Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

Unless you've just returned from a trip to the far side of the moon, you must have seen pictures of the shootout that took place at high noon on October 30th in front of a Los Angeles courthouse. That's where a disgruntled client fired a volley of shots at point-blank range trying to hit his lawyer who kept ducking behind a tree as the bullets whizzed by. "Wow," I thought when I first saw it. "Must be some sort of publicity stunt for a movie, probably a Mel Brooks' shtick." Only Mel Brooks, I figured, could find a lawyer with quicker moves than Fred Astaire in his prime.

But, as we all now know, this was no joke, folks, because in California shooting at anyone behind a tree is serious business. Suppose the tree had been hit, can you imagine the outcry from the Sierra Club, and all the rest of the tree-huggers out there in La-La Land? The shooter, William Strier, a disabled sixty-four year old would really be in a pickle. Luckily the tree wasn't scratched and the attorney, Gerald Curry, who was hit a total of five times in the shoulder and neck is on the mend, so not to worry.

The intriguing question is, what ever possessed Mr. Strier to attempt murder in front of a bevy of reporters and cameramen, who, it just so happened, were camped out on the courthouse lawn all week waiting for some news about actor Robert Blake's ongoing trial for killing his wife. The rest of the country already knows how flaky Californians are, but this is ridiculous. Didn't Strier learn anything from the OJ case? All you have to do to get away with murder in Los Angeles is to wait until after nightfall. No one ever sees anything in that part of the world when it's dark because everyone wears sunglasses 24 hours a day (unless they're looking in the mirror).

The only thing that OJ got nailed for is "causing the unlawful death" of his wife and Ron Goldman. Basically, Simpson was fined. Who knows if Strier wouldn't have gotten off altogether? The tree, after all, went unscathed and the lawyer was only wounded, so he can still sue Mr. Strier for pain and suffering and maybe even the film rights. If that's not an ending fit for Hollywood, I don't know what is.