No one saw it coming, not Jovan Belcher’s Kansas City Chiefs teammates, his coaches, his family members, his friends, his agent, certainly not Kasandra Perkins, the girlfriend and mother of his infant daughter that he gunned down in their home Saturday morning.
They all knew him better than any fan, and yet none of them knew he was capable of such unspeakable violence.
Comments
You got that right Christopher!
While I agree that this is a horrible tragedy, especially for the child who will someday have to come to terms with it, there is almost always some advance warning of impending catastrophe. In nearly all suicides (and this was a suicide after all) the person will verbalize his or her intent to do so. A seemingly innocuous comment, a random conversation about life in gerenal, etc. Someone will likely recall such an event as the weeks unfold. Brady Quinn (a young man I now have much respect for) hit the nail on the head when he made the observation: "When you ask someone how they are doing, do you really mean it?" He went on to make several valid obervations of life that we should all heed.
No one knew that he was capable of such unspeakable violence? Please! He was a football player. Violence was his business. It is time to stop heroizing these maladjusted young men and see that game for what it is. It is a blotch on American culture. It glamorizes barbarism and ruins the people who play. Too many football players turn out to be offenders in one way or another. This incident is just another example of the underlying violence of our culture and it is no accident that a football player was involved. If you are a football fan and you are honest, you have a lot of soul searching to do.
Sorry but I think it's a reach to equate the violence that goes on in football with killing someone. Most players lead normal, peaceful lives. They can separate what goes on on the field with their personal lives. It's like saying a prison guard goes home and beats their wife and kids. No soul searching needed, thanks.
As you said, the real victims are Perkins, the baby, and those left behind who will grieve for both the losses of Perkins and Belcher. I can't imagine losing a daughter or to having a child of mine commit such an atrocity. With all that said, we'll likely never know what compels someone to do something like this. Unlike a career criminal who clearly isn't wired right, Belcher seemed to be a good person based on all who knew him, but something short circuited in his head. It's scary to think about what people are capable of doing when something snaps.
Okay, so you think that Michael Vick, for instance, lived a peaceful, normal life? If you chose to ignore the mounting incidence of football players exhibiting violent or irresponsible societal behavior, then you are fooling yourself. If you choose to ignore the fact that a very significant percentage of NFL players are carrying handguns, that's naive. If you choose to ignore the Junior Seaus, the Ted Johnsons, the Dave Duersons, the Andre Waters, then go ahead and enjoy your football game. No soul searching for you. I submit that it isn't so mystifying that Belcher did this. A young man playing a violent game under immense pressure while ill prepared to handle the culture he had been immersed in, and also ill prepared to handle the damage he was capable of. If you ignore the societal factors here, you are taking refuge in simple explanations.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Thank you for seeing things as they are and laying the blame at the feet of the person responsible and not contributing to glorifying someone who cowardly put an end to another person's life. Thank you also for putting things in their right place and not condoning the behavior of a team that went on with a game it should never have played. Thank you for showing the charade for what it is. You show courage, lucidity, and humanity in this great article of yours. Thank you again.