From: Steve Wingate 
Subject: IUFO: America braced for 'brutalisation effect' as McVeigh waits to die
Date: 6 May 2001 04:30:52 -0400
To: IUFO , SNETNEWS 

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Date sent:      	Sat, 05 May 2001 14:08:20 -0700
From:           	radman 
Subject:        	[CTRL] America braced for 'brutalisation effect' as McVeigh waits to
	die
To:             	CTRL@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Send reply to:  	Conspiracy Theory Research List 


America braced for 'brutalisation effect' as McVeigh waits to die

By Andrew Gumbel in Terre Haute, Indiana

Independent (UK)

05 May 2001

Mark Hamm took one look at the gruesome image on television and had no
doubt what it portended.

Someone across the state line in Illinois had ripped out the guts of a dog
and strung up the poor animal in public over a device looking like a
guillotine.

To the average television viewer, it might have seemed a particularly sick
item of local news. To Professor Hamm, who teaches criminology at Indiana
State University here, it felt like the beginning of what he expects to be
a wave of violence to mark the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma
City bomber, at the federal penitentiary just outside Terre Haute in 11
days' time.

The dog owner was a white supremacist. "I think he and a group of skinheads
did it to make a statement about their willingness to do evil," Professor
Hamm said. "This was an act of anger about the McVeigh execution. The
brutalisation effect has begun."

The term "brutalisation effect" is used by academics to refer to a
phenomenon that tends to occur around any execution: a marked increase in
the rate of murders and other violent crimes that starts before a prisoner
is put to death and lasts for some time after.

This happens even at the most routine executions, the theory being that
capital punishment inures people to violence and suggests to criminals that
if killing is all right for the state then it might be all right for them too.

How widespread the effect will be with someone as notorious as McVeigh is
anybody's guess, but the signs are ominous. Not only is there talk of his
death by lethal injection on 16 May being hailed by anti- government
survivalists and white supremacists as some kind of martyrdom; it will also
have saturation media coverage, including a closed-circuit relay of his
final moments broadcast to relatives of his victims in Oklahoma City.

The city of Terre Haute is taking no chances. All schools in the area will
be closed for the day. Up to 1,000 police, from federal investigators to
beat cops, will be on the streets to keep order among the thousands of
protesters, media representatives and other potentially disruptive influences.

"We just don't know what will happen," said Sister Helen Prejean, the
celebrated death penalty opponent who plans to address audiences across
Indiana in the next fortnight. She told an audience in Evansville she was
afraid someone might take a leaf out of McVeigh's virulent anti-government
book and attack a federal target. "I don't know that I'd be going into a
post office for a few days after," she said.

The disembowelled dog is not the only sign of trouble. This week, a
56-year-old man was beaten to death in Terre Haute by two teenagers with an
axe handle and a baseball bat, apparently in retaliation for a fight they
had had last weekend.

Professor Hamm said there were also unconfirmed reports that a group of
young people had stolen munitions in central Tennessee and were heading
north for the execution. The reports could be part of the general hysteria,
but they could also be a real threat.

The brutalisation effect has been noted by professional criminologists
since 1980, shortly after the United States reintroduced the death penalty.
Two researchers in New York state estimated in a landmark study that the
average knock-on effect of an execution was two murders within one month,
and another within two months. Since then, similar patterns have been
demonstrated in Pennsylvania, California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Illinois and
elsewhere.

Anxious to allay any such upsurge, city officials in Terre Haute are
frantically trying to maintain some sense of dignity as the circus beckons.

Mayor Judith Anderson is urging people to "do something positive" on 16
May. "Plant some flowers, take your children to a park ... Try not to dwell
on somebody being killed at 7am," she said. One county official is hoping
to plant 168 tree seedlings, one for each person who died in the Oklahoma
bombing six years ago.

Some Terre Haute residents are making no secret of their desire to profit
from the occasion. Hamburgers and shish kebabs will be sold on the street.
One entrepreneur, 31-year-old Tony Lewis, is selling T-shirts with images
of McVeigh on eBay, the online auction site. One batch bears the slogan:
"Terre Haute Extra/Hangin' Times  Die, Die, Die". Another, for death
penalty opponents, reads: "Let McVeigh Live".

Rod Henry, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, said: "It's a sick
concept. We're going to have a hard enough time maintaining the image of
our community. And now this."

------- End of forwarded message -------

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