Free The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas by Anand Giridharadas

hatred, lost, bitterness and utter degradation. Although revenge wasn’t my motive, I did want to exact a measure of equaility. I wanted those Arab’s to feel the same sense of insecurity about their immediate surroundings. I wanted them to feel the same sense of vulnerability and uncertainty on American soil much like the mindset of chaos and bedlam that they was already accustomed to in there home country. How dare they come to America and be at peace and find comfort in country, our country, my country America, and here we are under siege at home, because we are the land of freedom.
    My sense of anger surged when I reflected upon the past that I’m a tax paying citizen whose hard earned dollar has been sent to those countries as a means of humanitarian aid. There homeland was a place our country feed when they were starving, medicated when sick, clothed when naked or cold, educated when in error and gave willing assistance and defended when they was under attack.
    I looked at the fact that over 5,000 innocent Americans lost their lives because some foriegner felt a need to make a statement at the expense of innocent people. Well I felt as Americans we needed to exact some sort of retribution and also make a statement here at home and abroad. That if we as American’s was going to be under siege here at home then certainly they would have need to feel our pain. My sense of security and my right to live in peace and sanctity was all but shattered.
    As I began to reflect upon what I could do, would do or better yet should do in the wake of the World Trade Center atrocity, I looked at the situation and took an assessment. I then found myself going to the store to make a purchase, and there perched behind the counter, here in the land of the free, home of the brave, the land of the pilgrims pride, land for which myforefathers died, the bell of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness had all been silenced by those people.
    He was there perched behind the counter, here in the land of milk and honey living the freedom of liberty of the thousand’s of victims of Sept 11, and here he is in this country at our expense was this foriegner who’s own people had now sought to bring the exact same chaos and bewilderment upon our people and society as they lived in themselves at home and abroad.
    It left me with this sense of just having had someone spit in my face. After all our country has done to help build, educate, and liberate their country and to see that those people thought so little of America and consequently the American way of life with such contemp and utter disregard.
    In closing this was not a crime of hate but an act of passion and patriotism, a act of country and commitment, an act of retribution and recompense. This was not done during peace time but at war time. I, Mark Anthony Stroman, felt a need to exact some measure of equality and fairness for the thousands of victims of September 11 2001, for the United States of America and it’s people, the people of this great country.
    At half past noon on October 5, the day after the Patel killing, Dallas police made their way to Cayuga Drive, looking for Stroman, on the strength of Tom Boston’s identification. Shortly after two, the cops saw a Thunderbird pull up. Stroman got out and seemed to remove something from his trunk. Fearing a news-helicopter-worthy standoff if they let him go inside what might have been an armed fortress, officers in raid jackets emerged and swarmed their man. Stroman tried to flee to the back of the house, removing a chrome Smith and Wesson from his waistband as he ran and dropping it to the ground. But the hiding was over. Stroman was arrested and read his Miranda rights. In the ensuing questioning, officers reported him laughing and crying at the same time.
    The police soon came upon evidence suggesting that shooting three immigrant clerks was perhaps just the beginning of a muchgrander—and never consummated—plan. Mark Stroman, who