On top of the carnival atmosphere, Montgomery County Police Chief Moose was second guessed and mocked throughout the entire investigation. His PHD dissertation
can now be found on the internet and his fitness to handle this case was questioned by the TV and radio "experts". The Washington Post, which seemed to be doing its
best to whip its readers into complete panic even dug into the poor man's background in a remarkably cheesy---and failed--- effort to dig up dirt.
Finally, although this may offend you, consider this: For most of October, hysteria reigned supreme from the DC suburbs to Richmond and its surrounding counties. Two
evil men controlled the lives of millions of people. Students in the most of the affected areas were on lockdown for weeks. School outings, recess, after-school programs
and all outside sports were cancelled. In some schools teachers were forced to escort students, teens included, to the bathrooms in the name of keeping them safe from
the killers. At various points many schools in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia area were simply closed. The kids didn't find much relief at home either. Many parents were
afraid to let their children play in their own backyards.
Adults panicked at the thought of going to the gas station and on the weekends there were noticeably less people in parks, restaurants and in the shopping malls. Last
week I looked out of my living room window and saw one of my neighbors--I'll call him "Ed", staggering across the parking lot. My first shocked thought was that Ed was
falling down drunk at 7 am in the morning. As I watched he suddenly stood up straight and bolted towards his car. The poor man was doing the "weave and bob" to avoid
being shot. One woman I know became so overwrought with fear for her seven year old son's safety at school that she seriously considered sending him to relatives in
another state until the killers were caught. Another acquaintance found herself shaking and crying whenever the news told us about a new victim. Instead of wishing me a
good or nice day sales clerks and waiters somberly told me to "be safe."
John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are two dangerous losers. One or both of them may have thought themselves to be gods but they aren't and it goes against all
reason that they were able to reduce an entire region to a mass of Jello. The huge majority of us had a better chance of being struck repeatedly by lightning or of winning
the lottery in our states than we ever had of running into Muhammad and Malvo's bullets.
In 1960, a remarkable episode of the Twilight Zone aired. It was called "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" and was about the citizens of a bucolic neighborhood who
go berserk with blind fear because of the manipulations of two outsiders. This October a lot of us landed on Maple Street.
Kimberley Wilson
Author of Work It! The Black Woman's Guide to Success at Work
(Iuniverse, ISBN 059500122X, $8.95) &
Eleven Things Mama Should Have Told You About Men
(African American Images, September 2000, ISBN: 0913543691, $12.95)
http://members.aol.com/wilsonhope/aaa/index.html
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Copyright 2003 by Kimberly Jane Wilson. Not to be reproduced in any fashion,
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