REQUIEM FOR VINCENT DROST, AND OUR LACK OF CHARACTER
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) - July 14, 1995
Author: DICK FEAGLER

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Vincent Drost was a composer. Five young men are accused of killing him for the fun of it in Lakewood Sunday night. It is up to us to compose the mournful music for the repose of his soul. The Vincent Drost Requiem.

He was a white man who allegedly died at the hands of black youths in a suburb that is worried about race and crime. And so the air is throbbing with the theme of racial bitterness that pollutes and degrades our society.

Many of the 200 people who telephoned me yesterday and wanted to talk about Vincent Drost demanded to know why the paper didn't say his alleged assailants were black. They thought the Vincent Drost story was a story about skin color.

Some people who said they were black telephoned to say that we would not be making such a big deal about the murder of Vincent Drost if he were not a white man. They thought the story was about skin color, too.

But Vincent Drost didn't die of somebody else's skin color. He died of knife wounds. You can see that on the coroner's report. And if you want to start looking through coroners' reports, you will find that in our town, most young men who die the kind of violent, senseless death that Vincent Drost died are black men. When it comes to death, skin color is neither a cause nor a deterrent.

So what we had better talk about here is not the color of skin. We talk about that entirely too much in America. Some of us are black and some of us are white, and it's going to stay that way, and it's high time we got used to it. We use every opportunity and stand on every pedestal to deliver speeches about skin color. It hasn't gotten us very far lately, has it? So let's not shout more of it from atop the coffin of Vincent Drost .

What we ought to be talking about is the content of character. That's what Martin Luther King Jr., the martyred prophet, said was the only fair judgment of a man.

And what we seem to be producing in America is a frightening number of people whose character is content-free. Who kill without remorse. Who lack the discernment to tell right from wrong, and the ability to choose right over wrong.

Back when I was covering trials, such people would have been judged legally insane. We live in a culture that is cranking out increasing numbers of people who fit one definition of insanity. And what we had better want to know - urgently want to know - is why.

That had better be the dominant, color-free, plain-spoken theme of the Vincent Drost Requiem. A great, resounding, intense, diverse chorus of us asking why. A particularly special and demanding crescendo of a why.

Not the kind of "why" we ask after the fatal traffic accident. Or when the doctor says the X-rays look bad. We say "Why?" at such times knowing we'll never get an answer. Knowing that our only relief lies in acceptance.

Well, the death of Vincent Drost is unacceptable. This whole epidemic of senseless, violent slaughter is unacceptable. Accepting it will bring no relief.

So we have to do something about it. And yesterday, my phone kept ringing with calls from people who had ideas about what to do. Some of them said we all ought to be allowed to carry guns. Some of them said that parents should be held severely responsible for the actions of their children, as owners of pit bulls are responsible for the mayhem of their animals.

Some thought we ought to start treating juvenile offenders as adults. Some thought we ought to keep a sharp watch on the occupants of subsidized housing.

Whether these ideas are good or bad, they are recognitions that we can't play around with this issue any more. We can't call the moving van and get away from it. The government isn't going to solve it for us. We can't muddy it with racial politics or liberal politics or conservative politics or any kind of politics.

We can't blame it on poverty or joblessness. Other nations have as much poverty and joblessness as we have, without an epidemic murder rate. We can't keep using all the little, mushy, cop-out answers we've been using while the insanity grows. We have to make a stand.

Would I have written this much about Vincent Drost if he hadn't died in my suburb? Probably not. So what? I'm going to keep on writing about him from time to time. I want to see how this comes out. I want to know why.

All of us, wherever we live, whatever race or color or religion or sex we happen to be, better start making more noise and asking more questions. We are losing our hold on humanity and sanity. Is there a bigger story?

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