Mayhem celebration

I am not a basketball fan. Oh sure, I followed the kid from Poplar Bluff who made a name for himself in North Carolina. But when it comes to professional basketball, I lost interest when Michael Jordan retired.

So when the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic on Sunday night, I paid little attention. What did catch my eye was the riot that erupted in Los Angeles following the game.

It seems that hundreds of "fans" used the championship victory as an opportunity to throw rocks at police, set fires and vandalize buses and police cars.

So my question is a simple one: What aspect of human nature causes some members of our society to resort to violence and destruction in similar circumstances?

Is it as simple as too much alcohol? I would like to think that is the case, but I doubt it fully explains this unruly behavior.

As a product of the college environment during the 1960s, I've seen a riot or two. I was living and attending college in Memphis the night Martin Luther King was assassinated. I know riots. I was a college newspaper reporter during the Vietnam protests. I know riots. And my final days of college life drew to a close during the week students were killed at Kent State. Believe me, I know riots.

But these post-sporting event riots are a different matter. This is just pure human nature gone amok. These fools need little excuse to show their butts and damage public property.

Why are police targeted? And how do looting and celebration join hands? What brought us to this point?

Police arrested 18 hooligans in Los Angeles and probably could have arrested 10 times that number. Young males filled with too much beer and too little gray matter. Idiots who walk among us. Pure unbridled stupidity in the name of celebration.

It would be a fascinating study in human nature to ask these 18 exactly why they decided to celebrate their team's victory by injuring police officers. What spark ignited their fury in the form of setting fire to police cars and city buses? I would pay to have that answer.

Granted this is not the first such "celebration," and these eruptions are not limited to this country. But regardless of the circumstances or the locale, I remain puzzled why seemingly sane young men would release their testosterone in such a fashion.

The Associated Press transmitted a photo of a dozen or so "fans" as they overturned a car on a city street. To the best of my knowledge, these weren't skinheads or Black Panthers or members of the Mexican mafia. Just fans whose brains were addled by booze and who thought destroying public property was an appropriate response to a basketball victory.

So now I know just how to celebrate. And if Tiger Woods wins the U.S. Open this week, I have a handful of rocks at the ready.

The only thing I know for certain about human nature is that I know nothing. That was proved again during a night of celebration in Los Angeles.