"Rewriting the Myths, Redefining the Realities"
By Laura Hershey
Tracy Latimer. Parwin Husan. Levi
Boothe. Courtney Bovee.
Do these names sound familiar? Probably not as familiar as Danielle
Van Damme, Samantha Runnion, and JonBenet Ramsey, who have been all
over the news, small tragic figures mourned by a nation.
All of these are the names of children who were murdered. The first
group of names differs from the second group in two principal ways.
First, the children in the first group all have significant
disabilities; and second, they were all killed by their own parents.
Since they were mentioned only fleetingly in the news media, let me
introduce you briefly to the four children who were victims of their
parents’ violence.
Tracy Latimer of Saskatchewan, Canada, had cerebral palsy, causing
significant mobility and communication disabilities. She enjoyed
school, especially music and aquatics, and was well liked by her
teachers and peers. At the age of 12, Tracy was gassed to death by her
father.
Parwin Husan was a 9-year-old deaf and blind girl in Chicago who was
tied to a radiator by her parents one evening while the couple went
out. In an attempt to escape, she climbed through a window and fell 30
feet to the pavement below. She died the next day.
Levi Boothe was an 11-year-old Kansas boy with autism whose father
allegedly stabbed him repeatedly with needle-nosed pliers, then
dragged him to the side of a highway where he was run over by a car.
Courtney Bovee is the most recent victim. Like Tracy Latimer, Courtney
had cerebral palsy, and was reportedly happy and fun to be around. She
loved riding horses, baking chocolate chip cookies, and watching the
movie The Lion King. Courtney was 15 years old, and lived in Glenwood
Springs,
Colorado — until earlier this month, when her father shot and killed
her, and then killed himself.
Even more frightening than the murders themselves, to me, were the
public reactions to them. Each of these crimes was met with an
outpouring of sympathy — not for the victims, but for their killers.
In news reports about the Bovee murder-suicide, friends and family
members and reporters, referred to Michael Bovee as a “loving and
devoted father.” The implication was that he had been done in by the
terrible pressures of raising a disabled child and, understandably,
had lashed out at that child, the source of his
troubles. The local minister told his congregation that Courtney is
happy now, because she can sing and dance and smile. Never mind that
many of Courtney’s acquaintances described her as smiling frequently.
The point here is that Courtney is thought to be better off dead than
disabled.
Perhaps in Michael Bovee’s twisted mind, that made some kind of sense.
After all, every killer has a reason for killing, however irrational
or malicious it may be. I can’t pretend to understand the minds or the
motives of anyone who commits a heinous crime, but it’s clear from
news reports that the children’s disabilities were a factor in all of
these murders. Because of this, too many people are blaming the
violence on the children’s conditions, or even on the children
themselves, rather than on the killers.
During the same week that the Bovee murder-suicide was being reported,
two other stories were getting much more prominent headlines. Danielle
Van Damme’s killer received a death sentence, and Madelyne Toogood was
videotaped beating her daughter in a store parking lot. Both of these
incidents elicited the public’s sympathy and protectiveness toward the
child victims, and outrage toward the adult perpetrators — reactions
very different from the response to Courtney Bovee’s death. In her
case, I heard many people insist on compassion for the murderous
parent. These same people seem to feel little for Courtney, except a
resigned sadness. Many seemed more saddened by her life as a disabled
girl, than by her violent death.
The same thing happened in the Latimer case in Canada, back in 1996.
Throughout Canada, people called for mercy for Robert Latimer who,
they said, killed his daughter out of love. What kind of twisted
notion of love could lead to such rejection, such brutality?
The question keeping me awake nights is: Why are so many ordinary
citizens ready to jump on the bandwagon of “understanding” crimes like
these, where the victims are disabled?
All of these children had serious physical problems, but they also had
the capacity for joy, and the potential to grow up into strong adults
with disabilities. Instead, they endured the horror of watching their
own parents come at them with a violent fury, a determination to
annihilate them. That was the last experience of their lives. And
then, all their possibilities were extinguished.
It’s too late to save these murdered children. But perhaps it’s not to
late to advocate some kind of justice for them.
First, we should remember them accurately — as whole human beings, not
as stunted pathetic mistakes. We shouldn’t accept the news media’s
tendency to over-dramatize their disabilities, and to infantilize
them. Courtney Bovee, frequently referred to as “little Courtney,” was
in fact 15 — a young adult. I can’t help wondering whether her
developing womanhood somehow threatened her father, as well as those
who have condoned his crime.
Second, we should work to prevent future murders of disabled children,
teenagers and adults. We can start by calling them what they are –
hate crimes. We should attack and transform the negative attitudes
that lead to such acts.
Finally, we should abolish the current double standard toward child
abusers. Parents who hurt or kill their disabled children should be
held accountable to the same extent as those who abuse nondisabled
children.
Tracy, Parwin, Levi, and Courtney deserve no less.
Copyright 2002 A&H Publishing Corporation