Large Fierce Mammal

Rudy Eugene bit most of a man’s face off. He is NOT a Pit Bull.

The man he bit to the reported tune of 75% of his face – Ronald Poppo is on the long road to recovery.

In Dark Sentiments – 2010 we looked at the Wendigo phenomenon, and the strange case of Vincent Weiguang Li and Tim McLean in particular. In Dark Sentiments – 2011, the Wendigo was back, but we were also wallowing in what I might call more mainstream cannibalism – consensual and otherwise, with the added seasoning of a couple forays into the now popular concept of the Zombie Apocalypse on Days 19 and 21.

Well folks, this year cannibalism is back along with a cool new friend to blame – bath salts. Not the kind you soak your ass in either, much to the chagrin of the people who make those.

Alas, not unlike the way people who purport to be sources of “news” routinely filter dog bite stories to exclude all that don’t involve, or can’t be slanted to appear to have involved, a demonized breed, this year’s media frenzy focus has its dedicated bottom feeders combing the world for anything that fits the new template of fear. To quote Nick Carbone in his Time NewsFeed article, The Real Victims of the Zombie Bath Salt Apocalypse –

It’s become a nearly unquestioned assumption in the annals of bizarre, violent crime: the weirder and more inhuman the assault, the more likely the perpetrator is to have been abusing the synthetic drug known as “bath salts”. Chew a guy’s face off? Bath salts! Throw your intestines at police? Bath salts! Bite a random stranger? Bath Salts!

But as it turns out, this hastily slapped-together hypothesis has more than a few holes. For one thing, the case that kicked off the whole zombie cannibal bath salt hysteria — in which 31-year-old Rudy Eugene chowed down on the face of homeless Miami man Ronald Poppo — turned out to be completely unrelated to the drug. Eugene was listed as having only marijuana in his system when he was killed by police after refusing to stop chewing on Poppo’s face.

Let’s take a look at some illustrative headlines from the lovely spring, long hot summer, and toasty early autumn of 2012 when the press went al dente, some stories seasoned with bath salts, some not –

• 31 May 2012 – “I’m going to be late. I love you and I’ll be back”: The last words of Miami cannibal to his girlfriend just hours before horrific attack – the attack that started it all.
• 31 May 2012 – Hackensack Man Stabs Self, Throws Bits of Flesh: Police
• 1 June 2012 – Jarrod Wyatt Murder Details: MMA Fighter Allegedly Ripped Out Victim’s Heart – This one was allegedly ‘schroom related.
• 8 June 2012 – The drug blamed for cannibal plague: Panic spreads over mind-bending bath salts linked to zombie-style attacks – containing allegations that, “The drug, known as Cloud Nine or Ivory Wave, was blamed for several deaths in Britain during 2010 before being banned,” as well as an assortment of post arrest photos of alleged bite perpetrators capped off with the inexplicable inclusion of Sir Anthony Hopkins in the role of Hannibal Lecter.
• 10 June 2012 – Maryland cannibal suspect ‘carved up victim and ate his heart and brains’ after university evaluation found he WASN’T a risk to students
• 6 July 2012 – Carla Murphy Has Baby, Allegedly Smokes Bath Salts, Punches Nurse, Tries To Bite Cop
• 26 September 2012 – “Bath salts” drug ingredient banned in Canada – Apparently, it was also banned in other places that aren’t Canada. This article stresses the “highly addictive” properties of a chemical compound nobody thought worthy of mention before the time honoured in extremis tactic of desperate souls everywhere – biting – hit the big time like it was a new discovery.

I’ll wrap up with the interesting wording of a headline disclosing that Rudy Eugene’s attack on Ronald Poppo, initially blamed on bath salts, came to be blamed on “cannabis-induced psychosis” when his tox screen came up negative for anything other than THC. Now, there is a phenomenon called Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder which may or may not match the circumstances, but in truth, we’ll never know because soon somebody will eat at least part of somebody else, and the news hounds will leave the mysterious case of Rudy Eugene in the dust, along with the rest of us. The hard Truth is that when somebody tries to eat me, I stop caring about what their damage might be. As I once wrote, “I often remind people who insist on acting like idiots, even though they may not be idiots by definition of textbook parameters, that how you behave, regardless of other circumstances, is going to dictate the way you are regarded by the rest of society. In short, if you act like an idiot, then to the rest of us you are an idiot, and we will treat you accordingly.” If you act like something with rabies, you will be regarded as such, with predictable consequences.

“Cannabis-induced psychosis” reminded me of another blame game that, to my mind, was forever entombed like a Spider in amber by a film released in 1938 as Reefer Madness, but initially titled Tell Your Children. Here’s an educational chunk of your life you’ll never get back, and all because of that devil called “marihuana”, a thing so scary they couldn’t even spell it right.