Perhaps you remember who David Cash is? His friend, Jeremy Strohmeyer, murdered a little 7-year old girl in Nevada Casino. Cash saw the beginning of the attack, and did almost nothing to prevent it. He walked away, and left Strohmeyer with the girl. After Strohmeyer killed her, he told Cash, and Cash chose not to report him to the cops. Nonetheless, Strohmeyer was quickly caught, and a couple of days ago was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Cash is 19 years old, and is widely hated. He has been spat upon, screamed at, insulted viciously, and there is a protest movement insisting that he be expelled from UC Berkeley. He was also the subject of a 60 Minutes examination, in which, incredibly, he continued to refuse to admit that he did anything wrong! But come on -- he is not Satan -- just a 19 year-old kid in some serious denial. He failed the biggest test of his young life -- but he is not Satan.

The University of California refuses to expel him, on the grounds that while what he did was very wrong, it was not a criminal act. The University does not expel students for doing bad things, even very bad things, unless they are criminal acts. In fact, UC Police have been forced to protect him from physical violence.

First of all, this clearly should be a criminal act. It should not be legal to stand and watch a crime of violence, and do nothing to try to prevent it. I'm not saying people should have to be forced to be heroes -- most people are too afraid to go rushing to aid someone a stranger is attacking. But this was his friend that was attacking a little girl! It is true you can't legislate morality, but nonetheless, I think it should be illegal to witness a crime of violence and do nothing at all. At least call the cops!

However, attacking Cash, physically and verbally, is obviously not right, either. While what he did was terribly, terribly, wrong, all attacking him does is to put him into a shell of defensiveness and excuses.

What David Cash could do.

We are only human, after all, we are guaranteed to make mistakes. But we are intelligent, and we have morals and ethics. So though we will make mistakes, we can admit them, and use them to grow, and we can avoid making the same mistakes over and over.

-- Jim Lindsay
October 1998