In terms of the blogworld, something that happened in May of this year might as well have happened a million years ago. So you can imagine my surprise when I found a new comment on this post, which I wrote in the wake of the murder of a New Hampshire police officer, and the subsequent righteous drilling of his murderer.
The comment was written by this guy, who, judging from his blog seems to think that the shooting of Liko Kenney was premeditated, and then covered up. In his comment, he linked me to this article in the Boston Magazine, which recounts several of the previous run-ins that Bruce McKay (the cop) had with Liko Kenney (the murderous scumbag) in the past.
While the article in the Boston Magazine does not paint either man in a very positive light, it does present the fact that they had a history together; it also manages (because it’s a Boston magazine, I guess) to get a jab in at the 2nd Amendment and present a conspiracy theory all in the same article. Here’s the 2nd Amendment jab:
In backwoods New Hampshire, there is no Second Amendment debate. Many of the firearms its residents own are rifles and shotguns, for hunting. But plenty are handguns, for killing.
It’s pretty typical fare from a Massachusetts writer, I can’t say as I’m surprised. He manages to not only imply that only backwoods people like firearms, but then explicitly states that “handguns are only for killing”. Not only is it wrong, it’s downright insulting. I guess if handguns are for killing, I must be doing something wrong with mine.
However, the conspiracy theory part is so bad it’s almost laughable. If you remember the case details, Kenney was shot by a civilian, who was cleared of wrongdoing by the DA and the police. Now, the civilian was no choirboy himself, however to suggest the following seems pretty ridiculous.
Bill Kenney is among those who theorize that Floyd was an informal backup for McKay, operating on a kind of buddy system.
Floyd being the civilian that shot Kenney, of course. I…don’t understand conspiracy theories like that – it’s like the person has some sort of defect in their brain that causes them to ignore things like facts and the truth. It doesn’t make sense to me.
However, beyond those two issues, the Boston Magazine article seems to present things in a reasonably fair light. Kenney had a past of defying authority, and McKay was a hard-nosed cop. There are thousands of stories where a scofflaw runs into a hard nosed cop from all over the country, and it is unfortunate that this one ended tragically.
Now; however let us move back to the blogger who originally brought my attention to this matter. A casual perusal of his blog shows repeated attacks on McKay’s character, insinuations that McKay was a closet homosexual who abused prisoners, and in general an entire slew of rather undignified remarks. I get the impression that blogger is trying to defend Kenney’s brutal murder of Corporal McKay as somehow justified, based on the specious evidence that McKay was a “bad cop”.
I fail to see the point in all of that, especially after the fact. To me, it shows a general lack of character, especially in the light of the circumstances. We’ve discussed the tactical situation in the shooting, but the meat of the matter is that Kenney shot McKay in the back four times. From a self defense standpoint, backshooting people is rarely if ever justified. At that time he was shot, McKay didn’t present a credible threat to Kenney, yet Kenney went ahead and shot him in the back. No matter what spin you put on it, or however many ad hominem attacks you level at McKay; shooting him in the back wasn’t justified.
And that’s my problem with this whole thing. The shootings were a tragedy, absolutely. No matter which way you slice it, two people lost their lives. However, dragging McKay’s name through the mud in some kind of misguided effort to vindicate the man who shot him in the back doesn’t even make sense.
Unless you honestly believe that the whole thing was premeditated by Floyd and McKay to murder Kenney but went wrong resulting in McKay’s death. Of course, if you believe that, well…you’re an idiot.
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