Last week the Arkansas Times published a "Killing Spree" edition.
Given the recent near-record spate of homicides in Pine Bluff and Little Rock, an objective observer upon seeing the cover headline might have thought the alt-left publication had finally seen one too many murder victims lying in the street and had enough.
Or perhaps had noticed the unmistakable news coverage in mainstream sources:
• Arkansas' Newspaper reported the Little Rock police chief's worrying aloud about increasing gun violence (150 people in LR survived shootings last year) and the issue's accurate reporting requires several stories daily;
• The Jonesboro Sun headline last week was splashed across all five columns: "2016 set record highs in crime," addressing what anyone who's paying attention knows to be an escalating problem.
But no.
The only killing "spree" the Arkansas Times was interested in is the impending ramped-up executions of killers caused by death penalty opponents who refuse to respect the law as enacted by the people.
They stonewall executions at every juncture and for every conceivable reason until there's a backlog--and then they stonewall because there's a backlog.
What the entire Times issue failed to feature, in any form anywhere, is any mention of the current crime problem. That's what's swamping normal news outlets, striking mortal fear into the hearts of citizens and sending far too many young victims to the morgue or the hospital.
The murder count to date in Pine Bluff is already nearly as high as all of last year's total. Little Rock is toying with a homicide pace matching the old gangbanger days, with gunshots in some areas as common as firecrackers on the Fourth of July.
"Gunfire every night, every night," one resident of southwest Little Rock was quoted as saying after a teenage male bleeding from a gunshot wound ran into a nearby church for help.
There are tons of topical data for any genuine journalistic foray into real Arkansas "killing sprees."
But the Times made no mention of the hundreds of thousands of Arkansas violent crimes, or their victims, since the seven inmates scheduled for execution have sat on death row (except for a scant summary of some of the specific victims of those seven).
It's easy math. From 1990 (the first death sentence of the group) to 2015, there were 356,010 violent crimes in Arkansas, including 5,101 murders and 28,474 forcible rapes. The voluminous rest were robberies and aggravated assaults, many of which also might have been homicides except for timely medical treatment or dumb luck (like a criminal's bad aim).
Death sentences and executions aren't about compassion; they are matters of law, with statutory consequences for deliberately heinous actions. Compassion for surviving murderers must not be allowed to supersede compassion for long-dead victims. That's why we rely on the rule of law to govern crimes and punishments, rather than despots making decisions subject to personal or popular opinion.
Nobody--conservative or liberal, citizen or legislator, pundit or politician--is "happy" that mitigating timing factors have created an undesirable situation for the coming executions.
There is no "happiness" of any sort in capital murder cases because both the crime and the punishment are always lamentable. The sheer waste leaves society shaking its collective head in angst. But it is the most cruel of criminal victim injustices to manipulate delays to the punishment, only to then use the passage of time as an excuse for a murderer's "change" warranting clemency.
Far too few speak for the victims in cases like this.
Death penalty opponents pour millions in resources to spare murderers' lives. There is no like amount devoted to repairing the harm or easing the suffering the murderers caused.
For every violent crime, a victim suffers. The death row inmates' victims suffered and died decades ago, but every day and night more victims are still suffering and dying.
Opponents need to walk in the shoes of victims, and try to sleep with gunfire outside, and tremble in trepidation while unloading groceries in the dark.
So many of us take our safety for granted, we can't comprehend violent-crime victimhood.
We cannot fathom truly fearing for our life--the utter, suffocating panic of realization that another human devalues your life so much that he's willing to end it, in that very moment, without care or regard for all that's left unfinished at your home or work.
Violent-crime victims all had plans for the next day. Murder takes not only a life, but a world. It kills more than its victim; it slaughters security, butchers family bonds, and massacres all measures of hopes and dreams.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson is being beseeched in letters, columns and interviews to commute the death sentences of the guilty and rightly condemned. But we are not a monarchy.
In a Regnat Populus state, the proper way to end capital punishment is by changing the law democratically. Not asking the governor to overrule it.
The governor has no easy choice. But if he chooses to stand for justice, for applying the law and for the forgotten victims who were given no choice in their horrific fate, the last thing he deserves is condemnation.
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 04/14/2017