The police chief of Los Angeles blames a mob of "knuckleheads" for the looting and vandalism that broke out in the aftermath of the Lakers' basketball championship. Fires were set, objects were thrown at police officers, several businesses were looted and buses, police cars and other vehicles were vandalized. These same 'knuckleheads" hurled rocks through the window of one bus abandoned under an overpass. "It would be different if we got burglarized, but they were literally lighting stuff on fire," said store owner Richard Torres, whose business usually does well after games when sports fans stop in. Knuckleheads, indeed. Twenty of these thought-impaired types were arrested in the hours after "their team" won.
What happened in the town that lost? In Orlando, the headlines on Monday read like this: Four bodies have been found in a home in a gated community outside Orlando in what authorities believe was a murder-suicide. Knuckleheads are probably to blame for that one too, but not roaming bands of them, celebrating or commiserating over a sporting event. What is it about victory that brings out the riot in some people. You know, the knuckleheads?
I know with a high degree of certainty that if the Magic had somehow managed to reach into their hearts and pulled off a come-from-behind victory and eventually won the championship, there would have been looting on the streets of Disney World. That's just the nature of the beast. Last year, when the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, a riot broke out in their city that police asserted was unrelated to the sporting event. “I’ve never heard of them,” replied a man looting a hardware store when asked if he was stealing a rotary saw because the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. “I needed a saw, though.”