Thursday 1 March 2012

R.I.P. PC David Rathband

PC David Rathband
When I woke up, this morning, to learn that PC David Rathband was dead, apparently after taking his own life, I felt such deep sadness.

To those unaware of his plight, PC Rathband was shot in the face and blinded in the Summer of 2010 by a guy called Raoul Moat, who – after being released from a relatively short prison sentence, during which his girlfriend left him – decided to take revenge on the world.

He lay in ambush, then shot his girlfriend (who was lucky to survive), executed her new boyfriend (who he mistakenly believed was a police officer) and then went on a self-styled ‘rampage’ against the police, cowardly shooting PC Rathband while he was sitting in a patrol car.

Raoul Moat
Bizarrely and perversely, when Raoul Moat was on the run, he was celebrated, in some quarters, as a kind of Robin Hood character.

He was nothing of the sort.

Raoul Moat is a wretched example of the devastation that can arise from an unchecked ego. He took no responsibility for his own actions and, instead, tried to justify his murderous, jealous rage by blaming others for his situation.

While on the run, he wrote long, rambling letters about how he loved his girlfriend, yet before all this, he’d threatened her with a firearm because she said on Facebook that she was meeting a friend. If he really loved her, he would have let her get on with her life, rather than regarding her as a possession that some other man had stolen away from him.

He blamed the police for messing up his life, when he’d been sent to prison for violent assault against a younger member of his own family. His jail sentence was of his own making.

He died from self-inflicted shotgun wounds after a long stand-off, when he was cornered by armed police. Before his end, he held the gun to his head for hours, crying that nobody loved him.

David Rathband was just doing his job when he got caught up the wake of Raoul Moat’s messed up mind, and I find it difficult to regard David’s death as suicide, because his life was taken some 20 months earlier by Moat. As well as losing both of his eyes in the attack, he lost the ability to do the job he loved and, in the later part of last year, he moved away from his wife and family.

He was in constant pain, due to the nerve damage from his injuries, and, sadly, never made peace with the changes in his life.

A statement on the charity David founded after the attack – The Blue Lamp Foundation – which supports criminally injured members of the emergency services in the UK, as well as their families, reads:

It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of David Rathband.

Since being shot in July 2010, David struggled to come to terms with his horrific injuries and the traumatic effect they had on him and his family and friends.

David’s legacy will live on in the form of The Blue Lamp Foundation, which bears his name.   The Foundation was started by David to help emergency services personnel injured in the line of duty as the result of a criminal act.

It was David’s wish that those who found themselves in a similar position to him could receive the support that wasn’t available to him at the time.

David’s family have asked that their privacy be respected at this time and they are allowed the time and space to reflect and grieve.

I’m sure that there is life after this life, and I hope, wherever David Rathband went to, Raoul Moat was there to meet him and, through the forgiveness that comes from a mind stripped of ego, both are at peace.

Some people may struggle with the idea that Raoul Moat deserves forgiveness, or that he would even to go to the same place as David Rathband, but Moat’s actions were just an extreme of what so many of us do in our lives… unless we were born as a Zen master.

How many of us can say that, when we’re having a bad day, we don’t let others know about it? How many of us can honestly say that we’ve never tried to shift the blame of responsibility for failure arising from our own actions on to those close to us, or to the wider populace, or institutions, or the government?

Too often, we look for someone else to blame, rather than accepting that we just didn’t get it right this time. We give up rather than try harder.

The lesson is to learn that when we mess up, we present ourselves with the opportunity to change, improve and build a better life for ourselves.

If Raoul Moat had have realised this, all the devastation that he caused wouldn’t have happened, and maybe he’d have found love with some other woman; his ex-girlfriend could have been happy with her new man; David Rathband would still be with us, though anonymously, just getting on with his job and his life.

Instead, along with many others across the UK and the wider world, my heart goes out to PC Rathband’s family and friends as they come to terms with their heart-breaking loss.

R.I.P.

28 comments:

  1. I've been a follower and admirer of PC David Rathband and The Blue Lamp Foundation. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family at this sad and devastating time
    Rae

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    1. Yes, indeed, Rae... I really feel for them. It's a tragedy he's gone, but his suffering is over.

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  2. Yes.

    Just yes. I can't say anymore. I cry inside and out for the tragedy.

    Thank you for putting into words.

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    1. Thanks for reading, Effie. It's awful. :-(

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  3. I also read the story with great sadness today and I agree whole heartedly with your comments xxx

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  4. Brilliant statement, excellent points. May he finally be at peace.

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  5. So sad, Les. Thanks for writing this.

    It's hard to know what Raoul Moat could have become if he'd taken responsibility for his deeds - but agree that it would certainly not have ended so tragically for others who crossed his path.

    eden

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    1. Thank you, lovely! I guess he was just a messed up man, like many others in this world - including myself, from time to time. What's done is done, sadly.

      xoxox

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  6. I liked this until your comment 'I hope Moat was there to meet him'. So very wrong and insensitive. I hope if there is a next life that David is as far away from him as possible. I understand what you are trying to say about forgiveness etc but David was a total innocent in the whole thing. Would you make the same comment if a child had died? That you hope their perpetrator would meet them in heaven in some sort of forgiveness act?? Seriously??? The rest of it makes sense but not that. Sorry Les.

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    1. I would make the same comment if a child had died, yes. It would be a horror if said theoretical child were to move from this world of pain to a place where he or she was still so frightened of this man that they should be divided forever. He or she would deserve peace, and that peace would come through forgiveness.

      If you wish to create division in an afterlife, then you open up the concept of Heaven and Hell, and, as I've quoted in my Twitter stream at times, any God that would send a soul to eternal damnation for the sins of one lifetime would be as much a monster as its counterpart in hell.

      Raoul Mote was just a messed up man, not a monster. I hope even Hitler has a chance of redemption.

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  7. This was a fine piece until you started speaking nonsense about fictional afterlifes.

    Whatever makes you sleep better, princess.

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    1. Life is more than this experience we're having now, Anon. I'm at peace with all eventualities, including the eternity of nothingness, but I've had experience that can't be explained on a five senses level.

      I'm not religious. I'm spiritual. Spiritualists and atheists are almost identicalin their beliefs, in that we want to make the best of our lives. It's just that atheists get a nice surprise at the end. ;-)

      Glad you enjoyed SOME of the blog! :-)

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  8. I am disturbed by the concern over PC Rathbone's death but may he rest in peace. He spoke at my daughter's school with bravery & hope for his future & the kids had nothing but admiration for him. A very admirable man that had his life devastated & snatched away by a man that should have been helped by us. We are to blame. Moat was ill & desperate.
    Moat was constantly a target of the police in NE & he was stopped on numerous occasions by them. When his children were taken because of lies he kept meticulous records of conversations (and lies) by Social Services. Every single conversation was recorded by him. The injustices that this man suffered are palpable. I don't for a second condone what Moat did but I think we should take some responsibility, stop blaming & accusing, have respect for life & others. Raoul Moat loved his kids to the end of the earth & back & authority took them away from him. He felt persecuted & abandoned. So did PC Rathbone. Where were we?

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    1. Looked at Moat's criminal track record? Police don't bother regular people, but they do quite rightly keep a close grip on our societies scum!

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    2. I don't think the collective 'we' applies. I certainly don't take any responsibility for Moat's actions, but I do recognise that his life was far from ideal - he didn't help himself, though.

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  9. What a heart-wrenching story. So sad he could not find some peace with his changed life and some sliver of happiness to make it worth living. I hope he is at peace now.

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  10. I cried for David Rathband. He seemed to be a straightforward man who just wanted to be a copper. One of life's good people. He needed so much more help and support than he got and even then I don't know if he would ever have come to terms with his blindness. Life is so unfair sometimes, but no one said it had to be fair.

    I can also see why you feel for Raoul Moat. In a way, I do too. No one is born bad, his life had gone badly wrong a long time before the shootings. It's tragic a human being can kill themselves while saying that no one loves them. By the time he died he may well have been unloveable (I didn't know him, I can't say) but there must have been a time when the correct intervention could have put him (back) on track. We're all too keen to blame and much less keen to intervene and help people.

    If Anonymous (above) is saying the SS took Moat's children, hopefully that is an intervention that will help them to grow up as normal ordinary people.

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    1. I really hope Moat's children are given a chance in life to avoid the same problems their father had.

      I agree on David Rathband. I know the police get a lot of stick, but some of them just want to do their job - which is a job of protection.

      Thanks for your words!

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  11. Well written Les. This is a very sad situation for all concerned and its a good time to remember that we all consciously and subconsciously influence other people's lives negatively and positively every single day.

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  12. Yes, if we could all remember that and realise how much we can improve or worsen the moods of others, we'd change the world for the better! Thanks for the comment!

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  13. A great post. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this and for using such a horrific situation to teach us all a little bit more about ego, forgiveness and moving forward each day from the best place that we can.

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  14. Thank you for tweeting about this story, Les. My heart goes out to David Rathband's family. I hope the Halls of Justice learn something from this tragic handling of events.

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  15. Ego and lack of personal responsibility are responsible for some of the greatest evils in the world. Very sad story... but I'm glad I followed your "tweet" to find it.

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  16. Two suicides, endless questions. I've studied the subject ad nauseum and still I question how someone can commit murder in the 180Th degree.

    I Know about neurons connecting or not connecting causing thoughts to grow arms and legs in wrong directions, save survival, but science has failed us because there is more to it. I believe we do what we come here to do as we evolve through lifetimes, growing toward some iconic existence where there is no more inhumanity to man or ourselves, yet we're still so close to the monkey. But, suicide still bothers me, not only because my own son chose that way to leave my life, but because I am still not positive it is an end or a transition, and at the risk of leaning toward cliche-ism, no one has come back to report the latter.

    This police officer has me certain that it doesn't take courage to die. It takes courage to live under the worst of circumstances, like the girl who was born with no face. It takes courage to live, yes. Anyone can die.

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  17. It took me a second to realize that he and Moat could be in the same place after Moat's actions, until I remembered that we see with human eyes and think with our limited brains. May they both rest in peace and may the families finally begin to heal. Bless them all, and you.

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