This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated Septmber 11, 2020
This past Labor Day morning, a message from a friend appeared in a group chat on my phone. A screenshot from the Citizen app read, “Man Shot, 74th St & 7th Ave – Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.” I thought about how terrible this news was and hoped that the victim would be alright.
A short time later, I received a call from my mother. “I have some bad news,” she said through tears. “Cousin… Michael… was shot and killed.”
“Oh no!” I interrupted. “That was him on 7th Ave.” It had finally registered with me that the scene of the crime I had heard about a short time before is where his house is located.
That Labor Day was confusing. Michael was extremely close with his sister and his brother, who suddenly had to deal with detectives, questions about who might want to do this, and the reality that Michael had been taken from them after going out to walk his dogs, as he did every morning.
Soon, local news outlets reported on the Bay Ridge man who had been fatally shot in front of his house. Members of the community were sharing it on social media. Local elected officials, from the city council to the state senate and assembly, were updating their constituents on the terrible news and offering their thoughts and prayers to the victim and his family.
Elsewhere in the world of Facebook and Twitter, candidates who are challenging those incumbent politicians this election season, as well as some local political figures who support those challengers, seized on the opportunity to address Michael’s murder by sharing messages full of policy disagreements and attacks on their political rivals but never once making any mention of sadness over his death or condolences to his grieving family.
I do not think anyone begrudges a candidate or political figure for making a point they believe in, even when it is in reference to a tragedy. And knowing Michael, he would have agreed with things that were expressed in these messages I am referencing, but it is unseemly to share multiple posts about his murder on various social media platforms, making those political points they believe in, but being completely devoid of any sentiments of sympathy for the man killed or his grieving family.
“We can have political disagreements — Michael and I certainly did — while not losing sight of the fact that people and the various types of connections we have to each other are always what is most important.”
We can have political disagreements — Michael and I certainly did — while not losing sight of the fact that people and the various types of connections we have to each other are always what is most important.
If you read about Michael’s murder and think about a political opinion you have, by all means, exercise your right to express it, but please try to remember him and his family. He and I expressed many opposing political opinions to each other, but I would still laugh at the silly practical joke he would play on his sister the next time I saw him during a holiday get-together.
Michael Scully was a good man. All the news reports have made the same reference to him being the “unofficial mayor” of his block, which is completely accurate. I have received messages on social media from people I do not know, expressing their deepest sympathies to the family, which confirms what all of us have always known: Mike seemed to know everyone and everyone who knew Mike loved him.
I’m sure many of you who read this, will have known Michael in some way yourself. Please keep those who were closest to him in your thoughts; his sister, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephews, and his four beloved cocker spaniels.
To once again reference politics without trying to be political, I think all of us agree, regardless of who we vote for, that 40,000 Americans dying from guns every year is unacceptable.
Michael should not have died and there is no way to know what would have happened had his killer not had that firearm, but there is no way to deny that the odds that he would still be with us today would have been exponentially higher.
