Killing Spree

Week 5

Qimin Li

Section 2

                I enjoyed reading Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence and was able to recognize many of the names of the serial killers due to watching documentaries on them. However, I never associated the murders as having to do with race, especially for minorities. I specifically remember the video about Richard Ramirez, also known as “the night stalker,” because these murders occurred in California. I recalled that he killed and raped without remorse, but I was shocked when many of his victims were Asian-Americans since the video did not mention their race.

I noticed a common factor among serial killers was a fascination with the dead during their early childhood. It mostly started off with killing animals before moving on to humans. Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the few that had obvious warning signs. There was an incident mentioned in a video where Dahmer had killed his victim and dismembered them, placing parts into several garbage bags. As he was driving to throw them away, he was stopped by a policeman. Although these objects were in clear view, he let Dahmer go without any questions. The fact that he let Dahmer go made me wonder if it’s because he was a white male that there was no “suspicious” activity. If Dahmer was replaced by a minority, I whole-heartedly believe the police would have stopped and questioned them.

So my question is, how can we prevent authorities from racially profiling citizens that influence their actions and judgements?