Death Wish

I missed the beginning of the case of the courtroom killer in my soon to be (once again) home town of Atlanta (after giving my notice to my employer, they didn't walk me off the property until almost noon eastern time). Once I got home and turned on Fox News there was wall to wall coverage.

So this guy overpowers a female deputy sheriff and shoots her in the face, rushes into the court room, presumably looking for the girl accusing him of rape, among other things, but doesn't find her there so he shoots and kills the judge presiding over the case, the court stenographer and then upon leaving the court house decides to kill a deputy sheriff on the sidewalk.

Later he would pistol whip a reporter for the local paper who was just getting to work and steal his car (only to abandon it one floor down in the parking garage). Early this morning he allegedly killed a U.S. Customs Agent and stole his truck and drove until he came upon an unsuspecting woman walking into her apartment in a Duluth, Georgia. The woman later gained her freedom and called 911.

Upon seeing the 30 or so SWAT Team members of Gwinnett County (who did a marvelous job and showed a great deal of restraint) 34 year old Brian Nichols surrendered to the police without incident.

Why is this event newsworthy, or at least bloggerworthy to me? In my opinion each one of the SWAT Team members is worthy of a medal, or accommodation of some kind, and I mean in the highest order. This human being (and I use that term in the lowest possible sense) should be dead, and more than likely will be, legally, under the death sentence, some 20 years or so from now when no one will remember why. There will be protesters, of course, claiming his life shouldn't be extinguished because he was under some sort of distress at the time he murdered 4 innocent people. Perhaps he had a nagging hang nail at the time, who could be held reasonably accountable for something he did under those conditions?

If I were a member of the SWAT Team that ultimately captured this complete animal, I don't know that I would have been able to honor the "flag of truce" that Nichols waved from the empty apartment he was occupying. My mind could quite possibly have wandered to the four innocent lives he so mercilessly snuffed out, and to their grieving families. Could my finger have been kept from pulling the trigger that could save those family's the grief and the taxpayers the cost of putting this monster on trial?

Fortunately for Brian Nichols, neither he or I have to worry about that. He will be tried, he will be convicted, he will have 20 years of appeals, but ultimately he will die for the crimes he committed over the last two days. May God have mercy on his soul, because at this time, I for one certainly don't, and that is something that I will have to come to terms with.

I pray that God will comfort those whose lives have been affected by these events.