by Mick Foley
How dare you, Mr. Bozell, how dare you! And how dare you try to turn the tragic losses at Padu-cah, Jonesboro, and Columbine High School into your own personal gains. Because I guarantee, Mr. Bozell, I'm a hell of a lot closer to the situation at Columbine High School than you are.
I have been friends with Joe and Ann Kechter since April 1999. I met them only a few days after they lost their beloved son Matthew in the senseless tragedy. Friends in the sense that we have exchanged phone calls, sent letters, given presents, and shared our emotions since that horrible day. They have been my guests at the matches on two occasions, and I proudly wear a pin on the lapel of my denim jacket that reads NEVER FORGET, a gift from Ann.
The World Wrestling Federation had received a phone call that day from Matthew's uncle, asking if I might be able to call Matthew's brother Adam. I was Adam's favorite wrestler, and a phone call, his uncle hoped, might boost his spirits, which had been understandably crushed.
I wanted the phone call to be special, so for an hour I walked around the arena asking the other wrestlers to say a few words to Adam. As entertainers, I'm not sure that we have an obligation to help, but on that day none of us saw it as an obligation but as an honor. Mrs. Kechter, who had received a phone call from President Clinton, told me that our call had meant more, because she knew it had come from the heart. She was right.
When I met the Kechters in Denver, Ann told me that the family had watched the World Wrestling Federation together the night before Matt died. Her last image of her son, she said, was of him wrestling with the family dog during commercials. Then she broke down in tears.
I spoke with her recently, after receiving a wonderful Christmas card from the family.
Mrs. Kechter had told me last year that she would not mind or consider it a breach of our friendship if I brought her name up in public. I opted not to do this because I thought doing so would be just that, a breach. Our conversation turned to the killings and their aftermath, which are obviously still being felt today. Once again, she told me of her willingness to help, and once again I told her that I wouldn't feel right about it. And then I thought of Mr. Bozell, and his words. And his tape. And his smears. And my image. Eleven times. So I asked her a question.
"Ann, I watched a videotape that kind of placed the blame for the killings on violence seen on television. I was wondering how you felt about that."
Ann Kechter was quick to answer, and the answer came with assertiveness and a bit of anger. "I blame the parents. After seeing the videotapes that those boys had made, and what was going on right under their parents' noses." Only a few of the victims' families had seen the videotapes, and although Mrs. Kechter didn't go into details, she said the tapes showed that the boys had planned the murders out well ahead of time. "I watched the video," Ann repeated, "all the stuff going on in their own home and they had no clue."
Guns in the house. Internet messages of doom. Parents seemingly too busy to notice or care. In the end, aren't children's viewing habits what parental responsibility should be all about? As a youth, I'm sure I watched some shows that my parents weren't aware of. I highly doubt they knew that I set my alarm clock for 1 A.M. when I was fourteen so I could sneak into the living room and watch Jill Clayburgh in An Unmarried Woman on HBO. But parents certainly are aware, or at least should be, of viewing patterns. And watching SmackDown! from 8 to 10 p.m. every Thursday is a viewing pattern. Many hundreds of discussions with wrestling fans and their parents have shown me that SmackDown! is largely a show families watch together. SmackDown! has a PG rating, and it deserves it. Parents should watch the show with their children, and should feel free to change channels when a situation that they feel is inappropriate presents itself. As Ann Kechter told me, "I sat down and watched the shows with my kids, and if something bugged me, we would talk about it."
Unfortunately, some parents use television as an electronic baby-sitter and don't care enough to monitor their children's viewing habits. I happen to support Mr. Bozell's suggestion of removing televisions from children's bedrooms. I also believe that the V chip, which is capable of blocking out shows and is mandatory on all new televisions, is a decent idea, even though the public's disinterest in this device seems to indicate that parents either feel comfortable monitoring their own kids, or that they simply don't care. Parents who feel comfortable monitoring then-children really don't need Mr. Bozell's self-righteous sentiments, and parents who don't care have problems far too deep for Mr. Bozell's National Campaign to Clean Up TV Now to handle.
I hate to point out the obvious, and I know this is a touchy subject, but doesn't it stand to reason that the U.S. crime rate might be lower, and that the murders in Paducah, Jonesboro, and Columbine might never have happened if guns weren't so goddamned easy to get? Look, I don't want to lose a bunch of my fans here, but could the reason the violent crime rate is so much lower in Canada and almost nil in Japan be maybe, just maybe, because the civilians in those countries aren't armed to the teeth? Doesn't that make just a little sense?
Not all deaths are caused by guns, though. L. Brent Bozell III and his PTC would have us believe that four such deaths were caused by professional wrestling. These deaths are the focus of their video, the focus of their pledge campaign, and the focus of their sponsor boycott.
Nothing displays Mr. Bozell's penchant for distortion more than these four deaths. Nothing illustrates his contempt for facts and his misuse of the media more than these four deaths. And in my opinion, it is his distortion of the facts regarding these four deaths that will in the end expose him as the manipulator I think he is, expose his PTC for the factory of half-truths and exaggerations I think it is, and force Mr. Bozell into a hasty retreat.
The Four Deaths
Dallas, Texas: On May 27, 1999, a three-year-old boy was killed while playing with his seven-year-old brother. "He said he pushed his brother . . . and said he'd seen it on wrestling on TV," said Dallas police lieutenant Bill Walsh. When the seven-year-old was asked to describe what happened, the boy "backed up about ten feet and ran toward a police detective who was holding up a doll about the same size as the three-year-old." As he neared the doll, he stuck out his arm and knocked the doll down in a clotheslinelike maneuver.
But autopsy reports revealed that the head injuries sustained were not consistent with a fall like the one the three-year-old would have suffered from a clothesline, but instead reminded doctors "of something from a severe auto accident." The seven-year-old also claimed to have jumped up and down on his brother after the fall, although that was also inconsistent with autopsy reports. The death was ruled as accidental, and the seven-year-old will not face criminal charges. No charges were brought against the World Wrestling Federation.
This didn't stop the PTC from blaming the World Wrestling Federation, however, as the incident was used repeatedly in their public smear campaign, which included the words "in the wake of tragedies like the Columbine school shootings, and the killing of children by other children imitating wrestling moves they've seen on TV shows like World Wrestling Federation SmackDown!" in a PTC solicitation letter.
For the PTC to include this little boy's accidental death in the same sentence as the Columbine massacre is shameful and unforgivable. The injuries sustained by the three-year-old boy make me question both the accidental nature of the incident and whether a clothesline was even used. A seven-year-old boy just does not generate enough power to make a fall on a carpet resemble an injury from a severe auto accident.
Even if the accident was caused by a wrestling move, common sense leads me to believe that blaming the World Wrestling Federation is ludicrous. Using the logic of the PTC, the door would be open to blaming untold deaths on something or someone. Children die every year while playing sports. Using Mr. Bozell's logic, the NFL, NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball would be held responsible. Auto accidents would be blamed on NASCAR and a golfer hit by a stray ball could put the blame on the PGA, and so on and so on, etc., etc. Assuming that a clothesline was t
he cause of death, it is simply a very tragic accident. For Mr. Bozell to claim anything else makes him an opportunistic vulture, willing to feed off of a little boy's blood to line the PTC's pockets with charitable donations.
Yakima, Washington: A nineteen-month-old toddler was brutally murdered when his twelve-year-old cousin slammed the infant to the floor as many as eight times on January 16, 1999.
The twelve-year-old, Jason Whala, was upset that he had been forced to baby-sit his cousin, and became further angered when the infant would not stop crying. His anger exploded when the baby got into his videogames, at which point Whala commenced the savage beating, which ended only when the twelve-year-old became tired. At that point he returned to watching Brady Bunch reruns on television.
Where exactly does the World Wrestling Federation fit into this? Well, it doesn't, because Whala was a WCW fan, but wrestling came into the scenario when the term "jackknife powerbomb" was used to describe what Whala had done to his cousin. But even Whala's own defense attorney said that the wrestling move could not have been the cause of death "because William [the nineteen-month-old] had no severe external injuries that would match Whala's description of how he slammed the toddler repeatedly to the floor."
So how can wrestling be to blame if the guy's own attorney disagreed? Well, I guess that is what negative spin campaigns are all about, and Bozell, as an expert in this disgusting art, has taken a little bit of nothing and once again turned it into a big gain for himself and his PTC. "Killings of children by other children imitating wrestling moves they've seen on TV shows like World Wrestling Federation SmackDown!" Bullshit. This was murder committed by a cold-hearted human being who never should have been baby-sitting in the first place.
Whala's father had been contacted by school officials who expressed "extreme concern about the boy's behavior" only nine days before the murder.The officials urged the father to take his son to a psychologist for evaluation, but according to Dr. Paul Schneider, who testified at Whala's murder trial, "Greg Whala failed to attend a second meeting to discuss his son's academic and behavior problems at school." The boy did not take part in class lessons, failed to do his homework and had seemed to shut down," said Schneider. Indeed, psychiatric evaluations following the murder showed the boy to have an extremely low IQ and that he suffered from depression and attention-deficit disorder. So why the hell was this person forced, or allowed, to babysit a nineteen-month-old baby for up to seventeen hours a week? Perhaps the boy's father is to blame for showing such indifference to his son's problems, but the major blame belongs to Jason Whala for his depraved indifference to human life. The jury agreed and convicted Whala of second-degree murder. Murder that wrestling, which surfaced only as a dubious footnote, cannot be blamed for. No, it cannot, but in Brent Bozell's campaign, it was once again.
Warner Robbins, Georgia: Ramone Francois King, a fifteen-month-old boy, was killed when he was allegedly struck and kicked off a bed by a four-year-old boy on October 29, 1999. The killing occurred when baby-sitter Earl Rose, twenty-four, who was watching five other children ranging in age from four to nine, left the house for a period of twenty minutes and supposedly put in a World Wrestling Federation videotape to occupy the children. In his absence, the four-year-old boy entered the sleeping infant's room and attacked him. The boy later claimed that he was merely trying to kill roaches that were crawling on the infant's body but three of the other children reported seeing him hitting and kicking the child.
Can wrestling or the World Wrestling Federation really be blamed for the fifteen-month-old child's death? Not when there is plenty of blame elsewhere. What about Earl Rose, the baby-sitter who stepped out to make a phone call? What kind of a man leaves seven children alone for twenty minutes? Probably the same type of man who was sentenced to five years' probation a year earlier for cocaine possession, driving without a license, and giving false information to police. Probably the same type of guy who went to prison following the infant's death for failing to report to his probation officer, failure to pay a $1,700 fine, failure to attend drug and alcohol counseling, and failure to hold a steady job. What kind of woman would allow a man like Mr. Rose to baby-sit at her home (where three of the children lived)? Probably the same type of woman who would be engaged to him.
Mr. Rose was indicted on and pled guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.
Can the World Wrestling Federation possibly be to blame for this child's death, which so clearly was the result of poor parental judgment and reckless behavior on the part of a convicted felon? Mr. Bozell apparently thinks so. "The killings of children by other children imitating wrestling moves they've seen on TV shows like World Wrestling Federation SmackDown!"
Fort Lauderdale, Florida: This one was L. Brent Bozell and the Parents Television Council's crown jewel, and the one with which they received enormous national media coverage.
Lionel Tate, twelve, killed six-year-old Tiffany Eunick in Tate's home on July 28, 1999, while supposedly imitating professional wrestling moves. According to Tate's attorney, James Lewis, his client was simply "a kid who used poor judgment. He didn't intend to cause any harm. He was playing. He was doing what he had seen on television." Well, I guess if he was just playing, we ought to excuse him for fracturing little Tiffany Eunick's skull, lacerating her kidney, cracking her rib, and causing over thirty bruises all over her body. At least that is what Mr. Lewis and Mr. Bozell would like us to do. Remove the blame from a 170-pound, twelve-year-old boy who beat to death a 4 8-pound, six-year-old girl and place it squarely on the shoulders of the World Wrestling Federation.
On the day of Tiffany's death, she was brought to Tate's town house by Lionel's mother, Florida Highway Patrol trooper Kathleen Grossett-Tate. Mrs. Grossett-Tate fed the two children and then went upstairs to take a nap, leaving Lionel and Tiffany to watch television.
At 10:40 p.m., Mrs. Grossett-Tate was awakened by Lionel, who informed his mother that Tiffany had stopped breathing. Grossett-Tate attempted to revive the girl, but was too late and Tiffany was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
Two days after Tiffany's death, Tiffany's mother, Deweese Eunick-Paul, was informed by police that her daughter had died of multiple blunt traumas instead of choking, as Grossett-Tate had told her.Lionel Tate then changed his story and told detectives that he was playing tag with Tiffany and that she had hit her head on a coffee table while being held by Tate in a bear hug.
In fact, according to prosecuting attorney Ken Padowitz, Lionel never mentioned wrestling until a month after Tiffany's death. In this third rendition of what took place in the Tate home, Lionel claimed that he "wrestled with her and hit her about four times." But when the autopsy revealed the shocking multitude of injuries, Tate's story changed again. This time Lionel claimed that the injuries were caused when he threw Tiffany into the metal banister of a spiral staircase instead of onto the couch that he'd been aiming for. By now, the four punches had turned into thirty-five to forty. Even though the defense's own experts later testified that "Tate's story would not have accounted for all of Tiffany's injuries," the "wrestling defense," with some generous media assistance from Mr. Bozell, was under way.
Attorney Lewis continually claimed that Tate was just imitating his heroes. He was, said Lewis, "engaged in what appears to be childlike horsing-around activity."
A fractured skull. A lacerated kidney. A cracked rib. Child's play? These were injuries that one prosecution expert said were comparable to falling from a three-story building. Injuries bad enough that Tiffany's screams woke up Mrs. Grossett-Tate. At which point she reportedly opened the bedroom door and yelled, "Stop making that noise or I'm going to spank your butt." When Lionel informed his mother that it was Tiffany who was crying, prosecutors said that Grossett-Tate yelled "get her to stop."
If Mr. Lewis's "wrestling defense" is to be believed, one would think that Lionel Tate would have been overwhelmed by grief following the death of little Tiffany as a result of this "horseplay." R
ight? Well, Tiffany's mother testified that when she told Lionel that her daughter was dead, "he shrugged and rolled his eyes." She also testified that Lionel asked if he could live with her and have Tiffany's toys. Several experts also testified that Lionel had shown "little or no remorse" since Tiffany's death. Dr. Joel Klass, who was hired by Lewis, claimed Tate had not expressed remorse because he was scared of going to jail.1 think it is probably more likely that he simply had no remorse to express.
Mr. Lewis also tried to portray his client as a child so naive that he couldn't separate truth from fiction, as it pertained to wrestling. But according to psychologists who spoke with Tate, he said that he knew that wrestling was not real, and that he had watched a program that explained how wrestlers made the moves look realistic.
Perhaps most ridiculous of all was Mr. Lewis's contention that it would be a "stretch" to try to prove that one child was physically abusing another when no weapons were involved.1 actually had to reread this a few times to make sure I hadn't misunderstood Mr. Lewis's meaning. But I think his meaning is clear. I also think it might be a "stretch" to prove that Lewis's brain was functioning when he made this statement. His thought process on this subject is so nonsensical as to defy logic. Lionel Tate weighed 170 pounds at the time of the killing. Tiffany Eunick weighed 48 pounds. And Mr. Lewis would like us to believe that Tate wasn't physically capable of abusing the little girl because he didn't have a weapon?
I spoke to Sergeant Gary Perna, an eighteen-year veteran of the Stamford, Connecticut, Police Department about Lewis's claim. Sergeant Perna's comment was brief and to the point. "We see domestic abuse all the time that doesn't involve a weapon. In our line of work, that kind of thinking [Lewis's] would be absurd."
A fractured skull. A lacerated kidney. A cracked rib. Over thirty bruises. Horseplay? Or a brutal murder? The PTC contended it was another case of "the killings of children by other children imitating moves they've seen on TV shows like World Wrestling Federation SmackDown!"