released by the police on Friday, or both. By comparison, a search for Amy Adams, the star of the number one movie in the country for the last two weeks, provides about 2,000 results.

Of course, I don't think that fame was the primary motivation behind these murders -- I won't purport to know or understand the reason that a person snaps like that, beyond the fact that he had some serious issues and obviously needed more help than he got. But I can't imagine that the trouble we have in this country differentiating between good fame and bad fame did much to discourage him -- famous, as far as we are concerned, is famous, and we tend to reward the good and not so good alike (just ask Paris Hilton).

And, most of the time that's not a big deal -- embarrassing, certainly, and perhaps damaging to the national culture, but not dangerous. Somebody, though, is bound to take it too far, and then we have eight people dead in a mall shooting because a teenager felt like an outcast. It has happened too many times before and it will, no doubt, happen again unless we do some serious soul-searching.

In the next few weeks, there are bound to be all sorts of new security measures at malls across the country (which should make holiday shopping that much more delightful) and a renewed vigor in the debates about gun control and violence in movies, etc. Fine. But I think that the first step towards preventing this from happening in the future is for all of the media outlets around the country to stop immortalizing a killer. Instead of his face, why not show the faces of his victims, the innocent people who were just trying to buy gifts for their friends and families? Why not send the message to anyone thinking about becoming "famous" that there is a difference between glory and infamy, and that there are real consequences for murder that have absolutely nothing to do with the murderer? It's funny how so many people in this country run around with their rhetoric about "not letting the terrorists win" abroad and, yet, when someone right here uses violence to get he wants, we give it to him.

There is a lot more going on here than we can fix in a few days, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't take this opportunity to examine our society, and to change it for the better -- not just superficially, but fundamentally. In the words of Dante, "the hottest seats in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, choose to do nothing." Let's not occupy them.

Sources:
Shoppers return to Omaha mall [CNN]
From "Troubled" to "Killer", Despite Many Efforts [NYT]
Searching for Clues to a Young Killer’s Motivation [NYT]
Images of Gunman, Suicide Note Released [AP]
Omaha Wonders: Why Did "Lost Puppy" Kill? [ABC News]