Say it's not Covid

…that caused a man to push Michelle Alyssa Go off a subway station platform in Manhattan directly into the path of a train, a brutal attack that sent shock waves throughout New York City. Friends remember her as an avid traveler, generous, and “incredibly smart.” The perp? Martial Simon, 61, a “houseless” man with a history of violence and mental health issues. The attack reverberated throughout the Asian American communities, a senseless murder that has shaken the city and has seeded more sorrow, fear and anger among Asians.

Michelle Go

Say it’s not Covid

…that caused Shawn Laval Smith, 31, to enter a furniture store last week and murder 24 year old UCLA graduate student Brianna Kupfer, who was working alone in the furniture store. Brianna had texted fifteen minutes earlier that she was getting “bad vibes” from a customer, later identified as Smith. Brianna had graduated from the University of Miami and was pursuing a graduate degree in architectural design at UCLA.*

(*A sixteen year old black girl’s body was found thrown from a car along a freeway at the same time that Brianna was murdered. No hue and cry from the public, no mention in the media, no returned phone calls from the investigating officers, and no $250,000 reward from the city to find her killer. But that’s another story).

Brianna Kupfer

We suspect the perp wasn’t spreading Covid. He was photographed shopping nearby, wearing an N95 mask. He was just being cautious. And risk-averse.

You can’t be too careful…

And it certainly wasn’t Covid

…that caused a London bound American Airlines passenger to make such a fuss about wearing a mask on the flight that one hour into the flight the captain made the decision to turn around and return to LA.

“A London-bound American Airlines flight had to return to Miami after a "disruptive" passenger refused to comply with the federal mask requirement, the airline said. American Airlines flight 38 had left Miami International Airport Wednesday night on its way to London's Heathrow Airport when the plane had to turn back because the customer refused to comply with the mask rule, the airline said in a statement.

"The flight landed safely at MIA where local law enforcement met the aircraft," the airline's statement read. "We thank our crew for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience."

Miami-Dade Police said the passenger wasn't arrested.” She was a woman in her forties, now placed on a “No Fly” list. Additional charges may be filed pending further investigation. For the record, over 4290 cases of mask related disturbances have been reported on airlines in the last six months. 6000 cases of unruly passengers.

Perhaps Covid has had nothing to do with any of this.

Some headlines

  • COVID pandemic and isolation likely pushed spike in 2020 homicides and assaults

  • Pandemic's unique impact brings aberration in overall crime not seen in four years, and in homicides not seen in decades.

  • Homicides Surge in California Amid Covid Shutdowns of Schools, Youth Programs

  • Police Pin a Rise in Murders on an Unusual Suspect: Covid

  • First Covid raised the murder rate. Now it’s changing the politics of crime.

  • Violent crime spiked across the country during the pandemic, forcing a reckoning in cities like Atlanta. .

We’re all under pressure, feeling stresses we haven’t experienced at any point in our lifetimes. Some handle it better than others. Some, like Smith and Simon are among us even now, standing on that subway platform, hiding sharpened knives, looking for someone they don’t even know for reasons that they don’t know or understand, just someone. There are no answers.