Shocked, again

Focusing the discussion on human depravity is the most politically convenient approach: How can a father rape, beat and terrorize his own children, and a mother, also abused, witness this torture without coming forward sooner?

However, the case of the police officer who worked at Parliament is not the first – or last – time we have been confronted with the darkest side of human nature, a stark reminder that institutions and the rule of law exist, above all, to protect the life and dignity of every individual, without discrimination, from human destructiveness. Thus, outrage and lamentation serve only to soothe the people consuming the horror through their television screens.

A second level of analysis takes us to greater depths: Why was a police officer who had committed multiple violations while on duty allowed to carry on working without any apparent obstacles? Why didn’t the mental health professionals who evaluated him become alarmed? What did his bosses and colleagues know about his activities? As more information about the case comes to light, the more obvious it becomes that none of the people who were around the offender and his family did anything to make the horror stop. As is usually the case in such instances, when everyone is to blame, no one is to blame – hence stoking the passive manifestation of collective anguish.

There are harsher ways of looking at the case, with questions that are very unlikely to ever be answered: How did this dangerous criminal end up serving on Parliament’s security team? Did he have a privileged relationship with some politician or with someone with political influence? If not, how did he land such a cushy post? And how did he manage to get away with so many crimes without punishment? Who was protecting him and why? Did the leadership of the Hellenic Police know about any of this or not?

Punishing the healthcare professional who examined the policeman and his wife, a fellow officer, or investigating the teachers who ignored a very telling essay by the abused daughter is another way of covering up the burden of guilt that stretches higher up the ladder.

This terrible case will be forgotten in a few months, only to be overshadowed by another. We won’t know where these children who grew up in hell are and whether they are being looked after. We won’t know what all the different probes discovered, whether the offender had connections and whether those people faced any consequences for protecting him.

What we do know is that we will be shocked all over again when we hear of an incident of violence among minors, of children who may have fallen into the hands of a police officer like this one at some point and who, before taking their frustration out on other kids or on public property, may have written a song telling all, like this one by rapper Vevilos: “I am not sick or imprisoned / It’s society that’s diseased / And if I go, bloodied, in broad daylight / Between the two of us, the one truly trapped will be you.”