More False Hero Worship

The man who lifted up the tarp to check and see what – or who – was in his neighbor’s boat is not a hero.

In fact, he seems pretty stupid.

Yet he’s been called a hero for several days now, principally by NBC News (I heard Lester Holt refer to the man as a hero twice on the Saturday “Today” show) and by other national media outlets including CNN, CBS, and many others.

His name, while that’s not really important, is David Henneberry.  At the peak of the biggest manhunt in the nation’s history, with most of the Boston metro shut down, he’s having a smoke in his back yard – which, by the way, is ground zero for the terrorist hunt, something he must have known – and sees  blood and a severed flap on the tarp covering his neighbor’s boat.

So what does dufus do?  Call the cops?  Call 9-1-1?  No.  He grabs a ladder and goes into his neighbor’s yard to see what he can see.

He’s lucky he didn’t get a round between the eyes.

This is quite possibly the stupidest man in Watertown, Massachusetts. 

Above is a photo of the outbuilding at our home (which, for the uninitiated, we refer to as “The Morrissey Compound”).  It’s about 10 feet wide and a little more than 12 feet long.  It’s the kind of shed you’d find on a lot of suburban properties.  We keep our garden tractor in it, store our snowblower in it during the off-season, and there’s room for plenty of yard tools, implements, a wheelbarrow, and a bunch of other stuff.

And plenty of room for a person to hide in.

Let’s suppose that some heinous incident of terrorism has taken place in Madison, and the city is locked down, like Boston was, and every cop in the area has converged on the city and its suburbs to help with the manhunt.  Let’s suppose that the media have been blaring 24/7 that the fugitive is possibly wounded, is likely armed, may have bombs, and is dangerously unhinged, and that if you see him, you shouldn’t try to corner him – you should call the cops.

Let’s suppose my good neighbor Anthony is out in his back yard catching breath of fresh air, and happens to see a trail of blood drops on those old 2x12 boards in front of the doors of my shed, or maybe a bloody smudge on one of the doors.  Do you suppose he would climb the fence between our properties and go see what – or who – might be in the shed?

If you were Anthony, what would you do?  Do you suppose he might call my cell phone and tell me what he’d just seen?  And, perhaps if he didn’t get an answer, leave a message, and warn me that he was going to call 9-1-1 and report it, just to error on the side of caution?

You see where I’m going with this.  And you know what you’d do in a similar circumstance.

David Henneberry, hero?

I don’t think so.