11.20.06
Press Coverage of Malachi Ritscher’s Death
In an earlier post, I said the news that the Cook County M.E. officially had identified Malachi Ritscher “will not appear in the local mainstream papers”. I was incorrect, and I’d like to correct the record. In fact, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper wrote a piece prompted by that very news.
And since I’m at it I’ll post other press links as well. In fact, the story has appeared on the Harper’s web site, and in Le Monde.
In “Act by ‘martyr’ to protest war in Iraq a futile gesture” (Nov. 9, 2006), I have to say I find Roeper extremely balanced, even gentle — especially given his ultimately critical opinion. He not only quotes at length from Malachi’s own final writings, he does so respectfully and preserving (I think) sufficient context given the confines of a daily column. Roeper also allows voice to friends, letting them speak their representative piece in longer-than-usual soundbite form. While I think it is too early to know if Malachi’s “last gesture on this planet” was truly “his most futile,” and notwithstanding that the Iraq War is the crucible of our age, I definitely respect Mr. Roeper’s respectful and thoughtful treatment of the story.
Two days earlier, on Nov. 7, Roeper also addressed Malachi’s death in “Keeping suicide out of sight may be part of the problem”.
However, as I have mentioned, the Sun-Times has a standing editorial policy about generally not covering suicides. Roeper’s two pieces are the only ones that have appeared in that paper — at least so far as I can tell. To this day, if you search the site for “ritscher” you get zero results.
Chronology of Press Coverage
“Body Spotted On Ohio Street Feeder To Kennedy. Firefighters Found Body After Putting Out Fire At Sculpture Base”
Channel 2 (Chicago, IL CBS affiliate), Nov 3, 2006 12:28 pm US/Central
Page includes video (top right) of a helicopter report showing police processing the scene. The reporter points out the tripod that held Malachi’s video camera. Other local stations also had coverage.
Excerpts from the CBS2 web report:
A motorist reported reported to police that a statue was on fire, and firefighter later found out a fire had been set near an iron sculpture at the feeder ramp. State police said a body was been found, and authorities later said the man who died may have set himself on fire.
…A gasoline can and a tripod were also spotted at the scene. A videotape and camcorder were also found, according to state police. A Chicago Police Bomb and Arson Section sergeant said a video the man took might have indicated the man lit himself on fire.
“Man sets himself on fire on Kennedy. Drivers watched as he dies near ‘Flame’ sculpture.”
By Anne Sweeney, Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 4, 2006
Full text of article:
As horrified Friday-morning commuters watched, a man apparently doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire along the Kennedy Expy. near a 25-foot-tall Loop sculpture titled “Flame of the Millennium.”A homemade sign was found near his charred body that read, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” said State Police Lt. Lincoln Hampton. Police are reviewing a videotape that also was found near the body.
The death of the man, whose identity has not been released, was being treated as a suicide, authorities said.
Witnesses told police they saw the man ignite himself just before 7 a.m. near the southbound Kennedy’s Ohio Street exit, Hampton said.
The Chicago Fire Department was called to the scene to help extinguish the fire, which was set at the base of the seven-ton sculpture along the Kennedy.
An Illinois Department of Transportation worker was among those to witness the incident, according to a preliminary report.
A can of clear liquid smelling like gasoline also was recovered, the report said.
“Malachi Ritscher’s apparent suicide”
Peter Margasak, Post No Bills (blog), Chicago Reader, Nov. 7, 2006
Includes voluminous comments from readers, friends, family, and passers by. Required reading.
Lead paragraph:
On Saturday [Nov. 4, 2006] the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity has still not been officially determined, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene. Bruno Johnson, who owns the free-jazz label Okka Disk, received a package yesterday from Ritscher that included a will, keys to his home, and instructions about what should be done with his belongings. Johnson, a former Chicagoan who now lives in Milwaukee, began making calls. Police are still awaiting the results of dental tests, but Johnson says an officer told one of Ritscher’s sisters that all evidence pointed to the body being his; his car was found nearby and he hadn’t shown up for work since Thursday.
“Keeping suicide out of sight may be part of the problem”
By Richard Roeper (columnist), Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 7, 2006
Excerpts:
You may have heard about this tragedy because it was just too splashy, too public, for the media to ignore. You didn’t hear about the incident in the Loop because the media usually don’t report on “normal,” everyday suicides. The unwritten policy — which has been backed by research studies — says that if we make a big deal out of suicide stories, there’s an increased likelihood of copycat episodes.
…Some suicide-prevention groups say a hush-hush policy only reinforces the stigma surrounding suicide. I tend to agree. I’m not saying we should turn every suicide into a front-page story — just as we don’t turn every murder into a front-page story. (There are more than 1,000 suicides a year in the state of Illinois alone.) I’m just saying we shouldn’t automatically place death-by-suicide in a different box.
It makes no sense to pretend suicide is a rare and scandalous thing. The sad truth is that every 18 minutes in this country, somebody makes the unfathomable (to the rest of us) decision to leave this life forever.
Maybe you’ve never personally known anyone who was murdered — but I’ll bet you have known someone who committed suicide.
“Memorial for Malachi”
Peter Margasak, Post No Bills (blog), Chicago Reader, Nov. 9, 2006
Excerpt:
Yesterday [Wed. Nov. 8, 2006] the office of the Cook County medical examiner confirmed that it was indeed Malachi Ritscher who committed suicide last Friday. He was 52.
This Sunday, November 12, Elastic will host a memorial for Ritscher from 5 to 8 PM….
“A letter, a will and a friend left coping with suicide”
By Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Nov. 13, 2006
Excerpts:
Bruno Johnson spreads the two-page note on the bar at his Palm Tavern in Bay View and stares at the worn paper, folded and refolded countless times, passed from hand to hand, friend to friend.
Bruno Johnson of Milwaukee holds a letter from his friend Malachi Ritscher of Chicago, which Johnson received a few days after Ritscher committed suicide Nov. 3. Ritscher set himself on fire to protest the Iraq war and sent the detailed letter to Johnson to help put his affairs in order.
Johnson stares at the words, instructions about bank accounts, credit cards, computer passwords, next of kin, a giant collection of jazz recordings and a neon-purple 1997 Plymouth with 107,000 miles parked north of Grand Ave. in Chicago. And that final chilling sentence, the one that still gets to Johnson: “sorry about the mental-illness thing, it’s not something I would have chosen for myself.”
“I had a sense it was probably explaining his death to me,” Johnson says now, in the middle of the afternoon, his soft, melancholy voice matching the soft autumn light.
…Only after Johnson received the note on Nov. 6, along with a set of house keys and a will, were friends and authorities able to put the pieces together, to match Ritscher with the unfathomable event.
…He [Johnson] is a big man, 6-foot-9, built like a tight end, with tattoos on his arms. But he is gentle, too. He doesn’t understand what happened or why.
…They met 20 years ago. …Ritscher, a maintenance engineer at the University of Chicago, became something of a fixture on the Chicago jazz scene. For years, he set up microphones and recorded gigs in smoky bars, Johnson says. If bands wanted the master, Ritscher gave it to them at no charge.
Johnson, who runs a small record label named Okka Disk, distributed some of the works.
…Johnson says the act [of self-immolation] “was futile.”But he wants to remember his friend. So do others.
…Johnson holds tight to those memories. He also has access to the recordings Ritscher made of jazz concerts in Chicago, some 3,000 of them over the years. Eventually, a committee will be formed, the collection culled, the best works turned into CDs in Ritscher’s memory.
And Johnson has the note, folded so many times and handed to so many friends, instructions about books and tapes, the house with a mortgage and the hot sauce in the refrigerator.
And there’s not a word about the war.
“Malachi Ritscher, 1954-2006″
By Nitsuh Abebe, Pitchfork, Nov. 14, 2006
“Weekly Review”
By Paul Ford, Harper’s Weekly (web site), Nov. 14, 2006
Excerpt:
To protest the Iraq war, a man named Malachi Ritscher committed suicide in Chicago by setting himself on fire next to a 25-foot-tall sculpture called “Flame of the Millennium.” Along with a self-penned obituary, the 52-year-old Ritscher posted a farewell message on his website in which he described the “deep shame” of a day in 2002 when he stood, knife in hand, next to Donald Rumsfeld, but was unable to bring himself to slash the defense secretary’s throat. “I too love God and country,” wrote Ritscher, “and feel called upon to serve.” [Malachi Ritscher][Chicago Reader][Chicago Sun-Times]
“Emotion après l’immolation d’un musicien à Chicago pour protester contre la guerre en Irak”
[Google “translation”: “Emotion after the self-immolation of a musician in Chicago to protest against the war in Iraq”]
Le Monde (Paris), Nov. 15, 2006
Ritscher Family Statement
Email published by request, IHeardYouMalachi.org, Nov. 18, 2006
