Editor:
I support the letter by Erich Karkoschka in last Wednesday's Arizona Daily Wildcat ("Death demeaned at UA" March 29). I too have been surprised at the lack of response by the academic community to the heartless murder of Professor Roy Johnson.
As a visitor from Australia, however, I have been even more surprised at the lack of community and university outrage at the circumstances surrounding the murder. It is a "treasured illusion" of any healthy community that if there is someone in trouble Ä whatever its nature or its cause Ä then another member of that community will stop to help.
The murderer(s) apparently used this "illusion" of mutual communal support to lure Professor Johnson to his death. Their actions have served to further weaken the fragile threads which hold a community together. The advice is "Never stop for a person in need. Get to a phone and call the police." That is, let an armed professional be a Good Samaritan. What is happening to the life and soul of our community?
The sad and disturbing social consequences of the event have to be considered together with the personal tragedy of this cold-blooded murder.
Ross Harrold
Visiting Scholar
Center for the Study of Higher Education