I began the Right Wing Violence map shortly after the signing of the 2010 Health Care Reform act when the threatening behavior of protesters at the Capitol began to be reflected around the country.** The first incident reported on March 18th was the remark by House Minority Leader John Boehrner that a fellow Ohio congressman would be a 'dead man' if he didn't vote a certain way. This was followed by spittle, epithets and threats from protesters towards Congressmen and women as they headed to the Capitol building to vote.
Well after too much coffee on the drive back from San Antonio, I sat down to catch up and update the map with a terrible story from West Memphis, Arkansas where two police officers were killed during a traffic stop.
[8:10am waking to give the obligatory thanks and murrayewv points out The Commercial Appeal's excellent coverage of the W Memphis shootings.]
Review the interactive Google Map at http://bit.ly/RWViolence (case sensitive) with links to media coverage of each event.
Most of the entries to the map are added days after the incident occurs. Such was the case with the woman shot and killed May 20th in her home as she pointed her shotgun at officers responding to armed threats against a U.S. Census worker. Perhaps CNN's Erik Erickson would have something to say about this. (audio: 7 min mark)
But tonight, I had to research and map the incidents that began with the shooting deaths of Officers Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans. As I read into the accounts (NYTimes, Huffington Post (AP), WPTY ABC 24, WHBQ FOX 13) I learned of a tax cheat con man who had declared himself a minister. How he charged money for seminars around the country on foreclosure prevention and withholding taxes. Learned how his 16yr old son was home schooled by his father and began constantly carrying a toy gun at 9 years old. Last Thursday that son, having graduated to AK-47s, is thought to have fired the first shots killing those two officers.
When I arranged the timeline, I saw the sobering data cluster. Five dead, two seriously wounded in one day of violence that seems to be a manifestation of the rhetoric we've been hearing on talk radio and cable television.
I've deleted from this diary four paragraphs of preaching and ranting. I'm afraid I'm not with it enough to give a cohesive, thoughtful analysis of the events. I can only present the data and I'll leave it for y'all to rant in the comments. Will monitor for a little while, but will obviously need to get to sleep soon as it's 3am here and the coffee is wearing off.
** Note: March 15th was chosen as an arbitrary date occurring near the turning point in the HCR debate where language turned into action. There are many acts that occurred prior to this date and I'll be documenting these separately as time allows. Would work with one or two other volunteers to catch up with past data, beginning with the period between the 2008 Democratic Convention and March 15th.