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Show DMntiqpiriiaiH Dismissal of Singer lawsuit doesn't vindicate violence It ended with a whimper when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. As far as our legal system is concerned, the book has been closed on the John Singer story. A cause for celebration? Hardly. We doubt that even the so-called winners in the legal battle which followed Singer's death have found much to cheer about. To drag out an old cliche, there really were no winners here. Neither the Supreme Court's non-decision nor the lower court rulings have changed our minds about one thing: that John Singer's death was a senseless tragedy of errors. For a man to be killed over what began as an attempt to educate his own children suggests that there is a serious problem with our own values. Don't get the wrong idea: This isn't an attempt to make Singer into a martyr or a cult hero. Anyone who has read Death of an American by David Fleisher and David Freedman recognizes that Singer left no room for compromise in his battle with the local school system, and that his views on race relations sounded like vintage George Wallace. Singer also helped set the stage for a violent confrontation by carrying a pistol, and making no secret of it. And the press raised the stakes by making a public figure of a man who was thumbing his nose at the law. But the question remains, regardless of what the courts have or have not said: Did Singer's actions warrant the type of armed confrontation usually reserved for someone on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list? We didn't think so six years ago. And nothing has come out in the meantime to make us change our minds. As hard as we try, we can't find anything constructive that has come from John Singer's death. It hasn't caused the state or local school district to change their positions on educating children at home. It has left Vickie Singer with the job of raising a family on her own. And it has left the children with emotional scars who knows how deep from watching their father being gunned down that January day in 1979. We would like to think that our law enforcement agencies have learned something from this tragedy, that it has given them reason to think twice about their own tactics and priorities. Should a similar situation come along, we'd expect to see it handled without the same type of violent confrontation. Of course, they may interpret the dismissal of Vickie Singer's lawsuit as a vindication of their right to use force. That would be a serious mistake. Perhaps a deadly mistake. -DH |