A sharp intake of breath, a crystalline second in time, that's how it ends.

By now everyone in the Metro area has seen the video. At first glance the clerk behind the counter seems to just crouch down, like he was maybe ordered to do it by the scumbag holding the pistol. The store video, like so many security camera clips is grainy, silent, and has that jerking effect. Anyone who has viewed that video knows they are watching more than a random robbery, the hooded figure, the clerk crouching down, all seem innocuous enough, even as the video is capturing a mans final moments on earth. Gurpreet Singh, 35, never had a chance. He crossed paths with someone who makes the Waldo Rapist look like a choir boy. He came across a guy that people should be banding together to help catch, because this predator isn't leaving his victims behind to work through the trauma. He is taking more than his victims sense of security. He is stealing his victims breath, he is snatching his victims life. The hooded grainy figure in the video killed Singh because he could, because it pleased him to do so. In a robbery that most likely netted less than 100 bucks, 99.99 percent of nickle and dime hoods would have taken the money and run away into the night, leaving the clerk shaken, and alive. Gurpreet Singh was unlucky enough to cross paths with that one in a million shot of bad luck. Like the man who was struck by a plane on a South Carolina beach while jogging, Singh never saw it coming, never had a chance to react.

The folks who live in that part of Kansas City have a lot to worry about, chances are the killer is from that area. He probably did his dirt, then disappeared into the maze of tract homes in one of the surrounding subdivisions. He is still out there, and whatever itch he was trying to scratch won't be satisfied for long. The take from a convenience store robbery wont buy much, it won't last long, this guy is going to need to re-up, sooner than later. The two people who helped case the place, kept watch for anyone pulling in to the parking lot, they may turn up dead next. Or it might be another square world clerk, busting his hump for 8 or 9 bucks an hour, trying to feed his family, pay his rent. The killer may decide it's time to up his game, go where the money is a little better. He probably won't end up in Waldo, it's a little hot over there for heavy set black guys, but there are dozens of areas in this city where crime isn't a common occurrence, where the registers don't get emptied out every 20 minutes or hundred dollars.


This murder is different than the all too common east side slaying. It wasn't about turf, or a drug deal gone sour. It wasn't a feud between rival gang members. The possibility of it happening again is very high, and not confined to a 4 or 5 block, graffiti tagged section of the city.
There probably wont be a 5 figure reward, although the 7 11 corporation could surely afford it. This crime for all it's horrific randomness won't catch nearly the press that the recent rapes in Waldo have gained. There won't be constant coverage, an unending reel of every minutia even remotely related to the crime itself. Let's not bullshit each other. In a city divided on racial and economic lines, this one will fall on the wrong side. This crime didn't take place in Waldo, or Lees Summit, or Prairie Village. The victim wasn't one of us, he was a brown skinned immigrant with a foreign name. It took place in a section of town that isn't much different than the areas surrounding Troost or Prospect. The houses are newer, the blight hasn't taken root as deeply, still it's a depressed area, where white faces are the minority. Bannister Mall is a gaping hole a mile to the west. White folks are becoming a rarity in the area. The media will move on quickly, they won't beat this dog to death, they'll just leave it to fend for itself, moving on to non stories about Nail salon reward funds and self defense classes.


I've never had any qualms about pointing out the reasons for crime on the city's east side. It doesn't take a crime analyst to parse through the facts, point fingers at the culprits, affix blame where it belongs. I don't buy in to the argument that east side killings are the end result of hundreds of years of disparity, poverty, and inequality. At the end of the day, people make their choices, history, sociology, and disparity never forced anyone to pick up a gun, sling dope, or spray bullets at folks in their own front yard. That said, I'd be a first rate hypocrite and a major douche bag if I failed to mention the glaring discrepancy in media coverage and the absence of public moral outrage that this senseless murder highlights. This story isn't sexy. There is no fair damsel in distress, no quiet idyllic neighborhood, no outraged citizens rising up to bring the perp to justice. There is only a grainy video, that doesn't really show everything. But if you look really hard, it's there. The flick of a wrist, a sharp intake of breath, a crystalline second frozen in time. An innocent human being, left crouching on a floor, his life spilling out through his hands, the smell of cordite and death are his final companions. We should care more than we do, but it happened over there, so we don't.