OPINION:
Like most other Americans, I have watched hours of TV coverage of the murder of Charlie Kirk in Utah. The one recurring question in the commentaries is the wrong one: What was the killer’s motive?
The important question is: Why did he have to die? It is impossible to stop a maniac from shooting people, but cutting-edge intervention planning can save lives.
Why in the world did no one think to patrol the rooftops surrounding the open plaza where Kirk was speaking to a crowd of 3,000 people? Why didn’t they station a single person there? Or lock all doors leading to the rooftops?
Do the authorities at Utah Valley University, in Orem, Utah, or anywhere else in the country not remember what happened in Las Vegas in 2017? I shudder to think how many young people a psychopath could have killed by firing a semiautomatic into the crowd gathered to hear Kirk.
Have the authorities forgotten already the assassination attempt on candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania? A sniper on a rooftop made a long-range shot that came within an inch of killing the future president. With the constant death threats received, did it never occur to Charlie Kirk’s security team that when he is sitting down, talking to the crowd, or standing still, speaking from a lectern, he was quite literally a sitting duck for a sniper? A bulletproof screen would have saved his life.
Of course, no one can always be behind such screens, but when moving around, shaking hands and interacting with the public, it is much harder to get an accurate shot from a distance.
Finally, a police drone overhead would have immediately spotted the shooter and required only one person monitoring the live feed. The reality of modern life is that there are crazies among us. No amount of appeals to our “better angels” or “coming together as a country” or condemnations of political violence is going to change that. We must be better prepared.
WILLIAM MEACHAM
Hong Kong
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