A month to the day after the Vancouver drive-killings took a number of lives, including that of Jen Darbellay, my beloved sister-in-law, leaving my brother a widow and his two young children motherless and a driver ploughs into a group of innocent people in Liverpool. There are many injuries and according to the Liverpool Region Mayor Steve Rotheram “there are still four people who are very, very ill in hospital.” My thoughts are with the injured, their families and those who watched the incident unfold in front of their eyes. Rotheram added that people should not speculate as to what happened. He’s right, but that hasn’t stopped the army of conspiracy theorists on twitter/X in particular.
The police announced very quickly that the alleged attacker was local, white and aged 53. Let us be very clear why they did this. Following last year’s horrific killings in Southport, rumours were swirling around that the killer was a Muslim asylum seeker and as a result thousands of people took to the streets and engaged in serious rioting. In fact, the killer was from Cardiff and was not a Muslim but by the time the truth emerged, which was very quickly, the damage had been done. Police did not want a repeat of last summer’s riots. Let’s hope we don’t get a repeat because it helps no one, but X has now slipped from the gutter into the sewer.
I rarely use X these days because of the cesspit its multibillionaire Nazi-saluting owner Elon Musk has turned it into. But the conspiracy theorists are out in force, questioning the decision of the police to reveal details of the alleged assailant. The truth cannot be that simple, even though it literally is. But there is much, much worse content on X.
There are numerous videos of the vehicle ploughing into the crowd. You can clearly see the faces of the victims, some trapped underneath the offending vehicle. The whole thing is there if you want to see it. I should state at this point that I have not seen any of the videos, but people I know and trust have. If watching a video of young children and adults being driven into by a large vehicle is your bag, then Elon Musk has made it available to you. Just remember to arrange to have yourself sectioned under the Mental Health Act at the same time because you are sick.
I suppose I shouldn’t have written this. I am dog-tired after a fractured night’s sleep, packed with anxiety dreams, and the feelings I had a month ago are to the fore again. But somehow, we have to try to rise above the anger and fear we are feeling. Because – and here I lapse into broken record territory again – most people are good people. Most people, the overwhelming majority, don’t riot, they don’t share upsetting videos on the internet and they don’t disrespect the dead nor those left behind.
I’m afraid there will always be bad people doing bad things. All we can do is to do good things. Sounds easy, right? Actually it is. Bad just makes things worse. Why would we want more bad?
