Wrong is Right?

Concerned citizens shouldn’t be derided as ‘snitches’

Restrictions — now gradually easing — have been placed on businesses across the country because of the COVID-19 outbreak

Some limit how businesses can operate. Others keep them from operating at all.

Citizens have been encouraged by some state and local governments to report those who break the rules. And there have been those who do just that.

But a lot of folks aren’t happy with them. Take St. Louis County, Missouri. During March and April more than 900 residents called a special tip line to report violations. Maybe some were neighborhood busybodies complaining about kids playing together or families doing yard work without masks. But most were folks concerned about business owners who apparently thought they were above the restrictions so many others were following. Subsequent investigations led to citations against 29 businesses.

But no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. A Missouri public information law allowed their names and addresses to be released to a man named Jared Totsch, who published them on Facebook.

Citing “karma,” he reportedly wrote, “They are now experiencing the same pain that they themselves helped to inflict on those they filed complaints against.” There were some other choice words as well.

Apparently, this fellow doesn’t see the irony in his own “snitching” on good citizens.

Now those citizens fear possible retribution. And with tempers flaring over the coronavirus shutdown, who can blame them?

We’ve seen it in our own area as well. Just recently on Facebook we saw a local woman skewered for jeering hair stylists violating the shutdown in our area. More than 1,000 replies to her post, most not too flattering.

The word “snitch” came up quite a lot, sometimes with the warning of “stitches.” There was a lot of support for those operating outside the rules as well.

This isn’t some cheap gangster movie. This is real life and the public health should be our primary concern. We are supposed to be in this together.

Has it come to the point where doing wrong is to be celebrated and doing the right thing is grounds for derision or possible retribution? Are we, as a society, really OK with that?