This article is part of a Free Press series on “Repairing America in the Age of Political Violence.” Read the other entries, including from Abigail Shrier, Coleman Hughes, Sam Harris and others, here.
Millions of Americans were shaken last week by two horrific videos, which seemed to play in an endless loop on social media. The first was camera footage of last month’s fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina, train by a schizophrenic repeat offender. The second, of course, was the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Wednesday.
These crimes were different in many ways. Zarutska’s death was a senseless killing by a stranger, motivated by mental illness and unchecked by the system. Kirk’s appears to have been a targeted execution by an ideological extremist. But regardless of their differences, these disturbing killings reveal how perversely normalized such acts have become.
Many other examples have faded quickly from Americans’ minds. Free Press readers may remember the shooting deaths of Israeli embassy employees Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, or Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner. But many people do not. And there are many more victims whose names most Americans will never know, like the nine people shot and killed over Labor Day weekend in Chicago.
