Maybe Omar S. Thornton was no longer fully responsible for himself the other day when he went on his shooting rampage at the Hartford Distributors warehouse in Manchester, murdering eight colleagues before killing himself. But he committed two sets of crimes whose impact will be felt long after the psychology mongers and the journalistic cliché mongers who conjure them have moved on to the next atrocity to preach “healing” even before there has been a decent interval to grieve.
Thornton didn’t just destroy eight lives and maim so many others, their survivors. With a casual complaint of racism, conveyed by his family just after his rampage, he also defamed his victims, his union, and the extraordinarily generous and civic-minded employer he had betrayed.
His union and his employer say they never heard such a complaint from him prior to his dismissal for thefts that were caught on videotape. His family can cite only bathroom graffiti. But Thornton could have known that the country is so politically correct that even a baseless charge of racism can trump almost everything. Indeed, if he had any political awareness, in grasping for an excuse he could have been inspired by commercials in the Democratic primary campaign for governor, where one candidate attacks another over a distant triviality, a racial discrimination lawsuit that was settled confidentially.
Manchester now risks being known for mass murder and the racism excuse given for it. The town instead should be known for the astounding courage, skill, and speed of its police officers, some of whom, without regard for their own safety, rushed into the building even as the killer kept shooting. Their heroism hastened the moment when he turned his gun on himself. These officers should be identified for somber commendation by the whole town.
Similar thanks are due to the state police and the police departments of neighboring towns for so quickly mobilizing dozens of officers to assist Manchester. This effort duplicated the regional effort last summer when a madman took his ex-wife hostage in South Windsor. That incident had a happy ending and was quickly forgotten. The atrocity in Manchester never will be.
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
