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Jewish World Review March 15, 2000 /8 Adar II, 5760

David Horowitz

David Horowitz
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The Lead Investigator
Strikes Back

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WHEN I WROTE A COLUMN about the killing of six-year-old Kayla Rolland and the exploitation of her death by President Clinton and members of the gun-control lobby, the last person I expected to get an irate e-mail from was Arthur Busch, the lead investigator in the case. Least of all did I expect to get a sanctimonious lecture about race-baiting by "so-called experts … far removed from the reality of life in America." But that is exactly what I got:

"David Horowitz … is slowly sinking into the muck. He has begun to see almost everything through the prism of race. I led the investigation of the shooting of the six-year-old first grader in Mt. Morris, Michigan. Never once during this investigation did the issue of race ever get raised. Nor for that matter is it any factor whatsoever in this case.

"Our community is in pain over this tragedy. If anything it has brought the races together to mourn and to seek answers together. The type of irresponsible race baiting that Mr. Horowitz suggests in his article and in his so-called seminal question of the sordid tale of the death of this little girl is completely beyond the bounds of decency.

"By the way, this was his question: "Why did it take the press days to reveal that the shooter was black and his victim white. I say who in the hell cares? Mr. Horowitz proves to me that pundits and so-called experts like him are far removed from the reality of life in America. He is like an orchestra with two instruments: a computer and a lot of racial animosity."

Arthur A. Busch

Genesee County Prosecutor

200 Courthouse

Flint, Michigan 48502

 

Here is my reply:

Dear Mr. County Prosecutor,

I'm flattered but also not a little concerned that you would take time out from your busy schedule protecting the citizens of Genesee County to wag your finger at me over alleged racial offenses in my piece. If you had time to read what I wrote more carefully, you would see that the part of it that is about Kayla Rolland is not about race but the "moral idiocy of liberalism." Therefore, I am also indebted to you for providing an exemplary instance of this problem.

In point of fact, I never once suggested in my column that the killing of Kayla Rolland was racially motivated. I hope you don't conduct all your prosecutions as irresponsibly as you have this one of me.

Here are two remarkable sentences from your letter: "Never once during this investigation did the issue of race ever get raised. Nor for that matter is it any factor whatsoever in this case." Tell me something. How do you know that race is not a factor in a case if you never raise the issue during your investigation?

I have another question: How come you and your office haven't filed charges against the mother, father, and uncle of the little perpetrator of this tragic deed? Aren't there any laws in Michigan about child abuse? What about the social workers who knew this child was living with criminals in a crack house? Why aren't they under investigation? Since the killer had already stabbed another first grader, why is your office not investigating the school authorities and other public agencies who were obviously derelict in protecting Kayla Rolland, not to mention her killer?

May I offer a hypothesis? Could it be that the liberalism that guides our municipal agencies has lost a certain moral sense of what is right and wrong, so that it has come to protect little offenders like this, bending the old rules to keep what we used to call "delinquents" mainstreamed with their potential victims? Sixty Minutes recently featured a current case in which a District Attorney in Alabama is attempting to have a disturbed and malicious youngster (white) removed from the public-school system as a threat to other students. He is being strenuously opposed by liberal advocates of the "disabled," because the mental dysfunction that makes him a threat to others is, under current civil-rights law, legally a "disability" that protects him from "persecution" by oppressors like the District Attorney.

Perhaps something like that happened all along the way in the case you have so superficially investigated to protect the killer and to expose Kayla Rolland to attack. But of course that is no concern of yours. You are too busy protecting the whole mess (including your dereliction of duty) from politically incorrect busybodies like me.

One reason I asked the question as to why the press was so color-blind in this case was that I couldn't imagine a parallel situation where a little black girl in a class with an overwhelming majority of white students had been shot by a white youngster and the press would have no interest in that fact. Particularly since the killer had committed a violent act against another student previously. By the way, did you or any of your investigators bother to inquire about the race of the previous victim? Certainly the press has shown no interest in this at all.

My second reason for introducing the issue of race is the way in which the dysfunctionality of the perpetrator's family was allowed to disappear from all radar screens as the tragedy was transformed by the President and others into a poster-case for the new trigger-lock gun law. You will remember that I asked how a family of outlaws, with stolen guns in their crack-house abode, was going to be impressed by a new law about triggers? It seemed like a reasonable question to me. Just as it seems reasonable to me to wonder whether law enforcement's willingness to allow a bunch of criminals to have their way with two small children (the shooter and his eight-year-old brother) had anything at all to do with the fact that they were black? The same question could be put to the social workers. Social workers, as is well known, are often guided by a left-wing worldview that causes them to treat dysfunctional people, who happen to be "of color," as victims of oppression who need to be protected rather than, well, dysfunctional people who may be threats to themselves and everyone else.

Even though I did not once suggest that the killing of Kayla Rolland was racially motivated, do you really think that had the colors been reversed you and your investigators would have no interest in the question itself? Particularly if Mr. Sharpton had arrived on the scene to put the question to you? Perhaps that is because the existence of white racism is a cliché, while the existence of black racism is more like a taboo.

I suggest you take some time to consider these facts and these questions, and then think about putting your own house of law in order before you go lecturing the rest of us about denial, and moral issues that are probably over your head.



JWR contributor David Horowitz is editor of Front Page Magazine and the author of several books, including, Hating Whitey, Art of Political War, Radical Son : A Generational Odyssey . Comment on this article by clicking here.


Up

03/08/00: Racial Killings & Gun Control
02/28/00: Primary Lessons
02/22/00: Racial Shakedowns
01/25/00: Intellectual Class War
01/03/00: A faith that ruined whole continents and destroyed a world of human lives
12/28/99: Brain Dead Till the End
12/14/99: Letter to the past
12/07/99: Why Republicans Lose
11/23/99: MLK is no doubt spinning in his grave
11/10/99: Finding the American Center
11/02/99: Reflections on The Road Taken and Not

© 2000, David Horowitz