Essay Example Of The Konerak Sinthasomphone Incident

One striking example of the Milwaukee police department’s incompetence in this particular chain of working-class murders is the Konerak Sinthasomphone incident. Sinthasomphone was a Laotian 14-year-old who Dahmer had lured back into his apartment (). At one point, he managed to escape through the front door and wander into the streets, dazed (it was later found out he was lobotomized), naked, and beaten (Worthington 2). Two women found him and called the police, reporting a badly injured child walking the streets, unable to speak properly (2). Officers John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish arrived at the scene as Dahmer rushed over to make up a fake explanation (1). Instead of investigating the situation- an intoxicated older twentysomething with a bruised,

Along with blatantly ignoring the problem, the policemen also mocked it. When one of the witnesses asked Balcerzak not to leave just yet because she knew Sinthasomphone was a child, the officer merely said he “could not do anything about someone’s sexual orientation” (2). Carelessly brushing off the issue of a 14-year-old being in possession of a registered sex offender in favor of making gay jokes, it was clear that Balcerzak did not take the problem seriously at all. As if that wasn’t enough, when the officers returned back to their station, they both snickered about needing to get “de-loused” after coming into contact with homosexuals (2). Balcerzak and Gabrish were unaware that 15 minutes after they left the Oxford Apartments, Sinthasomphone was strangled to death, his body dismembered and kept in pieces as trophies (Lippit 8). Their unwillingness to do their job as police officers because of their overpowering disgust for gay men is what caused this murder, and 4 more after it, to happen