Word: mayhem
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...1980s to almost 40% this year. The problem is double edged. On one hand, crack abusers frequently seem indifferent to the use of deadly force. On the other, the street-level drug trade is so lucrative that it seems worth killing for. In Washington law-enforcement officials attribute the mayhem to turf wars between rival dope gangs vying for shares of the city's wide-open, de-centralized crack market. The deadly competition in the two cities is made still more lethal by arsenals of sophisticated firearms smuggled from Virginia and other states with permissive gun laws...
...such vehicular mayhem justified? Many police and some legal experts argue that high-speed chases help maintain respect for the law. Says Sergeant Jim Mattos, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol: "As soon as you develop a policy of no chases, then the only people who are going to stop are the honest ones." Moreover, supporters insist, many chases end in the capture and arrest of serious criminals. Asks Donald Schroeder, adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan: "If it were the Son of Sam in the car that you were chasing, would...
There's more, lots more. A string of ABC specials in coming weeks will focus on people who have committed mayhem against those they love (Crimes of Passion), efforts by law enforcement officials to catch parole violators (Trackdown) and "infamous events that have shocked a nation" (Scandals). The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper, a syndicated special airing this week, presents new clues on the Victorian bad guy, while Who Murdered J.F.K.? claims to offer new evidence of an assassination conspiracy. In the meantime, Morton Downey Jr. shouts down guests nightly on his talk show; a parade of lesbian mothers...
...much the senses that TV misses -- the smell of the chalk, the feel of the sun, the deafening chants that greet every Korean judoka -- as it is the confusion. TV likes the orderly. It cannot, therefore, catch the lovely mayhem of gymnastics, the dizzying lyricism of a four-square circus in which everything is happening at once: a Japanese girl running furiously toward the | vault, even as an East German prances through her floor exercises, a Guatemalan teeters on the balance beam, a Bulgarian attacks the parallel bars. The first time one sees a gymnast leap, one's heart flies...
...Marquess of Queensberry would surely approve. Just as he sought to impose rules on legal mayhem, otherwise known as boxing, so Britain's Home Office last week attempted to quantify penalties for illegal assaults. Under guidelines sent to the country's 27,710 magistrates, attackers can be forced, in effect, to compensate their victims by the punch. Sample penalties: $84 for a simple graze, $168 for a black eye, $1,428 for a broken nose, $2,940 for a fractured jaw and as much as $13,440 for a serious facial scar. Said Home Office Minister John Patten...