Mike Farwell

I spent a lot of my youth reading Stephen King horror novels. Some of my adulthood, too, in fact. But if King ever wrote of a man who decapitated a fellow passenger on board a bus in an unprovoked, seemingly random attack, I can’t remember it.

To say the story emerging from Canada’s west is disturbing does not come near close enough to the truth. It is a story that chills you to your core. Already, opinions are coming in from far and wide. Some are critical of the other bus passengers, who did nothing to try and prevent the tragedy. Others are critical of the apparent lack of security on buses. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Here’s mine.

Don’t sit back and criticize what other people did or did not do on that bus, because you weren’t there. You have no idea how you would react. I’d like to think I could do something heroic but the truth is that witnessing a scene like that would probably freeze me in place. If not, survival instincts could take over and I may well run like hell. And let’s not make this an issue about bus safety, or security at Greyhound terminals. This horrific act was so random in nature that it could literally have happened anywhere, including on any given morning at your favourite coffee shop in Anyplace, Canada.

A young man’s life has been snuffed out by a senseless tragedy. It is natural for our personal feelings of safety and security to be shaken. I can’t help but think mental illness played a role here. Let’s hope others find the help they need before we are forced to bear witness to such a crime again.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 10:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.