Sheriff: ‘It is inappropriate to blame everyone’

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor didn’t soften his words when asked about the murders of two young boys and the suicide of their father Josh Powell. He said the case wasn’t a tragedy it was “an act of pure evil.”

I asked Sheriff Pastor to expand on that. Here is what he wrote:

Your colleagues sometimes characterize me as showing some emotion when I am interviewed regarding such incidents. I do show emotion. And that emotion is anger.

You and your colleagues saw it when five children were murdered by their father in Orting three years ago April. You saw it at the end of November 2009 when four Lakewood officers were murdered in Parkland and we investigated the murders. You saw it when my Deputy, Kent Mundell was mortally wounded near Eatonville three weeks later. And you saw it in Graham [when Josh Powell blew up his house killing his two young children and himself].

I don’t like the word “tragedy” since I think the word sanitizes the reality of what we see on the ground in a crime scene. It glosses over things and makes things easier to dismiss.

These things should not be dismissed. They should be faced straight on and called for what they are: horrible acts of murder.

And we should be morally outraged when such things take place. I know that my words may not sound politically correct but I believe that they describe what acts of murder do to families and communities. There is a terrible ripple effect of acts like this.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Our righteous anger cannot and should not get in the way of doing a thorough and accurate investigation and keeping an open mind with regard to determining who committed the act. We may be angry but we keep that in check as we work the case through the legal system. We cannot afford to do otherwise.

But the act, itself, deserves our condemnation.

With regard to evil, I believe that it exists and we saw an example of it perpetrated today. It is very hard to come to grips with. And most people can’t come to grips. First, because, thank goodness, they seldom encounter it, and secondly, because, thank goodness, most people are decent moral people whose heart and whose character do not lead them in that direction.

People don’t know how to cope with evil because they themselves are on the other end of the moral spectrum.

Our moral sense demands that we stop and take notice when one person does something especially horrible to another person. Moral people recognize such acts for what they are. And it angers them. It is appropriate that they call it out for what it is. It is inappropriate to be too quick to make excuses for such acts. It is inappropriate to blame everyone and everything but the one who committed the act.

If we fail to recognize that there are are bright moral lines regarding acts like the one we saw today and if we fail to stand on the right side of those lines, then our own silence and our own reserve undermines the moral character of the community.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor speaks to the news media with detective Ed Troyer behind him after the bodies of Josh Powell and his two sons were found inside Powell’s home. Powell killed his the boys, ages 5 and 7, and himself. AP Photo/John Froschauer.

By Linda Thomas