September 11, 2009 began much like that terrible morning eight years ago. I rode my bicycle along Lansing’s River Walk to my wife’s office. The sky was blue and the air crisp, just like it had been when the Twin Towers were struck. On that day I had not known the planes had crashed into the Word Trade Center until I walked into Kate’s office and she and Stacy told me, “we (the United States) are under attack.” I was stunned.
This September 11th I was stunned when I arrived home and checked my email. A message from my sister tersely read, “somebody killed the sign guy.” The “sign guy” was a fixture in Owosso, Michigan. He often stood on street corners, hooked to his oxygen tank while holding up graphic anti-abortion signs and shouting slogans at passers by.
At 7:30 a.m., across the street from the Owosso high school and in front of several students, James Pouillon, the 63 year old anti-abortion activist was gunned down by a man shooting from a passing truck. The shooter was Harlan James Drake.
After killing Mr. Pouillon, Drake then drove to a nearby gravel business where he shot and killed the owner, Mr. Mike Fouss. Shortly after this and before he could reach James Howe, his intended third victim, Drake was apprehended by the police. According to media reports Drake has confessed to the murders.
I did not know the victims personally. However, I grew up in Owosso and graduated from Owosso High School. I attended school with Mr. Pouillon’s younger brother Don and was acquainted with Mr. Fouss’s younger brother Jim.
Knowing Owosso as I do it is disturbing to witness this tragedy being exploited by the media and those groups greedy for anything they can turn to their profit and purpose.
Thus far no specific motive for the murders has been made public although the police say that Mr. Drake held grudges against Mr. Fouss and Mr. Howe. As for Mr. Pouillon, Drake claimed he was offended by the graphic images of aborted fetuses displayed on Pouillon’s signs. It has also been mentioned that Drake’s mother had worked for both Fouss and Howe, and that this might have something to do with the motive.
The day after his arrest Drake was admitted to the hospital for a “serious gash” to his arm after cutting himself with broken glass from a television set in an apparent suicide attempt. He was treated and returned to jail.
Little else has been made publicly known about the killer, although in a statement in the Owosso Argus Press his family claims he was a “gentle giant.” It has also been said he had been taking anti-depressants because of his involvement in an accident in which two people were killed when they pulled in front of the semi-truck he was driving. It is speculated this may have contributed to his recent actions.
Drake had no criminal record, seemingly nothing that would indicate he might do what he did. Yet, after he was taken into custody his truck was searched and it contained 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 8 guns, including both 22 and 45 caliber pistols. Clearly this man was on a mission.
All of this would have been just another case of a disturbed man committing murder—a regrettable occurrence but not that unusual in our times. However, this particular tragedy has taken on a prominence that is disturbing.
Anti-abortion activists immediately latched onto Mr. Pouillon’s murder, making him into a martyr for their cause, yet comments submitted to the Owosso Argus Press website, allegedly written by his own son, Dr. James Pouillon, suggest that the senior Mr. Pouillon was no saint and that he had been an irresponsible father. Other comments by writers claiming to be relatives suggested he had a pathological anger toward women.
To be fair, comments posted on websites are difficult to verify and there are many sides to every story. However, this story has gained national attention based upon many unconfirmed and possibly specious facts.
On 15 September 2009, at 6:49 p.m. EDT Reuters reported on its website that president Obama had condemned Mr. Pouillon’s murder. No mention was made of whether or not the president mentioned, Mr. Fouss, the other victim. Every major news and media organization across the nation has reported Mr. Pouillon’s death and his connection to the anti-abortion cause. Mention of Mr. Fouss, the second victim, has been minimal.
Why Mr. Pouillon was killed has not been conclusively established. It may not have been because of his anti-abortion activism. He may simply have been a convenient target for a deranged killer. It has been reported that Harlan Drake will undergo psychiatric evaluation.
But facts do not stand in the way of those who will churn any set of events to make their own brand of butter. The anti-abortionists have seized upon this tragedy to advance their cause. They assume they know the killer’s mind and reasons. And they largely ignore the other victim Mr. Fouss, and the intended victim, Mr. Howe, because it appears these two men had no connection to anti-abortion activities. Their victimization is apparently less worthy of note because they are not politically useful. Glaringly apparent in all this is the nearly complete disregard for the lost life of Mr. Fouss and the suffering of the Fouss and Howe families. The death of Mr. Fouss and the threat to Mr. Howe have been treated as insignificant principally because they don’t fit the right-to-lifer’s political agenda. The media has focused on Pouillon’s murder because of his connection to the right-to-life movement. The attendant sensationalism drives ratings and ratings drive profit.
On the 16th of September a memorial service for Mr. Pouillon was held at Willman Field, in Owosso. This is the stadium in which the Owosso High Trojans play their football games. It is the property of the Owosso Public Schools. The reasoning was that so many anti-abortionist activists would be arriving from out of town there was no other place large enough to accommodate them all. However, it was requested that this be conducted solely as a memorial service and not as a demonstration. By most accounts it was. Final attendance was estimated to be around 250 people. The Fouss family did not participate.
As of this writing, Harlan Drake remains in jail and the media has found other stories to churn. According to Friday’s (18 September 2009) Owosso Argus Press Jon and Jim, the brothers of Mike Fouss have returned to work at their gravel company. The bloodstained carpet has been removed from the office. Life, though altered, goes on.
(NOTE: Since this piece was written Mr. Harlan Drake, was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial. Subsequently that decision was reversed. A recent article about the case, appearing in the Lansing State Journal, 7 November 2009, reports that Mr. Drake’s record, and confession, will be reviewed by mental health experts for a possible defense of insanity.)
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
I’ve been back to re-read this several times, and each time I’ve not been able to put my response into words.
Today I have a better sense of it, and would say this: we seem to have come to a time when people matter less than positions, and scoring points is more important than saving people, or reputations, or even a sense of civility.
The recent shenanigans at CNN over the Coast Guard maneuvers on the river are a perfect example of how far journalism has come from the motto that used to be engraved on wire service rulers: “Get it first, but first get it right.”
It’s clear to me that the standards I try to maintain in my own blog are often higher than those of so-called professional journalists. Cherry-picking details to support a particular view of a story is unacceptable. Reporting rumor as fact isn’t praiseworthy. While the plethora of information demands the old “two source” standard might need to be revised upward to three or four sources, it’s often revised downward to one source, or just supposition.
I’ve been involved in a bit of a personal experiment. Each day I listen to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Then, at night, I give the MSNBC lineup a listen. It is an extraordinary experience. The phrase “journalistic whiplash” comes to mind.
Even when I know they’re “reporting” the same event, it’s almost impossible to relate the two accounts to one another.
I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me two of the basic questions that should be asked of any event are: “What happened?”, and “What does it mean?” Until the first question is answered as fully and accurately as possible, it seems impossible to answer the second question.
That you re-read this several times does not surprise me. You are a thorough and thoughtful reader and writer.
I fear that journalism as a profession is dying, if not already dead. What that portends is frightening. Television, in particular, has become a wasteland, with the exception of PBS. Ritchens in his book “After Photography” makes the point we no longer have a common front page, and he’s right. If we have no common source of news, one that is honest and reports stories of significance and meaning, we cannot function as a democracy.
Frankly I despair when I talk to many of the younger generations, those in their 20s, 30s even in their 40s,. So many of them say it is fine the major newspapers are failing. They say it’s no loss because those (all) news organizations were always biased and corrupt. They have a point. However, without those who investigate, report honestly and edit with skill and integrity we as a people have precious little to base our judgments on. How sad that we have the technology to process and disseminate more information than ever before, while at the same time we seem bent on ignoring and destroying those institutions and mechanisms that could help us make sense of it.
What a thoughtful post, Mike. I, too, heard this, and though my experience with Owosso is mostly as one who passed through or stopped to see something specific, it still stunned me that it hit so close to home. To see it expanded to such epic proportions surprised me. And while I didn’t know, I wondered — is it all really true, or is it good copy for special interests?
As always, you provide marvelous food for thought and much I’ll carry with me throughout the day.