Pope’s day in court

Dumanjug, Cebu

At about 8:30 a.m. last January 22, a flower vendor rushed inside an eatery across the University of San Carlos. She informed everyone that a shooting incident had taken place at the Palace of Justice where a foreigner shot a doctor and two lawyers before killing himself.

I butted in and immediately asked for the lawyers’ names. She said one was a lady fiscal and the doctor was a certain Rafols. She added that the rampage happened inside a courtroom. No, the judge was not harmed because the hearing was yet to start.

There was no signal inside the small eatery so I dashed outside at Pelaez St. and stood beside a flower shop. I called up Angelo Fornolles, a fellow lawyer at the office, and asked him about the bloody incident.

Surprised, he asked me instead about the lawyers’ names and other details I did not have.

I called up a former classmate in law school, Rene Abcede, Jr., who was at the Marcelo Fernan Palace of Justice at the time of the incident. He said there was blood all over the courtroom and two men were dead on the spot.

He said a Canadian named John Pope shot to death Dr. Reynold Rafols and his lawyer, Atty. Jubian Achas, inside the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Branch 6. Pope casually walked out of the room and later shot Prosecutor Maria Theresa Casiño, who survived the attack.

Before Pope could kill more, two responding policemen shot him in the hands and legs. Not to be taken alive to answer for his crimes, he allegedly pulled the trigger on himself.

In his Facebook account, lawyer Jonas Asis said that Pope was still breathing when he saw him lying on a staircase beside the Office of the City Prosecutor. Apparently, from the MTCC 6 at the 4th floor, Pope went down to the 1st floor to look for other prosecutors with evil intent.

According to news reports, John H. Pope, 66, was a retired Canadian journalist. Prior to the rampage, he had sent letters and documents to different media outlets complaining about corruption in the police and the judiciary.

In his faulty reasoning, Pope thought he was a victim of corruption. He could not see himself as the antagonist although Rafols and his neighbors had been complaining against him for malicious mischief, illegal possession of firearms, grave threats, among others.

Pope reminded me of the 23-year-old Raskolnikov in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In his troubled mind, Raskolnikov believed he had the moral right to kill the old, unpleasant money lender, Alyona Ivanovna, whom he murdered with an ax.

Unlike Pope, Raskolnikov regretted what he had done and confessed to the police authorities. He spent time in prison and paid for his crimes.

Some people said Pope was a generous man who sent children to school. What drove him to violence?

It was not in a fit of passion that Pope killed his victims; it was not a desire for justice that drove him to commit the crimes. It was his distorted logic, his inability to look at things beyond himself that led him to his inglorious death.

Pope was not a justice crusader; he was a violator of laws. He was not a victim of an unjust system; he was a victim of a dark world he created for himself.

Now that death has forever muted the lips of the troubled man, let us give him the peace he wanted. As we condemn his violent acts to prevent similar bloodsheds in the future, let us not strip him of his humanity. He, too, was a good man.

The truth though remains stark and cruel: men who deprive others of their day in court, men like John Pope make the justice system unjust.