The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee is hosting its latest FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS VIDEO SERIES. The next film, PATH TO WAR, [
Director John Frankenheimer casts
The Rising Body Count on
The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis
By Nick Turse
(submitted by the author to portside)
TomDispatch - October 19, 2008
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174991/nick_turse_going_to_extremes_in_america
On October 4, 2008, in the Porter Ranch section of Los
Angeles, Karthik Rajaram, beset by financial troubles,
shot his wife, mother-in-law, and three sons before
turning the gun on himself. In one of his two suicide
notes, Rajaram wrote that he was "broke," having
incurred massive financial losses in the economic
meltdown. "I understand he was unemployed, his dealings
in the stock market had taken a disastrous turn for the
worse," said Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michel R. Moore.
The fallout from the current subprime mortgage debacle
and the economic one that followed has thrown lives
into turmoil across the country. In recent days, the
Associated Press, ABC News, and others have begun to
address the burgeoning body count, especially suicides
attributed to the financial crisis. (Note that, months
ago, Barbara Ehrenreich raised the issue in the Nation.) (1)
Suicide is, however, just one type of extreme act for
which the financial meltdown has seemingly been the
catalyst. Since the beginning of the year, stories of
resistance to eviction, armed self-defense, canicide,
arson, self-inflicted injury, murder, as well as
suicide, especially in response to the foreclosure
crisis, have bubbled up into the local news, although
most reports have gone unnoticed nationally -- as has
any pattern to these events.
While it's impossible to know what factors, including
deeply personal ones, contribute to such extreme acts,
violent or otherwise, many do seem undeniably linked to
the present crisis. This is hardly surprising. Rates of
stress, depression, and suicide invariably climb in
times of economic turmoil. As Kathleen Hall, founder
and CEO of the Stress Institute in
Today's Stephanie Armour earlier this year, "Suicides
are very much tied to the economy." (2)
With predictions of a long and deep recession now
commonplace, it's not too soon to begin looking for
these patterns among the human tragedies already
sprouting amid the financial ruins. Troubling trends
are to be expected in the years ahead, especially as
hundreds of thousands of veterans of the
Afghan Wars, their families often already under
enormous stress, are coming home to scenarios of
joblessness and, in some cases, homelessness. Consider
this, then, an attempt to look for early anecdotal
signs of the fallout from hard times, the results, in
this case, of a review of local press reports from
across the nation, some tiny but potentially indicative
of larger American tragedies, and all suggesting a
pattern that is likely to grow more pronounced.
Extreme Evictions
In February, when a sheriff's deputy went to serve an
eviction notice on a home owner in
he found the man had slashed his wrists and was lying
in a pool of blood. Rushed to a nearby hospital, the
man survived, while the Sheriff's office tried to
downplay economic reasons for the incident, saying,
according to the
the suicide attempt to the eviction because the man had
known for a week that he was to be kicked out." (3)
In March,
his dog and his wife, set fire to his home which was in
foreclosure, and then killed himself.
In April, Robert McGuinness, a 24-year-old process
server, arrived at the
of Frank W. Conrad. According to an article in the
local Star Banner, the 82-year-old Conrad was
reportedly "cordial" at first. When McGuinness produced
the foreclosure notice, however, Conrad got angry and
left the room. He returned with a .38 caliber pistol
and announced, "You have two seconds to get off my
property or you will go to the hospital."
sheriff's deputies later arrested Conrad. (4)
On June 3rd, agents of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) set out to inform
Eric Minshew that he would be evicted from his
"Katrina" trailer. After Minshew threatened them, the
FEMA employees called the police. When they arrived,
Minshew allegedly threatened them as well and "locked
himself in his partially-gutted home, adjacent to his
trailer." A SWAT team was called in and tear-gassed the
man. Interviewed by the Times-Picayune, local resident
Tiffany Flores said, "Some SWAT members told my husband
they had never seen anyone withstand that much tear
gas." The standoff went on for hours before "an assault
team of tactical officers" invaded the home. Though
Minshew opened fire, they eventually cornered him on
the upper floor. When -- they claimed -- he refused to
drop his weapon, they gunned him down. (5)
That same day, in
deputies served an eviction notice on a desperate
tenant. According to Deputy Travis Gullberg, the
Multnomah County Sheriff's Public Information Officer,
the evictee promptly pulled a gun from his pocket and
pointed it at his head before being disarmed by the deputies.
Hard Times
Recently, according to the
Paul, a vice president at ValueOptions Inc., which
handles mental health referrals, said that over the
last year stress-related calls arising from
foreclosures or financial hardship had gone up 200% in
psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente's San Francisco Medical
Center, reported "a fourfold increase in psychiatric
admissions at his hospital during August, with roughly
60% of patients saying financial stress contributed to
their problems."
Of course, many victims of the linked economic crises
never receive treatment. In July,
Sheriff's Deputy Mark Habecker told the
that twice this year "homeowners about to be evicted
have committed suicide as he approached to do a
lockout." In another case, he said, "a fellow
him where to find the foreclosed homeowner's body." The
Bee reported that such cases "received no publicity
when they happened," which raises the question of just
how many similar suicides have gone unreported nationwide. (6)
In July, when police delivered an eviction notice at
the Middleburg,
Mangum, the couple barricaded themselves inside.
Eventually, George Mangum was talked into surrendering
and was arrested. "He did the only thing he knew to do,
protect his family, all he did was sit on the other
side of the door and say I have a gun, I have a gun and
that's why he's going to jail because he threatened the
police," said Bonnie. The couple's daughter Robin
added, "This is my home, this is all our home and I
don't think it's right. My dad was a Green Beret, he's
sick, how are you going to kick him out?" (7)
was a 44-year-old disabled, single dad who lost his
job, fell into debt, and was faced with eviction. "He
always talked about needing help -- financially and
help with the kids," neighbor Kevin Luster told the St.
called the police to say he was armed and disturbed.
When they arrived, Carter fired his pistol and rifle
inside the apartment, before emerging and pointing his
weapons at the officers on the scene. Police say they
ordered him to drop them. When he didn't, they killed
him in a 10-round fusillade.
On July 23d, about 90 minutes before her foreclosed
auction, Carlene Balderrama faxed a letter to her
mortgage company, letting them know that "by the time
they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead." She
continued, "I hope you're more compassionate with my
husband and son than you were with me." After that, she
took a high-powered rifle and, according to the
Globe, shot herself. In an interview with the
Associated Press, Balderrama's husband John said, "I
had no clue." His wife handled the finances and had
been intercepting letters from the mortgage company for
months. "She put in her suicide note that it got
overwhelming for her," he said. In the letter, she
wrote, "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house." (8)
The day after Balderrama took her life, 50 miles away
in
already been evicted, barricaded himself inside his
former home. Police were called to the scene to find
him reportedly prepared to ignite four propane tanks.
"His intention was to burn the house down with him in
it," Sgt. Christopher J. George told the Telegram &
Gazette. With the man becoming "even more despondent"
as "a moving van arrived on the street," police stormed
the house to find him "holding a foot-long knife to his
own chest" as a piece of paper burned near the propane.
The man was disarmed and the fire extinguished. (9)
That very same day, in
County sheriff's deputy tried to serve an eviction
notice to Melvin Nicks, 50. Nicks responded by stabbing
the deputy with a knife and barricading himself in the
house for several hours. He later surrendered. (10)
Bay City, Michigan residents David and Sharron Hetzel,
both 56, "lost their home to foreclosure and filed for
bankruptcy protection. But they did not follow through
with the Chapter 13 proceedings." On August 1st, say
police reports, David Hetzel mailed a letter of apology
to his family members. Later that night, according to
the local police, he attacked his sleeping wife,
striking her in the head with a golf club and
repeatedly stabbing her with a kitchen knife. After
that, he began setting fires throughout the house
before crawling into bed beside his wife and killing
himself with "a single, fatal wound to his torso." (11)
On August 12th, sheriff's deputies arrived at the
Brennan, another victim of the mortgage crisis, who had
refinanced her home and fallen behind on payments.
Refusing to stand idly by while his mother was put out
on the street, her 60-year-old son John pulled a .22
caliber handgun on the lawmen. That sent the movers,
waiting for a court-imposed 10 a.m. deadline, scurrying
for their van. Brennan was able to delay the eviction
briefly before a SWAT team arrested him and his mother
lost her home. "I'm heartbroken over this," Vincent
Carabello, a longtime neighbor, told the local paper,
the Record. "How could this happen?" (12)
under a great deal of stress and beset by financial
difficulties. She worried about how she would care for
her two 11-year-old daughters. On August 21st,
according to police reports, Sieferman "repeatedly
stabbed the girls and herself." "She reached her
limit," her friend Carrie Micko told the Star Tribune.
"She couldn't cope anymore... she felt that her
daughters were suffering because she was failing to
provide for them." As Micko further explained, "After a
series of financial mishaps, she just couldn't see her
way through. She was under extreme financial, emotional
and spiritual distress and didn't want to fail them." (13)
By Any Means Necessary
The
our protesters trying to prevent the eviction of a
Roxbury woman from her home were arrested...after they
chained themselves to the steps of her back porch." As
40 protesters chanted in the street, officials from
Bank of
"This is our eighth blockade and the first time there
have been arrests," said
with City Life, a non-profit organization seeking to
halt the large numbers of foreclosures and evictions in
we'll be more aggressive," she added. (14)
On September 25th, as politicians in
to hash out a massive bailout package for financial
institutions, six
about 40 City Life activists in front of the home of
Ana Esquivel, a public school employee, and her husband
Raul, a construction worker, both in their fifties. The
Globe reported that four protesters were arrested as
police shoved their way through in order to allow a
locksmith into the house to bar the Esquivels from
their home. "We've been destroyed by the bank," Ana
Esquivel said, sobbing. "The bank is too big for us."
While the Esquivel blockade failed, Steven Meacham, a
City Life organizer, told a Globe reporter that "the
protests have helped to stop about nine evictions. In
the successful blockades, the homeowners were given
additional time by their mortgage holders to negotiate
alternatives to foreclosure." (15)
Two days earlier,
came to the
and her 67-year-old husband John to serve an eviction
notice. Joanne Carter refused to accept it. According
to "
Pasadena Star-News, she "told deputies she had guns in
the house and showed them a shotgun." The next day,
being informed that the woman "may have made threats to
a workers compensation agency." Police Lieutenant
to come in, she would defend her house at any means
necessary." She and her husband then reportedly
barricaded themselves inside, after which a shotgun was
fired. Police from other local departments were called
in. Following an hours-long standoff, the Carters
surrendered and were arrested. (16)
That same day, in northern
Petaluma's chief building official, shot himself with a
rifle. A week earlier,
being laid off. "He was afraid we'd lose our home, and
we probably will because I can't afford to keep it,"
his wife Patricia, who is on disability with a back
injury, told the Press Democrat. "He was extremely
upset about it and hurt." (17)
On October 3rd, the day before Karthik Rajaram's mass
murder/suicide in Los Angeles, 90-year-old Addie Polk
was driven to extremes by the financial crisis. With
sheriff's deputies at the door, Polk evidently took the
only measure she felt was left to her to avoid eviction
from her foreclosed home. She tried to kill herself.
Her neighbor Robert Dillon, hearing loud noises from
her home, used a ladder to enter the second floor
window. He found Polk lying on her bed. "Then she kind
of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I
said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself.'"
While she was in the hospital recovering from two self-
inflicted gunshot wounds, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian
Faith announced the mortgage association had decided to
forgive her outstanding debt and give her the house "outright." (18)
On October 6th, in
deputies, with police in tow, arrived to evict Jimmy
and Pamela Ross from their home. They heard a shot and
entered the home to find 57-year-old Pamela dead of a
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Neighbor
Ruth Blakey told WVLT-TV, "I know she really hated to
leave that house. She did not want to leave that house." (19)
Wanda Dunn told neighbors she would rather die than
leave her home. On October 13th, the day she was to be
evicted, the 53-year-old
apparently set fire to the home "where her family had
lived for generations" before shooting herself in the
head. "We knew it was going to happen," neighbor Steve
Brooks told the
fault; it was everybody's fault." (20)
Outsourcing Suicide
In September, readers at Slate's "Explainer" column
asked the following question: If the financial crisis
was so dire, "how come we aren't hearing about
executives jumping out of windows?" Writer Nina Shen
Rastogi dutifully answered:
"Because the current situation hasn't had
nearly as devastating an effect on people's
personal finances. The Great Crash of 1929 --
and, to a lesser extent, the crash of 1987 --
did lead some people to commit suicide. But in
nearly all of those cases, the deceased had
suffered a major loss when the market
collapsed. Now, due in large part to those
earlier experiences, investors tend to keep
their portfolios far more diversified, so as to
avoid having their entire fortunes wiped out
when stocks take a downturn." (21)
Perhaps this is true. So far, at least, Wall Street's
suicides seem to have been outsourced to places that
its executives have probably never heard of. There, on
the proverbial main streets of
financial meltdown is beginning to be measured not only
in dollars and cents, but in blood.
Right now, there are no real counts of the many extreme
acts born of the financial crisis, but assuredly other
murders, suicides, self-inflicted injuries, acts of
arson and of armed self-defense have simply gone
unnoticed outside of economically hard-hit
neighborhoods in cities and small towns across
With no end in sight for either the foreclosures or the
economic turmoil, Americans may have to brace
themselves for many more casualties on the home front.
Unless extreme economic steps, like mortgage- and debt-
forgiveness, are implemented, the number of extreme
acts and the ultimate body count may be far more
extreme than anyone yet wants to contemplate.
[Nick Turse is the associate editor and research
director of Tomdispatch.com. His work has appeared in
many publications, including the
Monde Diplomatique (German edition), Adbusters, the
Nation, and regularly at Tomdispatch.com. His first
book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our
Everyday Lives, an exploration of the new military-
corporate complex in
Metropolitan Books. His website is Nick Turse.com.]
Copyright 2008 Nick Turse
Sources:
(1) Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g9k5ci5oSKGrWzjygJuIimhNkUogD93Q9HFO0
ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6025195
The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080804/ehrenreich
(2) http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4873943
(3) http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_8330757
(4) http://www.ocala.com/article/20080419/NEWS/804190332
(5) http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/lakeview_standoff_continues_af.html
(6) http://www.sacbee.com/302/story/1064184-p2.html
(7) http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/news-article.aspx?storyid=114523
(8) http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/07/facing_foreclos.html
(9) http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/property-law-real-property-eviction/1867296-1.html
(10) http://www.ksee24.com/news/local/25877894.html
(11) http://blog.mlive.com/bctimes/2008/08/police_bay_city_couple_victims.html
(12) http://www.northjersey.com/realestate/Housing_crisis_foces_more_.html
(13) http://www.startribune.com/local/east/27238819.html
(14) http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/09/four_arrested_a.html
(15) http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/09/26/in_roslindale_a_dream_foreclosed/
(17)
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080924/NEWS/809240366/0/NEWS01
(18) http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/
(19) http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/30712089.html
(20) http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-deadwoman15-2008oct15,0,4678446.story
(21) http://www.slate.com/id/2200633/
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