Tragic events have come to this Emerald City of Seattle. In separate incidences a month apart five police officers have been gunned down in cold blood by lunatics. The lunatics are promptly identified, hunted down, and shot on sight by other police under the premise that they are proven armed and dangerous. The public applauds vigorously and relishes the taste of justice done.

The murder of police by deranged cowards, striking out against randomly chosen, but obvious symbols of authority, is heartbreaking. No less so even though we live in a world where the daily news of mass loss of life has become so routine. The fact that law enforcement catches these murderers so quickly (in contrast to men who kill prostitutes) is disturbing. A vengeful blood lust from the public is expected. But lingering behind the back of such tragedy is the odd sense that this vigilante justice is itself criminal, and a crime on a larger social scale.

Trust me, I sympathize with the public mood even as I disagree with the outcome. If harm came to my family I could deliver a personal form of capital justice with an alarming moral certainty. Between individuals there is, in this cruel world, only eye for an eye retribution; a familiar Middle Eastern form of justice that cycles endlessly until everyone is blind.

But the actions of the State must be above that fray. The State, its authority wielded by the police, must take a path that is distinct from emotion, from vengeance, and battlefield justice. The culture of violence in our society, in Tel Aviv or Baghdad, seems pervasive, and irreconcilable. It's not true, however, and within civil society a higher level of justice can intervene. Our society must finally act on a position that the culture of violence must end somewhere. If killing is wrong, killing is always wrong. If it is morally situational, then capital punishment, war, and murder become acceptable means of resolving disputes and will be with us forever.

The killers should have been brought in, given a competent defense attorney, tried openly, convicted, and sentenced to life imprison without parole. Few people understand how this process brings justice to the weeping wives and children of those police. It cant. Nothing can bring justice to such loss. But our criminal justice system is a misnomer. It is not about bringing justice. Our courts exist to resolve conflict for the greater good of society at large; to allow people to move on. Death to a murderer is no punishment at all.

True, the cost of keeping them in prison is huge, but it is a bargain for a new morality of nonviolence that it can deliver gradually to the public conscience. Reverend King knew this. Our own Civil Rights movement was an model for the ultimate success of nonviolent power against a culture of brutality. In my own lifetime the Nation has seen its last lynchings and its first Black President

Along this same lines- while I'm on this soapbox- I object to the State lottery; a mechanism for theft from the poor and the foolish that teaches the sad message of looking to risk and luck for success. That men will gamble their future in a back room card game is of little concern to me. That the State is promotes gambling, and does so to raise funds that it proves too cowardly to raise through traditional taxation, is deplorable. Again, we should come to expect a higher example from the body politic our combined vision can create as a culture.

ACROCINUS