Two Tragic Deaths, And Some Useful Lessons
/
It’s been a very sad few weeks, first with the tragic and senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina on August 22, and now with the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah on September 10. These two killings have suddenly focused the attention of a lot of previously complacent people, and provided some very useful education about the kind of world we live in. But what are the lessons to take away?
One possible lesson is that the world is just irretrievably filled with anger and hate, to the extent that the best that sensible people can do is withdraw into their bunker, keep out of blue states and away from people who follow leftist and woke ideology, stick to a limited circle of family and friends, and avoid dealing with the broader world to the maximum extent possible.
I do not subscribe to that approach. Yes, there is a lot of anger and hate in the world, but also an equal or greater amount of goodness and beauty. And the thing that makes life worthwhile is participating in the fray, and trying to improve things. So here I am living in Manhattan, deep behind the enemy’s political lines, posting my contrarian positions publicly and participating in various ways, however fruitless in the short term, to move the political needle here at least a little. Hey, it’s fun.
Is this dangerous? Maybe a little, but not in any way that I can immediately perceive. I’ve certainly never received any death threats, or really any threats. Maybe that’s because I haven’t been particularly effective.
Charlie Kirk took the business of confronting the left on their own turf to a new level all his own. In his case it was clearly risky, as he was well aware. He went to the places that the left thought were their sacred sanctuaries, college campuses, and organized thousands to resist indoctrination in the official religion. He was the ultimate heretic against a powerful religious cult. He faced constant threats and physical confrontation, but he kept at it as a happy warrior. It took great courage to do what he did.
Should Kirk have stayed away from the fray in order to avoid the fate of an assassin’s bullet? I strongly suspect that if he had known that an assassin was out for his scalp, it would not have slowed him down. He understood that important undertakings come with risks. We need more like Charlie Kirk who are willing to take big risks and refuse to be silenced. (I’m not meaning to suggest that Kirk is the only one who has had the courage to soldier on in the face of the left’s hate and cancel culture and lawfare. Many have done so, and have paid with their jobs or their life savings or their freedom. Kirk is unusual in having been killed.)
But how about the case of Ms. Zarutska, killed by a violent and psychotic career criminal on a public transit facility. With nearly all large cities in this country under the control of Democratic administrations that are explicitly lenient in treatment of recidivist criminals, surely Ms. Zarutska’s case teaches that it is best to avoid public transit facilities in big cities entirely if at all possible.
That conclusion might seem obvious to almost the entire readership here, but again I am going to disagree.
First, let me establish my bona fides. I have lived in Manhattan since 1975, over 50 years, and in that time have taken our subway an average of about 15 times per week, or a total of between 30,000 and 40,000 times over that period. And I have never experienced an incident where I felt I was at risk.
But, you ask, aren’t there large numbers of potentially dangerous and psychotic people roaming the subway system? Absolutely. I would estimate that on average I observe a potential dangerous person on average once or twice a week. So why haven’t I felt at risk? Is it just luck?
There may be some luck involved, but much more important is observing a few simple rules:
Always be aware of your surroundings. Yes you can read a newspaper or look at your phone, but you must not fail to keep track of who is around you.
The people who are dangerous, in my experience, always broadcast their danger in obvious ways. Often they are agitated, fidgety, walking up and down energetically, lying across several seats, talking to themselves or even shouting. They present themselves in ways that overtly signal hostility, which could include facial expression, hair style, tattoos, clothing, lack of clothing, or other such things.
Your first mission in situational awareness is to spot any of these people who are near you. And then — you promptly put as much space between them and you as possible. Subway stations are plenty big enough to do this. If you are on a platform, you can put a couple of hundred feet between yourself and such a person in a fraction of a minute. If you are in a train car, go to the next car. You do not need to be conspicuous or obvious about this. Just quietly get it done. Then go back to reading your book. But always keep half an eye out to see if that person, or another such, gets near.
If the person of concern is particularly aggressive, once you have gotten far enough away, you can call 911. I have only done this very rarely.
If you follow these simple prescriptions, I do not think you are at any more danger on the subway than on the street. I cannot guarantee that you will be at zero risk on the subway, but remember that there are dangerous and psychotic people on the street as well. And by the way, you should also follow my rules when walking on the street.
If you look at the video and stills of Ms. Zarutska on the Charlotte train, you will see that she violated all of my rules. Here is a link to a New York Post article with many pictures. Ms. Zarutska walks into the train car and appears not to notice Mr. Brown. Brown is very obviously a person of concern: he is fidgiting regularly; his facial expression is dubious to say the least; he has dreadlocks half way down to his waist; and he is wearing a hoodie that is pulled up over his head even though it is a warm August night. He is very clearly signaling to the world to be wary. She should promptly and inconspicuously put some distance between herself and this guy.
But instead, she sits down right next to him, with him in back of her where she can’t see him. And she proceeds to bury her head in scrolling her phone. And she is also wearing ear pods, so she can’t hear him either.
Here is a photo from the Post from just before the fatal stabbing:
Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute wrote a piece for City Journal on September 10 taking the opposite position from me on what Ms. Zarutska should have done:
She has no reason to avoid this young black man, Brown, 34, dressed in a hoodie, who, as she sits down, appears to be struggling to stay awake (he has been muttering and making jerky movements in the moments before she gets on the train). . . . Even if she had looked behind her, or saw the man in her window’s reflection, she has no reason to fear him; he might appear fidgety, but lots of people fidget on the train. Zarutska scrolls through her phone, at one point nearly dropping it. . . . Nothing out of the ordinary is going on here.
All I can say is, I doubt that Ms. Gelinas is a regular subway rider. She is just wrong in this instance. Brown gave at least four clues that he was trouble (the fidgiting, the facial expression, the dreadlocks, and the hoodie).
I am not meaning to suggest that Ms. Zarutska bears even the slightest blame here. But this incident can provide a valuable lesson for the rest of us on how to conduct ourselves in a dangerous world. Definitely, the City of Charlotte and its courts and prosecutors bear substantial blame for not keeping this obvious menace in custody in light of his long record of prior violent acts. But even much stricter bail and incarceration policies than were followed here are never going to remove all dangerous people from the streets and the trains. You need a modest degree of wariness to survive in this crazy world.
So is there any reason to ever use the subway, or for that matter to ever come to New York City? Both provide a great opportunity to observe the range of humanity — the good, the bad and the ugly. If you stay cloistered among “your kind,” you’ll end up with a very warped view of what the world is about. And if you come to New York and refuse to get on the subway, you could find many places inconvenient and expensive to get to, and you’ll miss out on half the reason you had for coming.