A TROUBLED KILLER IN OMAHA: WHY?

This past week (5 December 2007) in Omaha, Nebraska, where I live, a deeply troubled 19-year old, named Robert Hawkins, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, wantonly killed 8 people in the Von Maur department store in the Westroads Mall, about 1 mile from my home.  He then killed himself.  All of the carnage took a mere 6 minutes!

Here is what we know about Hawkins:  Immediately prior to his murderous rampage, he had lost his job at a McDonald’s restaurant and had broken up with his girlfriend.  In one of the two suicide notes he wrote, he stated that “I’ve just snapped.”  But Hawkins was not someone who had slipped through the cracks of society.  The state of Nebraska spent over $265,000 in various kinds of treatments for him.  What else do we know about him?

1. Robert was the child of an Air Force officer and was born in England, before his parents moved back to the states.  No matter how one looks at the family, it was rather dysfunctional.  Hawkins’s parents divorced when he was about 2 and his father, Ronald, remarried, as did his mother.  But he stayed with his dad.  When he was 8 his mother and stepfather divorced.  When Robert was 14, he became a ward of the state and was sent to a Missouri treatment center because he threatened to kill his stepmother and because his father’s military health insurance had run out.  From age 14-16 he lived in various group homes.  From ages 16-17 he lived at a foster home in Ft. Calhoun, where he was charged with dealing in marijuana.  At 17 he moved back with his father who was getting a divorce and later that year he dropped out of Papillion-LaVista high school.  After he turned 18, he moved in with a Bellevue family who tried to help him with all his troubles.
2. Sandra Markley, deputy county attorney, stated of Hawkins:  “He was in good facilities.  He had good supervision.  It didn’t all go perfectly, of course.  But we deal with a lot of troubled children, and, as far as we could tell, he was no more troubled than many of them.” 
3. He was hospitalized several times for mental disorders and was officially diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, a mood disorder and “parent/child relational problems.”
4. In August 2006, the state of Nebraska terminated its custody of Hawkins, saying, “the child is nonamenable to further services.”  Officials said that he had refused to participate in drug treatment.  Although he was 18 by this time, the age of majority in Nebraska is 19, and the termination by the state was made more out of exasperation than any evidence of rehabilitation.  The result was that he was homeless.  Had it not been for the Bellevue family that took him in, he would have had no place to live.  One cannot imagine a more dysfunctional situation for a 19 year old.

What can we say about such an unbelievably tragic young man and his dastardly actions that horrific Wednesday?

1. The case of Robert Hawkins does say something about the importance of a stable family for a child.  Robert Hawkins’s family was never stable or healthy.  I believe it is very instructive that Hawkins was always excited when he was in the various group homes and it was time for his father to pick him up.  An employee of the Cooper Village, where Hawkins stayed for a period of time, stated that Robbie was sad that his parents were not more involved with him.  “He always wanted to be with his parents.”  I cannot place all the blame on his parents, but there is no question that a stable, two-parent home is critical to normalcy in a child’s life.  There was no safe haven for Robbie in this heartless world.  He was alone and it seemed as if those who loved him did not care about him.  At best, the dysfunction of his family was not a positive aspect of his life.
2. The case of Robert Hawkins says something about the nature of evil in this world.  We live in a fallen world and it is actually rather surprising that more acts like this do not occur with regularity.  With the entrance of sin into the world, the power of evil produces the destructive forces that undermine everything that is dear and precious in this world.  Our fallen world is filled with disappointment, tragedy and monstrous horror.  That is the nature of our fallen world.
3. The case of Robert Hawkins says something about the hope that resides in Jesus.  Jesus Christ became a victim of monstrous evil on Calvary’s cross so that He could eradicate evil from this cursed planet.  The New Testament is filled with the message of hope, reconciliation and grace that centers in Jesus.  He is therefore the hope of the world.  He brings healing to human relationships, empathy in our interpersonal relationships and comfort to the hurting.  The finished work of Jesus is what produces the hope that the tragedies of 5 December will one day come to an end.  For that reason, I believe that the Bible and history demonstrate to us that God will bring righteous good out of this horrific event.  The statement of Joseph in Genesis 45:5-8, “you meant it for evil but God meant it for good,” is the central proposition of God’s providence.  For reasons that we will never understand, God permitted the carnage of 5 December for a greater purpose.  He can, and I believe will, bring good out of this despicable act.  Satan believes he won last week, but God will prove him wrong!  That is a bedrock proposition of our faith as Christians.

See various news reports in the Washington Post (7 December 2007), the New York Times (7 December 2007) and the Omaha World Herald (9 December 2007).