The Lab Rat's fiefdom

Ms. alerted me to the Women in Crime Ink blog and its recent post regarding the murder of Yale grad student Annie Le.

The accused is your typical, undereducated macho male of limited power -- a guy by the name of Raymond Clark. Details surrounding motive are being scrutinized because of comments made by New Haven Police Chief James Lewis:

“I think it’s important to note this is not about urban crime, not about university crime, not about domestic crime — but an issue of workplace violence, which is becoming a growing concern around the country.”

Well, there you go, Yale community. No need to worry about a mad man on the loose, a scary bogeyman, lurking in dark corners or stairwells -- this was simply an *isolated* incidence of "workplace violence." Chief Lewis felt it necessary to announce to the media that he had thoroughly ruled out all other possible motives to keep his investigation from getting too messy and/or political. Why is that?? So he won't have to find out if that Clark guy's obsession over mice cages was a badly disguised character flaw that led to (allegedly) murdering someone who refused to give him the time of day?

The chief shouldn't dismiss evidence before collecting it. I have friends in law enforcement and understand that they really don't like it when the public draws conclusions about a case before they have a chance to investigate it. So what's the difference here? Raymond Clark is a psychopath that looked for opportunities to denigrate women. It's why he made the mice cages his "personal fiefdom" and laid a trap for Annie Le.

Violence against women happens in the home, in public, on TV, in the movies and anywhere the recalcitrant male ego exists, which means it is more than likely it will happen at work, too.

Poor Annie.

She probably just ignored the weirdo as much as she possibly could, and it finally set him off. It's not like she emasculated him by taunting him and calling him Beaker or Willard, like I would have. Annie Le just wanted to do her work, get married, and not think about the loser in the lab.

She deserves justice and the first step is acknowledging this case as one of violence against women.