Councilman Davis Killed at City Hall
Wednesday's commute home for many New Yorkers was more aggravation than usual since the police
had closed a few bridges and subway stations after the murder of a city councilman in the council
chamber. Nervous as New York has become, the immediate worry was a new style of terror had come to
town. When it was realized that the gunman was a lone nut, everyone relaxed, and proved just how
insane they are.
Councilman James Davis entered City Hall with Othniel Askew, and as a councilman and his guest,
neither passed through the metal detectors. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Askew shot Mr. Davis. Mr. Askew
was slain by police seconds after that. Initial reports indicate that Mr. Askew was a rather troubled
individual who wanted to be a politician and had latched onto Mr. Davis.
Mayor Bloomberg, who was in his City Hall office when the killing occurred not far away, called it an
attack on democracy itself. And he was right; the murder of an elected representative of the people
cannot be viewed as anything else. What distinguished this from an act of terror in the sense currently
understood is the absence of any political agenda beyond the nihilism of the killing. Mr. Askew killed not
because of the US occupation of Iraq, nor the plight of Liberia, nor the need for pre-school daycare. He
killed because he seems to have been crazy.
Since the gunman was a loon, like the lone killer of JFK (the official lone gunman, that is), Americans
heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn't al-Qaeda or the Saddamites, so business could return to normal. A pitiful
attitude to the death of a former police officer and elected representative of the people of Brooklyn. "How
awful," the readers of the New York Times said the next morning, and moved on. It seems that it is
not murder that bothers Americans so much as the thought that it might be done by someone with an
agenda. Death from out of the blue with no logic behind it doesn't upset the nation, but give it a political
motivation and the country cowers in front of its TV for more details.