I’m not a big John Lennon fan, which is perhaps why I can appreciate the irony over how folks are reacting to his killer, Mark David Chapman, being up for parole:
But if Chapman is released after 24 years in prison, some Lennon fans have already threatened to take action. News of the parole hearing has spread on the internet and dozens of websites have been filling up with messages from fans around the world, many already promising to take revenge on the man who gunned down Lennon on 8 December 1980 as he arrived at his New York apartment building off Central Park.
‘Chapman should be executed. I would gladly get rid of him myself,’ wrote a fan from Finland on one website. Another fan has already set up an online petition to have Chapman’s parole denied. It is already full of messages that show Chapman’s safety outside jail would be difficult to maintain. ‘If Mark David Chapman is let out of jail, he wouldn’t last a day. There are too many people who want him dead,’ wrote a New York-based female fan.
Which is, I’m sure, just what pacifist-Imagine-Givepeaceachance John would want to see happen in his name. (Heh. “Bigger than Jesus” and possessed of just as blindly and murderously obsessive fans.)
(via J-Walk)