Reaction
President Bill Clinton took notice of the Ferguson shooting, calling it a "terrible human tragedy". The day after the shooting, Clinton announced he asked Attorney General Janet Reno to review a proposal by New York City Mayor-elect Rudy Giuliani that would set up a national uniform licensing system for gun buyers. Clinton cited the Ferguson murders as a factor in his support of the program, which would include background checks, tests and required renewals every two years. About one week after the shooting, Clinton visited with O'Connor, Blum and McEntee. During his first major speech since his election as mayor, Giuliani cited the Ferguson murders while he repeated his previous calls for the death penalty and a uniform gun licensing law. During his monthly radio call-in show, Governor Mario Cuomo called the Ferguson shootings "a dramatic, spectacular slaughter", and called for stronger gun control measures. U.S. Senator Al D'Amato said the Ferguson case demonstrated the need for capital punishment in New York because "that is the only fitting punishment for this cold-blooded killer".
Many people in the African American community expressed concern that the Ferguson shootings would lead to a backlash of violence and racial animosities against the black community. Civil rights activists Al Sharpton and Herbert Daughtry urged that African Americans in general not be blamed for the crime; Sharpton, in particular, criticized what he called attempts "to demonize black and Hispanic dissatisfaction" by linking those groups to the murders. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson delivered a sermon at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, during a service attended by the victims' grieving families. Audrey Warren released a statement shortly after the shootings expressing sorrow for the victims and their families. Jackson stressed the shootings were the result of one man and should not be seen as indicative of all African Americans. The day after the shootings, Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta called Ferguson "an animal". Jackson and other African American leaders criticized the comment as racially charged, but Gulotta later said his statement had nothing to do with race.
During a press conference in the days after the shooting, the Long Island Rail Road Police Benevolent Association called the trains "unsafe" and said the railroad needed to triple the size of its 216-person police force. Long Island Rail Road responded with the claim that crimes against passengers had dropped over the last few years. The Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Commuter Railroad placed more officers on trains and increased the visibility of police in response to the shootings. Long Island Rail Road officials also made counselors available for passengers who wanted one, and sent senior railroad officials out to trains to answer riders' questions. A New York Times editorial called for stronger gun control laws in response to the murders, specifically citing the ease with which Ferguson obtained a handgun in California, which had one of the country's stricter gun laws. Several Adelphi University students expressed concern that Ferguson may have been taking the train to the school with plans of shooting people out of revenge for his past experiences there, although the train Ferguson took was not the closest one to Adelphi. Most of the regular commuters who used the 5:33 Hicksville Local returned to the train the day after the shootings. In interviews with the media, a number of passengers cited the need to face their fears and the psychological trauma created by the incident, rather than avoid riding their regular train.
Read more about this topic: Colin Ferguson (mass Murderer)
Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)