The Monsters of Meridian Park

Imagine, if you will, an idyllic park setting where sounds of children’s laughter and shrieks of delight fill the air.  You shade your eyes from the sun and catch a glimpse of someone sitting on a nearby bench.  Looking around, you discover that this person is at the park alone, which you find strange.  “Something’s not quite right,” you think, as you watch him wander through the playground.  Your instincts tell you that this person shouldn’t be anywhere near children.

Back home, you log onto your computer and check the database of registered sex offenders, during which you find that there are 12 offenders within a mile radius of your address.  Your pulse quickens as you look through the database.  You suddenly see a picture of someone that stops your heart cold, and you ask yourself, “Is it him? Is this the man who was at the park”?  You’re horrified.  That man is a Level 2 sex offender, and what’s more, he’s NON-COMPLIANT.  Your hunch was right.  He has no business being anywhere near children.

So you share the news in the public forum of your community’s neighborhood blog because people need to know, and parents with children who visit the park need to be aware that this dangerous man could return to the park at any time and possibly re-offend.  Before long, people are asking, “Why is this guy allowed to be in the park?”  People then report that they’ve seen this man everywhere: at the supermarket, the library, and a bus stop.  What’s worse is that someone else calls the Seattle Police Department to report “the incident,” and dispatcher tells the caller that since the man is not on probation, there is nothing stopping him from being around children.

Meanwhile, fliers emblazoned with “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?” and the man’s photo are distributed to parents in the park.  One parent Google’s the man’s name, only to find out that he was thrown in jail last year for keeping pornographic files of children on his computer.  “Why the HELL,” she asks, “isn’t this man still in jail?”

But then, someone else does a bit more digging.  Finds that the man in question is actually not the same man in the database.  That man has been behind bars for the past year, and he will remain so for 11 more.   That man should have been taken off of the Sex Offender database last year.

It’s an honest mistake, to be sure, but one that has raised a lot of fears.  The intention was admirable, but the cascade of events that followed was not.

We are incredibly lucky to be living in the digital age—where infinite information is delivered to us effortlessly.  We are more informed, more aware, and as such, more proactive about delivering information that can be helpful to our neighbors.  But sometimes, a little information can be very dangerous.  Without checking facts or digging deeper, we stand a chance to instill unnecessary fear and widespread panic.

What has happened reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” where, after a power outage in a neighborhood, unfounded fear, suspicion, and blame leads to chaos and mob rule.  The neighbors turn on one another.  One man is shot to death while another is being chased.  Before long, neighbors are smashing windows and picking up weapons to use on one another.  All the while, there are two aliens observing the mayhem from above, commenting on how easy it was to set people off. They conclude, “The easiest way to conquer the Earth is to let the people of the Earth destroy themselves.1” Rod Serling ends the episode with a final narrative:

…For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own: for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

It’s not to say that keeping a watch on our neighborhood is reprehensible.  The world has its share of perverts and criminals, and we live in an urban sprawl where we are forced to co-exist with people both good and bad.  Having neighbors look out for one another is what makes a neighborhood a great place to live.  What’s crucial is that we retain our objectivity and continue to question the information we receive from the Internet.  We must also recognize that we lend credibility to misinformation by spreading it further through social mediums.  So let’s make a solemn promise to one another that we will continue to look out for our neighbors; but we’ll do so, responsibly.