Political violence in US reaches alarming levels as apathy grows
I was prepared for a violent America. What I didn’t anticipate was the profound apathy toward this violence, writes US Correspondent Vanessa Marsh.
When I moved to the United States earlier this year, I came clear-eyed with the knowledge that I was walking into a country where violence, particularly political violence, has tragically become a way of life.
This is a place where children are slaughtered en masse in their classrooms, moviegoers are gunned down in their seats and where office workers train for active shooter events like Australian workplaces perform fire drills.
And it’s not just gun violence. In December a 57-year-old woman was set on fire as she slept on the Subway. Last month a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee was stabbed to death as she rode the train in North Carolina.
Political violence is also on the rise.
Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was firebombed in April, a pro-Palestine activist murdered two Israeli embassy employees in May, two Democratic politicians were shot in Minnesota in June, and this week conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a university campus.
That’s not to mention the two attempts on President Donald Trump’s life last year.
I was fully prepared for a violent America. What I didn’t anticipate was the profound apathy toward this violence.
Americans are so accustomed to carnage that they have become numb to the horrors.
Sitting at a Yankees baseball game recently, a news alert popped up on my phone about a mass shooting unfolding just a few blocks away in the Bronx.
I showed the alert to a seasoned New Yorker next to me who shrugged and nodded, as if to say “yep, just another day” before cracking his can of beer and turning back to watch the next pitch.
At university, journalists are taught about the seven news values that help determine what readers will be interested in – timeliness, proximity, prominence, conflict, unusualness, impact, and human interest
In America, brutal murders and mass shootings, even when the proximity is their immediate vicinity, have little impact and certainly don’t tick the unusual box.
Hours before he was savagely gunned down by an assassin’s bullet in front of 3000 university students this week, conservative political commentator Mr Kirk – in what would be his final social media post – was aghast at the brutal murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
Ms Zarutska was repeatedly stabbed in the throat in an unprovoked attack on a train in North Carolina by a repeated offender last month.
He commented that it was necessary to politicise her death because it was America’s politics that allowed her killer – a career criminal – to be free on the street to murder her.
Security footage that showed the terror on her face as she looked up at her killer will haunt every person who views that image.
What was equally as disturbing was the reaction of fellow passengers who did nothing as the tiny woman was attacked by a man twice her size. Nor did they do anything as she slumped to the ground and bled to death.
That indifference extends well beyond Ms Zarutska and North Carolina.
When I asked friends and colleagues who have lived in the US for decades how the current volatile political climate and the apathy toward violence compared to decades gone by, they were all adamant this was by far the worst it has ever been.
They shared disturbing stories they’d experienced first-hand just in the past week alone.
The night of Mr Kirk’s murder and a fortnight after Ms Zarutska’s death, a female friend described how a man lunged at her on the New York City subway, grabbing her on the leg and shouting bible verses in her ear.
When she looked around for help that never came, the man taunted her, yelling “what happened, what happened?”.
Last month on a beautiful summer day, I was walking my dog in the park near my apartment in New York when an off-leash dog charged at us from across a sporting field, immediately trying to attack us.
As I fought off the vicious dog, screaming and kicking out, it dawned on me that not one of the 80 or so people nearby were coming to help.
Not the dozen or so men playing basketball, not the baseball players or crowd of spectators watching them, not the groups of friends and families on picnic blankets, and not the young men sharing a joint on the picnic bench less than five metres away.
I cannot imagine a scenario in Australia where any person – male, female, young or old would not come to the aid of a clearly distressed young woman walking a golden retriever in broad daylight.
Afterwards, as I checked over my dog for injuries with my hands still trembling with adrenaline, a man walking past commented that my dog had been trying to protect me from the savage dog.
Incredulous, I thought to myself – he was the only one.
In a city of millions of people, it was a brutal reminder that in America, you are on your own when it really matters.
And sadly, I’ve learned that apathy can also extend to the police.
Recently while on assignment in Hawaii, I went for a walk at sunrise ahead of a busy day of interviews.
The streets of Honolulu were deserted and the only people I saw were three homeless men sleeping just off the popular tourist strip near Waikiki Beach.
I grabbed a coffee, read the papers, and as I headed back to my hotel I heard a bone-chilling bellow and saw two of those men were now awake and crouched over the third frantically trying to shake him awake.
Their distress was evident as they shook their lifeless friend and as I looked around, I felt a rush of relief as I saw a police car headed down the road, naively assuming they could help.
I flagged the car down and told the officers what was happening.
The female officer listened without speaking before rolling up her window and driving away without a word – in the opposite direction from where I had just told her an unconscious man might be dying or dead.
I do not live in fear in America, but I do live in vigilance.
Safety has become second nature.
I tuck my work lanyard inside my shirt or stow it in my bag.
I hold my work-issued laptop upside down so the identification sticker identifying it as property of News Corp Australia does not make me a target – likely not an issue our IT department foresaw when they distributed the computers.
If I need to wear headphones, I only use one earpiece and keep the volume low so I can hear what’s happening around me.
This week it has been almost impossible to avoid the gory videos captured from every angle showing the moment an assassin’s bullet struck Mr Kirk in the neck.
This was a young man. A beloved husband and doting father of a little boy and girl who will grow up without their dad.
But even that sobering information wasn’t enough to stop the predictable and sickening celebration from keyboard warriors who claimed Mr Kirk got what was coming to him.
In a startling display of America’s deep division, politicians bickered over a suggestion to pray for the murdered father in the House of Representatives in the hours after his death. Even in a moment of utter tragedy, politicians in this country could not lead by example.
As I reflect on the state of this country, I keep coming back to a comment Charlie Kirk made before he died – “What we have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”
I sincerely hope there comes a day where that is true.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said with Mr Kirk’s death, the embers already glowing in America had started to burn.
I fear nothing short of a tidal wave could extinguish the coming inferno.
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