Kevin Monahan, John Reilly, Donald Trump

Let's not call the new market center "Ed"

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Early in the week, I started a column on the DoorDash driver in Orange County who was driving away from a house where he’d gone to ask directions when he got shot in the back by the homeowner.

Then I saw Ken wrote about it and mentioned the similar shooting two years ago in Hebron, which I was also going to mention, so I figured I’d write about something else.

But instead, I’m going to address the question in Ken’s headline, “What are people so afraid of these days?”

My answer is that people like John Reilly in Orange County and Kevin Monahan in Hebron are not afraid, although that is the excuse they use. What they are is angry, resentful, miserable and looking for someone to blame.

They’re brimming with rage, and when they see a chance to express their rage through violence, they jump at it.

Monahan got his chance when a car full of young people, lost in the dark, drove up his driveway. He stood on his porch and fired a shotgun into the car, killing Kaylin Gillis, who was 20.

Reilly saw his chance when a DoorDash driver, an immigrant from West Africa with an imperfect command of English, couldn’t find the right address and knocked on his door, looking for help.

Reilly, 48 years old and a firearms dealer, sent the deliverer away, and it wasn’t until the slight young man had made it across Reilly’s lawn to his car that Reilly came outside with his gun.

You have to watch the video to appreciate how unafraid Reilly was. He emerges wearing a shoulder holster and pulls the gun free as he walks down his front steps. He is illuminated by lights from the house. He takes a few steps down the walk and casually fires a shot into his lawn.

His lawyer has called this a “warning shot,” but Reilly doesn’t wait for the “warning” to have any effect. Instead, he steps onto the lawn, lifts his right arm and aims. The car is in shadow, maybe 20 yards away, but you can see the headlights and the car’s outline on the other side of a tree.

“Go!” Reilly shouts sharply.

He lowers his arm, then raises it.

“Go!” he shouts again.

He steps to his right, lifts his arm and lowers it again. The tree is still in the way.

The driver backs up to turn around, and Reilly now has a clear shot at the side of the car. He lifts his arm and fires.

The driver completes the turn and begins to drive away. Reilly takes careful aim at the back of the car and fires again. This time, you can hear a cry from the car right after the shot.

There is no video of Monahan the night he murdered Kaylin Gillis, but Judge Adam Michelini said the following when he sentenced Monahan to 25 years to life in prison: “It’s obvious to me that you feel justified. You don’t take any responsibility for the outcome of your actions, you just don’t get it.”

Monahan and Reilly are men who believe, when they’re on their own property, with a gun in their hands, they have the right to kill anyone who approaches them.

They were wrong, but they felt justified, and that feeling is something we have way too much of in our country now.

Donald Trump believes he owns this country, and he’s using the power of the presidency as a weapon, aiming at immigrants and trans people and scientists and universities and anyone or anything else he despises or resents. He is brimming with rage and seizing every chance to express it through force.

Every day, he pulls the trigger at another target, undermining American institutions and hurting ordinary people as he grasps for power.

Monahan is in prison, and Reilly soon will be. Their urge to feel strong at others’ expense has destroyed their own lives. To what unholy destination Donald Trump’s destructive urges will take him I don’t know. But I fear how low he will have dragged the rest of us by the time he gets there.

The American flag was flying at half-staff April 27 in City Park, because the Pope had recently died. I’d like to see the flag at half-staff every day from now until Trump is out of office.

A leaf by any other name

The Ed is a bad name for the new market center.

Last week, I wrote a column suggesting it be called the Leaf, because it’s shaped like a leaf and the courtyard is inset with paving stones to look like leaves.

Naming buildings after someone’s first name is confusing, especially if their name is John.

“Let’s go to the John” — you see what I mean.

But, “I’m going to the farmers market in the Ed on Saturday” is also awkward. I doubt anyone is going to say that, no matter how hard Mayor Collins pushes it.

I think the Leaf works as a name, the way the Egg works in Albany.

But if it’s a choice between the Ed and the market center, we should stick with the latter.

This is the new market center Saturday on South Street. Still leafy.

Now showing at Lapham Gallery

Works by painters Susan Beadle and Eden Compton are now on exhibit at LARAC’s Lapham Gallery through June 25. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and is also open late (until 6 p.m.) on Thursdays.

Paintings byEden Compton (left) and Susan Beadle are now on display in Lapham Gallery on City Park in Glens Falls.

The smokestack on The Mill, seen here Saturday, is an awesome preservation of downtown’s manufacturing past within its retail and residential present.

The work being done on the big building on the east side of South Street (across from the Leaf) is beginning to look great as well. Seen here is a detail on the wall that faces Elm Street.