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Everyone who lives in or around the Seattle area knows who Chris Monfort is. For those of you that don't, he's currently awaiting trial for a whole bunch of things, stemming from his alleged firebombing of four Seattle Police vehicles and the alleged murder of police officer Timothy Brenton on Halloween, '09. I say 'alleged' because I have not seen the state's case; but even though the trial hasn't yet begun, if the police have the evidence they say they do it seems a pretty open and shut case.
Among other things, investigating officers found several weapons, bombs and/or bomb-making materials, and a manifesto of sorts. It appears that Mr. Monfort was waging what he considered to be a one-man war against police and by extension government oppression. By society he's been called a criminal, a domestic terrorist, a radical, and other things not quite as printable. Are these things true? I don't know.
I do know that there's another side to Chris that hasn't seem quite the same amount of press coverage. Go fig.
Chris was and is a friend of mine. As all humans do, he had his share of good points and bad. He loved music, and was actually a pretty good composer in a minimalist, garage-band sort of way. Even though my musical skills are limited to making weird sounds on the keyboard, we used to jam together when we got a chance to. He was also fond of playing racing games, and seeing bands.
Well, some bands.
He was also fond of bailing at the last moment, and very adept at finding reasons why he couldn't or wouldn't be able to make it to whatever you were planning to do on any given night. He couldn't hold his liquor, even by my standards, and couldn't have a conversation with anyone without politics or social issues coming up.
That was the thing, though: he loved politics. Chris was a crusader at heart, always wanting what's fair and right for the most possible people. Above all things he hated abuse of power, on every level. He hated George W. Bush, and everything the then-president stood for; he was against the war in Iraq and the lives lost on all sides of it.
We used to talk for hours about abuses of power, and what could be done about it. We agreed every step of the way about the problem, but used to argue about how to fix it. And yeah, they'd be arguments; we'd both end up hot under the collar. It was fun, though, I think for both of us.
People in Seattle, even though it's a famously liberal city, want to paint Chris as Hitler and the Antichrist all rolled into one. I don't think that's true, though. I think that Chris is something that's far more dangerous than that: he's an idealist that is convinced he's right. I think that if he gets the death penalty he'll die still believing that he did the right thing.
If he's guilty, he did a terrible thing, and justice must be done. But he's still a friend, and I wouldn't want to see his life thrown away for nothing.
What I'd ask, then, is that the rest of you that are convinced that you're right about whatever cause you're standing for think twice. Think about how your actions affect others, and about the fact that (in the immortal words of another Washingtonian, David Eddings) it's really hard to unkill someone, no matter how sorry you may be afterwards.
Officer Brenton left behind a wife and two children that didn't deserve to have their father taken from them, no matter what you might think of the police in general; so think about it before throwing a bomb or sending a bullet down range. Thinking twice may save more than one life. It may save your own.
