Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 25, 1993 TAG: 9308230280
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A tragic mistake. The language barrier. Poor judgment. Irrational fear.
Pretty hollow-sounding reasons to offer the family and fellow countrymen of the student slain last October in Baton Rouge, La., after he and an American companion, both in costume for a Halloween party, knocked on the door of the Rodney Peairs home and announced: ``We're looking for the party.''
Feeble as they are, they are the only explanations America has for what happened to Yoshihiro Hattori: Peairs' wife answered the door and was frightened by the costumed figure of Webb Haymaker, Hattori's companion that night. She called for her husband to get his gun; he came to the door armed with a .44 Magnum and ordered the two youths to ``freeze.'' Hattori - probably not understanding the command, probably unaware of the gun - rushed toward Peairs, arms waving, and - bam! ``Death Wish'' turns from paranoid Hollywood fantasy to horrible suburban reality.
Reality, it turns out, is not the satisfying execution of a murderous, psychotic criminal. Reality is the death of an innocent teen-ager.
The Peairses have been shattered by their mistake. Their actions against Hattori apparently were driven by panic rather than malice. It is hard to see what purpose would have been served had Rodney Peairs been convicted of manslaughter.
Still, the affair is bothersome, not so much because a horrible mistake occurred, but because there is such widespread acceptance of this sort of event as normal.
Rodney Peairs was just a man defending his home. Life in America, brought to you by makers of the .44 Magnum.
One potential juror was struck from hearing the case because she couldn't even figure out why it was brought to trial. A spectator outside the courthouse explained: ``We're just prisoners in our neighborhoods. It would be to me what a normal person would do under those circumstances.''
Normal? In trying to fortify our homes against dangers real and imagined, we are making our homes dangerous places.
In Japan, where guns are unusual and most shootings are gang-related, it is hard to grasp how a young man was killed not by wanton criminals, but by an average family man.
There is much to fear in America, we can explain to the Japanese in trying to make some sense of Yoshihiro Hattori's death. One of our fears is the ready access to handguns when people are frightened or angry or depressed.
It is so easy to make mistakes. We make a lot of them.
by CNB