AN OPEN LETTER OF PROTEST TO THE MEDIA
By Michael Alcasas

A lot has been said about the recent murder-suicide case involving Ricky Rodriguez and Angela Smith—more than the story is really worth, in my own opinion. Even worse is the impetus that keeps this story going: accounts of abuse, of a secretive religious sect rife with deviant sexual practices, of abuse, of cover-ups, and did I mention abuse?

Indulge me this little editorial as I try to put this into perspective. A man’s parents are life-long AT&T customers. They like AT&T. They recommend it to their friends, and many of their friends have signed up. The man, however, decides he prefers T-Mobile. Maybe their customer service is better. Maybe he likes the look of his T-Mobile cell-phone more. It doesn’t really matter. It’s his choice, and he chooses T-Mobile. Thousands of others have. No big deal. In fact, he decides he’ll become a T-Mobile salesman.

Then one day, in cold, premeditated blood, this man murders an old friend of his parents, and then pulls a gun on himself. It turns out the woman is a former AT&T sales representative, and that this is one reason the man hated her so much, though he kept this hate hidden and put on a friendly front for the purpose of catching his unsuspecting victim.

Does the man’s hate for AT&T, whatever that hate is founded on, justify his taking the life of a former AT&T representative? It may provide a motive, but it does not justify the act. To focus on that competitive, even adversarial connection between the two, would be to ignore the prime factors that led this man to consider murder as a solution in the first place: The man had an obsession with knives, weaponry, martial arts, and violent movies. The man visited and even contributed to anti-AT&T hate-sites, where threats against AT&T as a company, and even against its customers, were commonplace.

Those are the more relevant factors. But even these do not bear responsibility for his actions. In the end, what drove him to murder was his own thoughts, his own imaginations, his own personal decision to indulge—and pardon the simplistic cliché—the dark side of his human psyche. We all have reason to hate and get frustrated with certain people or situations. That doesn’t mean we resort to murder.

Ricky did not kill Angela because of anything that happened in his childhood. He killed Angela because she was a convenient target, a symbolic target that he knew would be easy to find and get to—kind of like the twin towers.

I don’t know of anybody (okay, outside of Osama Bin Laden, maybe) expressing sympathy for the suicide pilots after the twin tower attacks. I don’t recall anyone taking a sympathetic angle for the crazed teenagers who massacred their classmates in Columbine and other places.

So I find it unbelievable that the media now considers a sympathetic angle for the mastermind of this murder-suicide plot—no matter what his childhood—and dwells so little on the impact of the tragic loss to the community of the one he took with him.

I know it’s probably too much to hope for the world to say, “Today we are all Family members"—but at least have a little more respect for the true victim here. She had friends too! Why not talk with US and focus on OUR side of the story for a change? Because frankly, all the attention and airtime HIS drinking buddies and sympathizers are getting is starting to piss us off.

Michael Alcasas (29) is a second generation member of the Family International, currently residing in the United States.