photo by me

Originally published on my main site: life inchoate

My beloved state of Arizona is in the national news again.

Nothing to be proud of, to be sure.

Earlier this week, we made the national news because a local case is being presented to the Supreme Court.

In the summer of 2000, in the neighborhood next to mine (at the time), Eric Clark took his brother’s truck out for a midnight drive. He was racing up and down the streets with the radio blaring.

The police were called. This was supposed to be a simple public nuisance case where the teenager would be pulled over, hands slapped, parents admonished, and everyone would go on their way.

It turned into a nightmare for two families and a small city that prides itself on low crime.

Eric is a schizophrenic. His parents had desperately tried to get help for him but to no avail. He often talked about aliens and how Flagstaff was filled with 50,000 aliens and how even his parents were aliens. That night, Eric was in the depths of a delusional schizophrenic episode. Everyone he came into contact with were aliens and they had to be dealt with.

One of the people the seventeen-year-old came into contact with was Officer Jeff Moritz. Moritz was a four-year veteran of the Flagstaff Police Department, the father of one with one on the way.

In the early hours of that June morning, Eric and Moritz met up. Eric shot Moritz, knowing he was an alien. Moritz was the first Flagstaff officer shot in the line of duty.

A manhunt insued. It was a scary time because we didn’t know if the assailant was going to shoot anyone else. We didn’t know anything about him until much later. He was a few streets over from me the entire time.

The State of Arizona refuses to accept Eric’s plea of insanity. They agree he is schizophrenic. They agree he was delusional during the shooting. They refuse, however, to allow Eric to get the help he needs and want to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

The Supreme Court is going to decide if the right to put a killer into an institution for the mentally impaired is okay in light of a serious criminal act.

Eric Michael Clark is a sick young man. He needs serious help.

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And now, the infamous Arizona Minutemen are demanding that President Bush take action on our borders. They say that if he doesn’t, they will erect fences on their own property to keep out Mexican nationals.

I keep getting images of the Berlin wall. Nearly twenty years ago, the Germans realized that a wall is a detrimental thing. It does not promote good relations. It does not stop people from crossing if they really want to. It is a blight on the face of the earth.

Sometimes I think that my fellow country-men are so backward thinking. We’ve become a xenophobic nation.

We don’t look at ourselves as citizens of the world. Instead, it’s us versus them. Us against the world.

Our government has fostered that feeling with the whole “You’re either with us or against us” talks that have occurred since 9/11.

What a sad, hateful way to live.