One strange thing about crime scenes is the immediate response of the passersby. On Madison Avenue, thousands of shoppers, tourists, workers, revelers and, of course, media are immediately on hand, hovering about the perimeter and practicing some form of rubbernecking. Every person who seems to belong -- mostly the cops and, to a lesser extent, the reporters -- is ceaselessly inundated with the question: "What happened?"
After they hear the answer, whether it's the short version ("There's been an incident," or "There was a shooting") or the long version ("A crazy man killed his ex-wife and shot her fiancee in front of hundreds of people."), the reactions are predictable and fairly annoying. The most sensible people say, "Oh, that's terrible," and drop it there. The somewhat too-nosy people say, "Oh, that's terrible. How did it happen? Why did he do it?" The sidewalk fatalists say, "Oh, that's terrible. This world is so crazy. Isn't anything sacred." The sidewalk moralists say, "Oh that's terrible. If only people would take the time out to work out their problems rather than resorting to violence. What a waste." The truly clueless say, "A shooting? Like a movie? What movie? Is there anyone famous in it?" (I personally fielded this one three or four times). And the truly idiotic say, "Wow, a shooting! Loraine, come over here! Did you hear? There was a shooting! Isn't that just so CSI! Was there a lot of blood and guts, officer?"
No comments:
Post a Comment