Unaware and Vulnerable
Get a gaggle of young men together with like-minded interests, in the early morning hours, planning something illicit, and you have a recipe for trouble. On this occasion, the trouble was entirely that experienced by the young men, aged from 17 to 19. On a mission of their own to produce graffiti on private property or public property, makes little difference. They've a statement to make and nothing dissuades them from that purpose.
The purpose being one to demonstrate their independence, their conniving and not-too-subtle stab at the aesthetics and norms that society recognizes and accepts. Their dedication to fun and games certainly would never have geared them to receive the kind of discipline that they experienced, but they also happened, in the process, to have positioned themselves in extremely dangerous circumstances.
It's entirely possible that the five young men were all wearing ear pods, listening to their ipods. Isn't that what most young people do? So that they become divorced from what is around them, oblivious to potential, and lose their sensitivity to danger inherent in walking along railroad tracks because they've blocked their hearing awareness.
There are other hypotheses; that the sound of the approaching trains was muffled by the surrounding interchange concrete. Regardless of how it happened, and why, three young Montreal men are now dead, and two others will live their lives recalling the horror of the moment, when the via Rail train was suddenly upon them, and they scrambled for their lives.
The survivors explained they were engrossed in looking at the colourful, out-sized graffiti that others had left, and that they simply did not hear the approaching train. They might have been exchanging plans on how they meant to further embellish the concrete structure with their own offerings of graffiti 'tags'.
Their attention was completely fixated on what lay before them, with no thought whatever of their vulnerability, standing on railway tracks just before three in the morning, under a major highway interchange, close to where they had parked their car.
The purpose being one to demonstrate their independence, their conniving and not-too-subtle stab at the aesthetics and norms that society recognizes and accepts. Their dedication to fun and games certainly would never have geared them to receive the kind of discipline that they experienced, but they also happened, in the process, to have positioned themselves in extremely dangerous circumstances.
It's entirely possible that the five young men were all wearing ear pods, listening to their ipods. Isn't that what most young people do? So that they become divorced from what is around them, oblivious to potential, and lose their sensitivity to danger inherent in walking along railroad tracks because they've blocked their hearing awareness.
There are other hypotheses; that the sound of the approaching trains was muffled by the surrounding interchange concrete. Regardless of how it happened, and why, three young Montreal men are now dead, and two others will live their lives recalling the horror of the moment, when the via Rail train was suddenly upon them, and they scrambled for their lives.
The survivors explained they were engrossed in looking at the colourful, out-sized graffiti that others had left, and that they simply did not hear the approaching train. They might have been exchanging plans on how they meant to further embellish the concrete structure with their own offerings of graffiti 'tags'.
Their attention was completely fixated on what lay before them, with no thought whatever of their vulnerability, standing on railway tracks just before three in the morning, under a major highway interchange, close to where they had parked their car.
Railway worker talks to Montreal Police officers near where three young men were hit by a train overnight in Montreal, October 31, 2010.
Photograph by: John Mahoney, THE GAZETTE
Labels: Canada, Companions, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 5:55 PM
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