While searching the Vancouver Sun for the obituary of a colleague recently departed, I came across a new article on Nina Coutepatte, the thirteen-year-old Edmonton teen whose unidentifiable remains were discovered on a golf course almost two years ago. The random victim of a group of young thugs seeking someone to kill, Nina was repeatedly raped before being torn to shreds with various weapons. She apparently begged to die by knife rather than wrench.
Unable to shrug her death off with a mere, "I'm glad it wasn't me," I was left with a disconcerting unease that has lingered all day. The audacity of five young people to select another human being to kill--a human being with every right to live the one life she was given, a human being who did not deserve to spend her last moments on earth with an all-too-clear understanding of human depravity. How five people could be so cold-blooded, agreeing to a plan to inflict suffering, and then, when the gruesome reality of their actions set in, participating rather than interceding, is beyond me. They lacked even the slightest inkling of creativity--an ability to emphathize with another's suffering for even a moment, or to the see the bigger picture. What is most disturbing, though, is the personal nature of the attack: the way one child was chosen from many, selected for whatever reason to be the recipient of torture and death, and briefed on what she would experience over the course of her final night.
There are times when I wish that I wasn't a member of this odious race . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment