Crime & Federalism

There's a poster on display in the waiting area of the State's Attorneys' Office in the New Britain Superior Court in Connecticut.  It portrays the gradual transformation of the world "violence" into one of its anagrams -- "love nice." So why is there also a hand grenade on display in the waiting area? Is that loving nice, too?

I received a facsimile from a lawyer over the weekend asking me to write about this. The lawyer is troubled. The grenade is obviously a fake, and it is anchored on a plaque that reads: "Complaint Dept." and "Take a Number."

I've seen both the poster and the plaque many times. Frankly, I am too dense a block of wood to have noticed the dissonance.  But the lawyer wonders whether the State's Attorneys' Office is sending a mixed message. "New Britain has a large Spanish speaking population that does not read English well.... If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the worth and message of a hand grenade?," the facsimile reads. The writer also wonders whether the device intimidates folks.

Again, I am a block of wood. I don't initimate easily enough -- more testosterone than brains most days.

But the writer does have a point. In the wake of the slaughter at Virginia Tech, displaying a fake hand grenade in a courthouse seems an awful lot like encouraging people to smoke while pumping gas. Get rid of the hand grenade.