Lives Matter!

Every parent has said it at one time or another.

“I can’t imagine how I would go on, if one of my children was killed.”

Or words to that effect…

While most peoples’ children are still safe, this devastation, utter emotional destruction, and havoc have been visited upon us, very close to home.  Patrick Bundock has been a dear and close friend, indeed an adopted sibling, for nearly all of my adult life and last week, the life of his youngest son, 19-year-old Connor Bundock, was taken from him in a senseless murder in Santa Rosa, California.

But what’s even more senseless than that is the utterly apathetic reaction of the people around the country to this flagrant act of violence.  Except for a local newspaper, there’s been virtually zero coverage of the murder in the media.

I am continually befuddled by what passes for emotions in the twenty-first century USA.  400,000 people are killed by medical malpractice and we don’t even notice.  20,000 killed in cars every year and,  “Yawn…”

When known career criminals are accidentally or negligently killed by the police, one of those people who actually risk their own lives to keep us safe?  OUTRAGE!  We riot, shut down cities, burn and destroy property, and harm other Humans.

Because we are OUTRAGED.

But a nice, polite, 19-year-old kid who never bothered anyone and was in fact known to be very protective of his eclectic collection of friends, is murdered in a public park in broad daylight by two wannabe thugs with suspected gang affiliations/ambitions and the best we can do is,

“That’s so sad.”

Apparently, Connor being young and innocent wasn’t enough for his murder to outrage us.

Him being in a public park, where our children play, with friends minding his own business wasn’t enough for his murder to outrage us.

Do we need a racial motivation?  Connor is half Thai; his mother Chalita is from Thailand.

Not good enough either, apparently.

His killers are reported to be Latino men.  Do they get a “free pass” because of their status as “minorities”?

To have so close a friend lose a child like this is devastating.

For there to be so little emotional reaction by the public when we have so recently demonstrated our capacity for loud and violent emotional responses to senseless death is just plain depressing.

And now let’s take a moment to call a spade a BLEEPING shovel:

Knowing that Connor was an “Asian-American” kid, if he had been shot by a police officer (especially a white cop), we know from experience that the reaction would have been much different.  Much more emotional.  Much more exciting.  Much LOUDER.

The public’s lack of response response to this senseless murder is as if we’re saying to Connor’s mother Chalita, father Patrick, and brother Guiness and the rest of Connor’s family:

Outrageous lack of outrage at the murder of a fine young man

“You’re so lucky Connor wasn’t shot by a cop.”

So I ask you…

Yes, YOU!  The “oh-that’s-so-sad-another-gang-shooting-I-wish-our-parks-were-more-safe-but-what-can-I-do-about-it?” milquetoast apathetic utterly and completely invertebrate responders…

In what universe is this supposed to make the Bundock family feel better?  Or Connor’s brother Guiness?  Connor’s friends, teachers, coworkers?

Is he somehow less dead because he was shot by a criminal?

YOU are the focus of my OUTRAGE today.  What are you thinking?  WHY aren’t you outraged?

There is one thing we can say with great certainty about Connor Bundock’s life:

It mattered.

It matter to him.  It mattered to his family.  It mattered to his friends and his parents’ friends.

Most importantly perhaps, it mattered TO HIM, but not more than the safety of his friends.

So getting back to the beginning, The members of the Bundock family are “going on.”  How, you ask?  Well to begin with, like Connor, they are made of some pretty substantial stuff.

And they know that not to go on would waste more than just Connor’s life.

Going on has a cost, however.  When you have your own small business and you have to stop everything just to help keep things together for the surviving members of your family, in most cases your income stops.  Add to that the substantial cost of funeral arrangements and you have what we call a “hardship.”

For this reason, friends of the Bundocks have started a GoFundMe campaign to help with expenses.  Please be generous.

Reporter Colin Atagi of the local “Press Democrat” newspaper published this article about the murder:  “Man Killed in Santa Rosa Park…” 

Thanks for reading.

cma