commentary by Patrick H. Moore
We all know how irritating it can be when the neighbor’s dogs will not stop barking. Across our back fence and one house to the east, there is a “pack” of, I believe, four dogs who unleash a great unkepmt howling around 1:00 am 3 or 4 nights a week. For unknown reasons, they don’t burst forth with this “natural form of noise pollution” on a nightly basis. If they did, I would have to grab my Glock 9, vault the fence and send them to doggie heaven in a volley of hot lead. Actually, that probably won’t be necessary. Our neighborhood is pretty safe. The worst acts of malicious mischief we have ever been subjected to are the following: 1) One complete and rather artistic TPing. It was artistically rendered but pissed me off plenty — it took me 30 minutes to clean it up; one very thorough egging –my windshields looked like the bottom of a frying pan; and 3) one equally thorough ketchupping. Yuck! The freakin perps should be horsewhipped! Not!
I wish I were a little more alert and would manage to catch them in the act. Would they turn on me and slash my throat and stab me 79 times, like Isabella Guzman did to her mother in Aurora, Colorado, or perhaps blow me away with a handgun? Maybe. But somehow I doubt it. Not in our town…
A different Moore family — the Bruce Moore family of Phoenix, AZ — was not nearly so lucky on Oct 26, 2013. Bruce, his autistic 17-year-old grandson Shannon, and Shannon’s parents, Michael and Renee, and 2 of their 5 dogs, were shot and killed by a reportedly depressed individual named Michael Guzzo in a town home the family had owned for decades, according to the police. Neighbors have reported that Guzzo often argued with pet owners about barking dogs in the development, and police have stated that Guzzo shot at another dog-owning neighbor on Saturday, after which he returned to his own unit and killed himself with the same pump-action shotgun he used for the slayings.
JJ Hensley and Laurie Merrill of The Arizona Republic write:
Michael Guzzo’s life ended as his former wife predicted — at his own hand — but Janet Guzzo said she never envisioned her ex-husband killing anyone else as he sought to end his own deep depression. Guzzo shot a family of four, including an autistic 17-year-old boy, before killing himself with a shotgun in his Phoenix apartment on Saturday morning.
On any other Monday, 66-year-old Bruce Moore, would have escorted Shannon Moore, 17, to the bus, neighbors said, so Shannon could attend classes at a Phoenix high school dedicated to meeting the needs of special-education students in a small-school environment.
Instead, grief counselors met with students at the Desiderata school where Shannon had transferred in April. Many of the conversations centered around one theme: Why Shannon?
“He was such a nice kid. How could this happen to him? Why him?” said Craig Pletenik, a Phoenix Union High School District spokesman who related the questions that the counselors received. “He was at home. Are any of us safe? If you are not safe in your home, where are you safe?”
The police believe that the answers to the questions Shannon’s classmates were grappling with probably died with Guzzo on Saturday.
* * * * *
Janet Guzzo, however, who was married to Guzzo for more than a decade before they divorced in 1999, provided some input into this tragic situation, stating that the barking dogs and the presence of a weapon, coupled with Guzzo’s extreme depression and increasing isolation, probably all contributed to Saturday’s catastrophe.
“He always was just such a troubled individual,” said Janet, a psychiatric nurse. “You just knew it was coming. I said, ‘Mike, something bad is going to happen if you can’t get a handle on that rage and anger.’ “
Janet said her ex-husband had never complained to her about his neighbors. According to her, however, his deep-seated depression, which grew worse with age, made anyone who set him off a potential victim.
“It was a case of mental illness, and (he) chose not to address it.”
“Sadness, isolation. It’s hard to get your hand around it because it’s not tangible. He is a nice person, and he wasn’t a bad person; he did a very bad thing,” Janet said. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
* * * * *
A neighbor of Bruce Moore’s — who has lived in the complex for more than 40 years — explained that Bruce had moved to the unit to care for a relative and that his daughter and her family had joined him within the last few years.
Other neighbors mentioned that Bruce’s daughter Renee and her husband Michael had recently returned from China. Renee was reportedly excited to get her five dogs out of quarantine. Charise Hatchett, a neighbor, explained that Renee left a note on Friday asking Hatchett to drop off her dog for a grooming appointment.
The Arizona Humane Society took possession of the three dogs that survived the shooting.
* * * * *
I often wonder why my town — which is just an ordinary, racially-mixed, working middle-class community — is so generally peaceful and why the children are relatively good-natured. Whenever I’m over at the high school for parent-teachers conferences or any other event, I’m struck by how polite the kids are. They smile at Old Man Moore and offer pleasantries.
Just this morning, when I was driving my kid to school (now the child is off at college), I asked the child how come he/she didn’t make plans to murder her mother and me when we tell her “no”, which does happen on occasion. The child looked at me in exasperation and cranked up the hip-hop on the car radio. I then asked the child if any of the kids at the high school plotted to murder their parents. The child looked at with increasing exasperation and barked, “No dad, if they did they wouldn’t still be at school.”
How could I argue with that? We listened to the new Eminem and Rhianna duet and I dropped the kid off. Sometimes I think I’m very lucky. Other times I know I am.
But the fact that our town seems reasonably safe and pleasant does not mean that there might not be a Michael Guzzo-type brooding silently behind closed doors. As long as guns are readily available anyone could flip out and wreak havoc with the neighbors or at the high school or at the shopping mall. I just pray that it does not happen. One of the tools that helps me get through each day is my fond belief that our town is somehow a “good place” where violence is scarce and where the kids are more or less decent. I would hate to be proved wrong.