Why?

Growing up I had encountered more than my fair share of bullies and I used to harbor grudges against them. As I have gotten older I realize there is nothing to be gained holding onto hate so I choose to understand them and learn from them. It has proven very useful because I am able easily navigate around people who exhibit these types defects and I will be able to raise my children not only to properly deal with bullies but not to become them.

One particular bully was a boy in high school who was older and a lot bigger than me which isn't a big surprise what also isn't a big surprise is that I never gave a reason for him to exhibit complete malice towards me to the point it got violent.

When that happened, parental intervention ordered administration involvement, which was a mistake since they took his side even though he admitted attacking me. We later found out that his father worked for the county and realized this boy had "carte blanche" because of his father. Regardless, the end result was that he never bothered me again.

I realize now why this bully acted out, first I think he was deep in the closet and but I think what really set him off was his social status. The town I lived in was known for one thing, Money. And obviously this was something he was lacking due to his father's occupation. I am not being snarky here. There is a huge discrepancy in pay between a county employee and someone who works in the private sector in that town.

When you are a have not in a world of the haves, it really messes with your self-esteem and you struggle with this internal friction on a massive scale, which I know from my own experience. Some people use that to succeed like Charles Bronson. Legend says that Charles Bronson’s family was so poor that he had to wear one of his sister’s dresses to school. This type of friction can create a drive within a person or cripple them. It can also institute a siege mentality ready to lash out at anyone.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not justifying what this bully did and I don't absolve him of his actions because others have been dealt with worse and managed to better themselves without needlessly hurting others. He chose to deal with his insecurities by attacking those that he perceived weaker than him.

And like all bullies, he is a coward since he hid behind his daddy's connections instead of manning up and as far as I am concerned he is no different than those rich kids who commit crimes like Alex Kelly and hide behind their parents’ money.


Which brings me to Raymond Clark, the piece of trash and future jailhouse bitch who is now charged with the murder of Annie Le. Reading about him gives me flashbacks of that bully.

Teammates remembered Mr. Clark as a talented, versatile and competitive athlete. “He played sports hard,” said Michael Tamsin, 23, who was on the baseball and football teams at Branford High School. “On the field, he went about his business and he got the job done.”

Raymond Clark was your typical high school jock. Now there is no mention of him being a genius so it is safe to assume he was a cement head. My bully was not a jock however he was real big on after school activities that required physical labor and very little cognitive thinking which was probably the only reason why he showed up for class. I assure you he was not in the running for a merit scholarship.

Although Raymond had no criminal record there was a very disturbing incident that occurred between him and his high school girlfriend.

Back on Sept. 29, 2003 he was a senior at Branford High School when Det. Ronald Washington responded to a report of a dispute. The dispute was between the young Branford woman and the (now) lab tech. A top school official had summoned the police to the high school.
“The two are in a relationship which [the girlfriend] wishes to terminate and [the male] does not wish to end it.” Washington wrote in the report. “[The male] did attempt to confront [the student] on this date and also wrote on her locker. The school will handle this incident concerning the locker and at the time of this report, [the lab tech] was advised to have no contact with” the female student.

The detective wrote that subsequently the girlfriend came with her mother to the station to speak to him.

She “wished to tell me of an incident that took place, however, did not want it
pursued by this Department,” the detective wrote. “She stated that she had been having a sexual relationship with [the male] and that at one time [the male] did force her to have sex with him. The relationship did continue after that incident, however she is unsure of what he may do as a result of the break up.

“She was advised to contact this Department if he should make any contact with her and we would pursue criminal charges if the investigation warrants it. [The girlfriend] would not give any formal statement regarding the forced sex. It should be noted that [the male’s] parents were also contacted by this Detective and advised of the situation.”

No arrest was made because the young woman decided not to press charges, police wrote.

So Raymond Clark was jock and a date rapist,in other words he was the embodiment of a high school cliché. Let’s be honest, high school is where he peaked. It is where he felt entitled to do as he pleased. And he did it without consequence even if it was wrong.

Which brings us to the present day of Raymond Clark, Lab tech.

Le, a 24-year-old Ph.D. candidate, used the mice in her research. Clark, also 24-years-old, is not a student at the university and had more of a custodial role in the lab.

From the NYT

Before there was blood, the high-tech lab at 10 Amistad Street at Yale University was a model of efficiency. The mice and rats and rabbits stayed locked in cages. The technicians responsible for their well-being circulated like emergency room nurses. Researchers hunched over the cages for hours, intent on claiming a breakthrough.

Animal technicians must also be watchdogs, making sure that in the bureaucratic world of animal research, all documents have been filed and all ethical standards obeyed. They might remind a student to put on a gown before entering a room, or chide a researcher for failing to separate a litter of mice or clipping a mouse tail for a DNA sample, a practice the university forbids.

They live in fear of being held responsible for somebody else’s sloppiness; a single lapse like a dehydrated animal or unsanitary work space could mean weeks of disciplinary hearings.

“A lot of them tend to view us as janitors,” the co-worker said. “But we’re more than that. We are policemen. We are there to make sure everything is done humanely and ethically.”

There is nothing wrong with being a lab tech, in fact support staff plays a key role in the productivity of aany lab. However, Raymond Clark was at the top of the high school food chain and now he was cleaning out cages for a bunch of nerds. I am almost positive that this was not the future he envisioned for himself.


Now Annie Le and Raymond Clark both came from very humble beginnings.


NYT

Annie Le was so focused on academics that, even though she was the valedictorian of her high school class and her classmates voted her “most likely to be the next Einstein,” she filled out 102 applications for scholarships.

“My tongue is sore from licking envelopes, my wrist hurts from typing and stapling, and the post office clerk knows me on a first name basis,” she wrote in a one-page primer she left in the files of the school in El Dorado, Calif., “but other than that, there is nothing I can complain about; It was not difficult at all!”
Her work paid off, literally: She received $160,000 in scholarship offers, said Tony DeVille, who became principal three years ago, three years after she graduated.
The money took her to the University of Rochester as an undergraduate. She went on to Yale, where, as a 24-year-old graduate student, she was studying pharmacology and planning her wedding to another serious-minded student from her days in Rochester. It was to have taken place on Sunday.

Ms. Le’s friends remembered her as someone who could juggle a joke with serious scientific research, someone who loved bargains and thought nothing of hunting down $2 shirts at Old Navy stores because the $5 ones were too expensive.

A person does not apply for 102 scholarships and hunt for shirts that are cheaper than $5 unless they are hard up for cash. In other words Annie was no trust fund princess and had to work get what she wanted. There is no doubt that she earned every inch of success by crawling her way to the top.



NYT

Mr. Clark grew up in a rented gray house in a working-class neighborhood of aspirations when a nearby factory was humming. Jim Garrett, 65, who lives two doors down, said the house the Clarks lived in deteriorated as the years went by and the factory closed, and eventually Mr. Clark’s parents moved out. They went to a condominium in Cromwell, Conn., north of Middletown, where Mr. Clark’s mother works in the Wal-Mart across the street

There has been talk that this has been called a “workplace crime” which I think is oversimplifying it. This was a crime involving class, race and gender.

In the Yale social order, Annie and Raymond were not equals, although he had some authority, in the big picture he was nowhere near her level. He was reminded every day at work that he was no longer on top.

There will be claims that race had nothing to do with this murder. Race had a lot to do with it. My take is that Raymond Clark was very sensitive about the fact that he was a white male having to clean up behind a petite Asian woman. An Asian woman who had prospects for a better future than him.

There has also been discussion that Raymond Clark may have had some type of Asian fetish because he was involved in an Asian student group in high school.

I am not sure if a white guy joining an Asian student group has an Asian fetish. I think the major part of the criteria for a man infected with yellow fever is that if he only dates Asian woman and has a stereotypical view of how they should be. But one thing is for sure, he definitely had a misogynistic streak within him that he demonstrated in high school and even with his current girlfriend.


That is why this is far more complicated than a workplace murder where Raymond Clark simply snapped.

If you read Gavin Debecker’s book The Gift of Fear and examine Secret Service research on assassins and school shootings, the evidence clearly shows that people who engage in these types of crimes do not commit them in a vacuum. They don't just snap because the signs are always there.

When people like this are faced with certain situations, they respond in a negative and troubling fashion. And unless they get help or realize what they are doing, each incident builds on top of the other until it reaches a breaking point which leads to horrific consequences for innocent people.

So where is my former antagonist now? I recently found out that he works in the financial advisement field, albeit in a lower tier position. He also lives in an area of the country where the median income is 70% lower than where he was raised in. He is also still very in the closet.

It is not by accident that this is the current state of his life. He deals with money because he had so little of it growing up and lives in a town with a lower cost of living because he is more comfortable in that particular surrounding since it is not rubbed in his face that he has so little. Unlike successful people who started with less then him, he did not attempt overcome his shortcomings. It is not his fault, I do not think he had the cognitive ability to even try. His way of dealing with the friction of his life is simply getting as far away from it as possible. Which is fine, as long as he stays away from me and mine. Who knows what a disaster it would have been for himself and other innocent people if he had stayed in New York.

Perhaps if Raymond Clark had been like my bully and made an effort to walk away from the friction and go somewhere else where he could be comfortable and not be a danger to anybody, Annie Le would still be alive.