An eye on the neighbour

Dennie Quill, Contributor

THE HORRIBLE events which unfolded in Cleveland, Ohio, recently are a good indication that the playbook has not changed since we were growing up as children. Mothers always advised their little girls not to accept lifts from strange men. The advisory was strongly reinforced by warning children to be on the alert for the "black heart man" who would try to entice them with candy and then spirit them away and do bad things to them.

All three Ohio victims - Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus - got into Ariel Castro's motor vehicle and stepped into a nightmare which lasted between 11 and nine years.

The horror story of what happened behind the walls of that four-bedroom house is compelling and the world is understandably gripped by the details of one of the most appalling cases of deprivation, sexual exploitation and violence.

Parts of this story really do not add up, though. For example, the three victims vanished from points within the same general area, mere blocks apart. So, where did the police look for these women? Law-enforcement officials in Cleveland must be held accountable for their failure to connect the dots and use the necessary resources to solve these crimes. Reports tell us that Amanda's cell phone was used by a man to call her mother. These days, it is fairly easy to find out where cell phones originate. There will, no doubt, be a review of how these cases were handled and perhaps new measures will be instituted to ensure that cases of missing persons are handled differently in future.

Again, look at how close the houses are. Should we believe that a baby was born in that house and no one ever heard the child crying? And if a man lives alone, how comes he has a baby crying in his yard? The three women were apparently not chained or roped on the day of their rescue, for once they got help to open the door, they all walked outside. There are a whole series of questions that are being asked about the circumstances in which the women were kept. Presumably, when Castro goes on trial, these questions will be answered.

There are also other lessons to be drawn from this tragedy. If ever there was a time when we need to observe our neighbours and question anything that looks out of the ordinary, it is now. We live in an age when the neighbour could be building a bomb with the intention of creating mayhem in our community, or the neighbour may be a scam artist involved in demanding money by menace from elderly people. We are so closely bound together in the communities where we live that it is important to understand what goes on next door. Call it spying if you will - we have come to that point where we can no longer turn a blind eye to what is happening next door or in our community. I feel that the right thing to do is to abandon the notion of "hear no evil, see no evil" and embrace the idea of collective responsibility.

If there is anything that is funny in all of this, it is the fact that Ariel, also the name of a well-known detergent, and this dirty old man, appears in need of deep cleansing with something that is strong and powerful.

I hope that Ariel Castro will pay the full price for his crimes. Bearing in mind that O.J. Simpson got 33 years imprisonment for trying to recover what he claims belonged to him, we wait to see how the American justice system will treat Mr Castro.

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