Another try at feeding the ugly side

A genius with whom I work raised the question: Is Marco Riz the new Willie Horton? It goes to the ugly, seedy heart of the matter. It is not to compare the crimes of which Riz is accused to those of Horton, who took advantage of a misguided social experiment to add to his list of victims. It is to raise the possibility that Riz is being used to arouse the same ignorant, fearful, hateful reaction as Horton, who did so much to derail a presidential campaign 20 years ago. Some history is in order here. On Oct. 26, 1974, Horton and two accomplices robbed a gas station attendant in Lawrence, Mass., stabbed him 19 times and left him in a trash can to die. Horton was sentenced to life in prison for murder. But on June 6, 1986, he was released on a weekend furlough. He fled to Maryland where 10 months later he twice raped a woman... [read full story]