Editorial: Mindless, inexcusable thuggery

I have a red T-shirt that I am quite fond of. My liking for the shirt is its colour and its message.

Because I work and like to run, sometimes I head down Napier's Kennedy Rd - even as early as 4.30am - almost always passing McDonald St. A deeply disturbing crime occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning at that intersection.

The police investigating that crime have hinted the 24-year-old victim's wearing of red clothing may have caused him to be stabbed and viciously beaten by a trio of men. A case of "mistaken identity", another gang-related incident as they are so often labelled.

"Inexcusable thuggery" would be more apt. An unprovoked attack on two men with no gang affiliations, one of whom now lies in Hawke's Bay Hospital in serious condition. Mindless, pointless and utterly damaging.

Does that mean that I am also in danger when I haul myself out of bed to improve my fitness, throwing on my red shirt as I head out the door?

The attack at the intersection of Kennedy Rd and McDonald St in the early hours of New Year's Day suggests that, with the addition of a group of like-minded men under the influence of alcohol, any one of us could be attacked in such a manner should we be wearing the wrong coloured clothing and stray into the wrong area, at the wrong time.

Wrong area, wrong time? This attack occurred not far from Napier's CBD. Sadly such attacks are now common place.

In Gisborne in the early hours of New Year's Day a 27-year-old woman was stabbed in a similar unprovoked attack as she walked home with a 24-year-old friend.

Responsible were a group of young Maori men armed with knives, bottles and a fence post, shouting gang slogans. The Napier mob did the same.

Gisborne's gutless cowards wounded her on the hand, above her right eye and in the left side of her chest. Do they know there's a heart in there?

Her friend suffered a superficial cut to her hand and bruises to her back after being struck with the post.

Such attacks are a sad indictment on our society. New Year's Day - a time of renewal, hope for the future, positive change, friendship and tradition, turned into a time of viciousness, pain and potential tragedy.

My red shirt is emblazoned with the slogan: One Heart, Many Lives.

It is a reference to death via heart failure and the impact it has on the wider community. Quite apt also for the attack in Napier at the weekend, because the equation is that the loss of one life normally affects 500 others.

The alcohol-impaired young men who perpetrated this crime, which could so easily have been a murder, must get time to reflect on that.