Crying Out For Those Alone....

The horror of 12 senseless murders hit the television, radio, newspapers, blogs and social media yesterday in an inescapable fashion.  The live, non-stop coverage of the frightening assault on a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado was relentless.  Everyone knows of the events and the name of the obviously deranged murdered, and many of the individual heartbreaking stories recounted on Facebook and the national news networks.


It's estimated over one thousand law enforcement officers from local, state and national agencies are involved in the investigation and in the search of the assailant's booby trapped apartment.


Certainly there are many thousands of journalists, bloggers, investigative reporters, pundits, experts, politicians, religious and civic leaders analyzing every tiny detail.  Like similar events in the past, it will be dissected for months and tens of thouands of pages will be written.  Books and even movies are likely to follow that.


I am raising no objection to any of this.  It is as it should be.  I pray for comfort and healing for the suffering and know, in many cases, there will be no relief from the relentless grief.


But, even as Aurora captured the news, there were dozens more murder victims this past week nationwide that gathered no attention.  There will be few, if any, law enforcement officers investigating.  There will be no national task force, no F.B.I., no forensics, no new laws, no  great discoveries. Many of the murderers will never be identified and many will murder again.


For all these murders there will be no national press coverage.  Probably no local press coverage either.  The victims family will never be interviewed by Piers Morgan or Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity.  We won't know their story, experience their horror or feel their pain.


Facebook entries might be made, but you and I will never see them.


Neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney will make a speech, say a prayer or suspend campaigning in respect for their tragedy.


And the worst part? Next week it will all repeat.  Roughly eighty to one hundred bright young people will be senselessly murdered.  You'll never notice.  You'll never know.  And, as a society, we won't do a damned thing to stop it or even slow it down.


Maybe that's the scariest part of the genocide happening in our country right now.  Because every story is a small piece, we can ignore it.


Because of Aurora our movie going experience will change.  There will be ample extra security, cameras, alarms on doors, maybe even metal detectors.  There will be security guards, probably armed security guards. 


Even though there have been virtually no murders in movie theaters over the last 100 years, we will have massive protection going forward.


But the national genocide will continue unabated, at the rate of 6 to 7 Aurora's every week, 80 to 100 people murdered every week, most in senseless acts of violence every bit as horrific as Aurora.  But nothing will be done.  Nothing.


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As you remember the twelve people killed in the Aurora movie theater this week, please also remember these twelve people killed in Chicago this past week, too. They'll get no press coverage and you'll likely never see their names anywhere but on this blog.


Nathaniel Gonzalez, age 16


Marshall Knights, age 21 


 Ricky Hankins, age 49 


 Daniel Green, age 21 


 Mark Carney, age 26 


Andrew Jackson, age 27 


 James Bell, age 26 


 Martin Tejeda, age 16 


 Elle Mills, age 53 


 Maurice Wilson, age 22 


 Phillip Finley 


Anthony Collazo, age 21