Killers do not deserve misplaced admiration

When Zhou Kehua, a gun-toting serial killer, who had claimed nine lives in eight years, was recently shot dead by police, some people claimed online that he was still alive.

They said the picture of the dead body released by the police was that of an undercover cop who was shot by his own men by mistake.

This baseless rumor has been thoroughly discredited.

But even among other blossoming rumors on the Internet in China these days, this one stands out.

It may look like it was based on a complete mistrust of the authorities, just like most other rumors.

But sniffing deeper one may be able to sense a whiff of regret, as if some devoted audience were trying to avert their eyes from the death of the protagonist and hoped the curtain had not dropped quite so soon. I truly hope this is only me being oversensitive.

But many comments have suggested otherwise.

His signature execution of shooting victims in the head had won him the nickname "Brother Headshot" online. Some say that he outsmarted the police for years until the last, proving he was no ordinary criminal.

Some portrayed him as a man's man, driven crazy by the unfairness of a society that leaves few opportunities for people on the bottom rung of the ladder.

The life of Zhou may have had some elements that fit the style of old John Woo gangster movies.

He grew up in a poor family in a remote rural area. He had a divorced wife and a teenage son who he risked his life to visit after becoming the police's most wanted man. He had a young and pretty girlfriend who reportedly, conspired with him. And in order to catch him, the police deployed thousands of officers.

This may have brought him some sympathy from people who blur the lines between fictional world and the real one. But in truth, he killed innocent people without blinking just for their money.

He was not some rakish Robin Hood as he kept his ill-gotten gains for himself and his girlfriend. He was nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer that deserves no respect.

But this apparently is not the first time a murderer has fund some sympathy.

It happened to Ma Jiajue, the college student who was executed in 2004 for killing four classmates, to the kindergarten murderers who shocked the nation in several mass attacks on young kids through 2010.

And when Yang Jia, a 28-year-old young man killed six police officers in Shanghai and was executed in 2008, an artist whom I know made an artwork based on Yang's story and said: "China needs more men like Yang Jia."

I know what he meant.

Many of these murderers were grassroots people whose dreams may have been crushed by the enlarging wealth gap between rich and poor in today's China.

But anywhere in the world, murderers who are not mentally ill, can always blame the society for their own horrors.

Jeffrey Johnson, the women's accessories designer who killed a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building last week, had lost his job.

Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian gunman who shattered the quietness of the country by killing 77 people in a few hours, did so to call attention to his anti-Muslim beliefs.

Joe Stack, the Texas software engineer who, in 2010, hit an Internal Revenue Service building with his private jet in a suicidal attack that killed himself and one IRS employee, had published a manifesto online to describe how the unfair tax system pushed him to the edge.

But even in the US where freedom of speech is considered a pillar of society, sympathy for murderers doesn't go far.

Several web pages idolizing Stack as a hero were immediately shut down.

The message is clear and simple: Even when there is no way out, killing innocent people out of desperation is never an option. And any attempt to glamorize a murderer is as chilling as the killings themselves.