A Shameful Act, Caught on Camera

/ Kimberly

I have mixed feelings about today’s post so please allow me to provide some context.

Until the twenty-first century, people had a lot of control over whether their picture could be taken. In most situations, people who didn’t like to be photographed or videotaped could opt out and their boundaries would be respected. Criminals exploited this, of course. Theft and vandalism were hard to prove unless someone was caught red-handed. When a criminal was caught, part of the punishment was being photographed against your will and having that image distributed without permission.

Today, that punishment is applied to the guilty and innocent alike, thanks to surveillance cameras, smartphones, and eroded respect for personal boundaries.  Anyone can photograph and film another person without permission. Worse, they can post those images. The disrespectful practice is widespread on social media and it has rapidly desensitized people, eroding our sense of compassion for others and respect for boundaries.

In a society that values humanity, an innocent person’s right to privacy should not be violated by someone who takes pictures or videos of them without their knowledge or against their will. Distributing or posting images of this kind should be illegal. But when people commit crimes they forfeit their right to privacy.

Now to this remarkable photograph. Our knowledge of the wicked deeds of the past usually come from written reports and documentation, and second or third-hand accounts. The picture was taken around September 9, 1900 in the aftermath of the Galveston hurricane, which is, to date, the deadliest natural disaster in US history. Casualties were somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000.

It’s obvious this man picking through the wreckage didn’t know his picture was being taken. Nor would he have wanted it to be, since he was committing a particularly shameful crime. He’s stealing jewelry and other valuables off the dead.  

Look carefully at the background of the photograph.  It certainly shows what the people thought!

Caption on the back reads: “Missed! A deaf looter at Galveston Escapes Temporarily a Deserved Fate.”

20 thoughts on “A Shameful Act, Caught on Camera”

    • I like that law. Wish we had it in the U.S. Perhaps it would stop witnesses to serious crimes from just siding on the sidelines with their phone to their face making a video of someone else’s tragedy.

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        • Absolutely agree! There was a video making the rounds not long ago of a woman at a mall who was upset about something. Not a big deal but then she saw someone was recording her and she had a massive meltdown. Of course the person making the video didn’t show their face but throughout the video, her voice was audible, taunting this woman and making the situation so much worse. It was a very cruel thing to do to someone who may not have been stable in the first place.

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  2. That’s a fascinating photograph! Looters make a disaster twice as difficult. I remember the looters driving out from Kansas City, MO, to our little town of Hickman Mills, clogging up our one highway and streets. My dad put our family in the car and he drove as close as he could to where my older brother worked. My dad finally found him and a co-worker and it took us almost all night just to drive a few miles because of the looters. I forgot to mention a tornado had just demolished our business district, high school and many houses! I can understand someone shooting at this looter, especially seeing him robbing the dead.

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    • Judy, some of your experiences are mind-blowing… particularly with natural disasters. You should write your autobiography! It’s supposedly an interesting psychological exercise for its own sake, but I’d like to read it.
      Even without that experience, I completely understand shooting at someone who is robbing the dead too.

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  3. Several years ago I watched a documentary about the Galveston hurricane that made me appreciate how fortunate we are today to be able to forecast, track, predict the path and measure the intensity of a tropical storm and/or hurricane. The U.S. National Weather Service in 1900, despite being told by the Director of the Belen College Observatory in Cuba that the storm would make landfall in Texas, forecasted the storm would make landfall in Florida.

    The miscreant in the photo was fortunate to have survived. The storm destroyed 7,000 buildings of the City. As a person who spent time in New Orleans for my company after Hurricane Katrina hit that City, I can only imagine what Galveston was like in 1900.

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    • Wow… I did a little research after finding the picture and it sounded like people did have time to escape to the mainland but the weather didn’t seem bad so few people did. And then it was too late.

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  4. I forgot the question of legality of photos of people. I think those committing a crime need to be photographed. The Delphi murders come to mind as one of the victims recorded the murderer ordering the girls “down the hill, guys!” Children should be photographed with parents’ permission. Actually, we are videotaped everywhere we go. If we have nothing to hide, I don’t see a problem.

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      • I wish they would bring this case to trial. His bullet casing was found near one of the victims and that’s pretty good evidence. I still think more men may have been involved.

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        • I saw a documentary or tv show that seemed to suggest one person couldn’t have perpetrated those murders on their own. But it seems strange to think a group of people would be involved in this (like a criminal ring) without other, similar cases happening in the area. Strangely enough, I went to school with a girl who was kidnapped and presumably killed about 60 miles from Delphi but it was many years ago. I think 1994? She was a few years older than me so we weren’t friends. They’ve never caught the guy and her body hasn’t been found. The sorrow of it almost killed her family.

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          • I think the crime either was a sex crime or it’s been reported that the mother of a victim was dating a black man. The father of this victim’s boyfriend is an Odinist. (not sure of the spelling!). This Odinism has been connected to white supremacists.

            I didn’t think one person could have committed this, but I’ve heard two retired detectives that said they’ve seen cases where one person was able to control and murder more than one victim. Think of Richard Speck in the 1960’s and several nurses he killed in the same house, also The Zodiac almost always encountered two people together. The Golden State serial killer is yet another one that would control couples.

            I think Ron Logan, now deceased, who owned the land where the girls were found, is a good suspect.

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            • Yes one man probably could control two little girls, especially with a gun and a knife.
              Ron Logan was a good suspect! It’s also possible someone else did it we don’t know about. I agree with Ruby, I think they may have the wrong man in custody.

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        • No but I don’t think Richard Allen did it. The crime has the earmarks of a serial killer. The idea that Richard Allen, who was married, employed, and the father of at least one child, no criminal record, just woke up one day at the age of 45 and decided to do this… unless he had a psychotic break or something, that doesn’t make sense. The video did look like him… but you’ve seen it. It could look like a lot of people.

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