S.H.A.R.P violence

A tale of senseless violence
09/06/2007, 12:04 pm
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A woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to strangling her four children with her own hands in Elkhart last November, but it was a story about the death of a 62-year-old Vietnamese man that caught my attention and dominated my thoughts Wednesday.
I don’t know if I’ve been desensitized by horrid stories of parents killing children as of late or it’s the blatant disregard for human life displayed by a Chicagoan and all-around idiot that didn’t just cause me to shake my head, but to scratch it as well.

Du Doan, a 62-year-old Vietnamese father of four, who loved fishing about as much as he loved to tend to the flower and vegetable garden at his northwest side home, was fishing at Montrose Harbor early Saturday morning. He was taking in the sunrise with his fellow fishing buddies while hoping to land a salmon or trout – which is what the scenic harbor on Lake Michigan is full of this time of year.

Unfortunately for Doan, a group of five males also decided they’d stop off at Montrose Harbor on their way home from a party and watch the 5:30 a.m. sunrise as well.

But it wasn’t a majestic sunrise on the mind of one of the four – a self-proclaimed member of “Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice” – it was violence, the very thing the anti-racism group supposedly preaches against.

After first picking a fight with another fisherman – who also happened to be Asian – the accused lunged at Doan, pushing him into the water.

Fishermen in the area used nets and poles to try to pull Doan to safety.

But Doan, who did not know how to swim, quickly drowned.

According to his buddies, moments before the deadly attack began, the accused was behaving erratically and had to be restrained following the initial fight.

But he walked away from his group. Seconds later, Doan was in the water.

It’s sad, really, the loss of life. But what’s just as disturbing is the senseless act of violence that led to that death. That violence, although it doesn’t always earn headlines in the Herald-Argus, occurs every day in not only Chicago and other big cities across the country, but in small towns, like La Porte, as well.

The circumstances surrounding the fisherman’s death remind me of a conversation I overheard recently standing in line at a store here in La Porte. A man who appeared to be in his late 30s, early 40s, was describing to the store employee his weekend adventure with another man he seemed to have a disagreement with.

“He came up on me and all,” were the exact words he said, so he took a pipe to the guy.

The man finished the story, “I told you man don’t come up on me” then walked out the door snickering.

Big man, little brain.

I exchanged stories with the guy behind the counter, reliving that memorable fight back in elementary school when the class bully tripped me while playing baseball, so I smacked him with the blue plastic Dodger’s helmet I got for being one of the first 10,000 kids or so to show up at the Cubs game during the summer before.

I had to stand up against the wall for the rest of recess, which was a punishment – that, and the threat of telling my mom – that actually deterred me from acting every time the urge to punch someone crossed my mind throughout my teen years.

The man behind the counter concurred, saying that he, too, had managed to live some 30-plus years without any serious confrontation.

It was good to hear.

And I don’t think we’re in the minority, either. I think most men, when you take away the harmless scraps from their teenage years, manage to live their lives relatively violence free.

Doan, on the other hand, ran into one of the few that did not.

I’d like to talk to the accused parents, maybe ask them what went wrong -- from where does this anger stem.

I’d like to talk to the mother of the guy at the store the other day, ask her if she knew she raised a son that found it necessary to hit another man with a pipe because he “come up on him,” then laugh about it while you share the story with perfect strangers.

I’d like to sit down and talk to him directly, without the threat of violence, and explain how ignorant he sounded, how ignorant he acted.

Maybe even tell him the story of Du Doan.

But somehow I doubt that will make much of a difference.