M.O.M.I. : (Modus Operandi Mission Impossible)

I felt compelled to write about the incident that was in the news yesterday, it seemed somehow significant.

If you have not heard- the roommate of a Mobile Alabama woman who was kicked out of her local roller derby league set a pipe bomb off at the roller rink in question, damaging an air conditioning unit and injuring no one in the disturbance. 

[Here's a link to the news story: 

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/09/federal_court_digest_mobile_wo.html]

Samantha Kimbrough, (also known as the “Roller Derby Terrorist”, as my brother referred to her) who set the pipe bomb off on August 21st, also admitted to throwing a Molotov cocktail at the joint in early July. In addition Kimbrough is charged with detonating another pipe bomb in the driveway of a fellow teammate of her roommate’s.

(Sounds more like a loyal girlfriend or scorned lover than a committed roommate type situation if you ask me, but that’s neither here nor there). 

I thought about this all day. There seemed to be a considerable amount of intrigue surrounding it. Roller girls had shared the link to the news story on facebook yesterday but with little to no comment. The Derby community somehow felt effected by this incident, but no one really knew what to say. It seemed like people needed someone to come out and tell them how to feel about this. -To give them a reason to come together, and make some sense out of it. And here’s some sense.

As I grappled for something meaningful to write it dawned on me, there is nothing to say. The whole story is fucking absurd. The only reason this incident is getting any press at all is because the chick’s roommate is in roller derby and the motive was (supposedly) derby related, and the press is just now catching on to what we all know- roller derby is damn awesome. So they sensationalized something that wasn’t even that interesting because it semi-kinda involved roller derby, sorta.

Let’s be real, in all honesty this same exact thing happens everyday in all sorts of domestic violence or petty crime situations, and we don’t hear about them. 

One roller girl commented online regarding the enraged pipe bomber: “in case you need another reason to be kind and classy to your roller sisters…” and then shared a link to the news story, perhaps hinting the crazy was somehow justified in her attacks? Okay, no. I will chalk that remark up to someone probably not quite knowing how to react to the incident, as I mentioned before. But let me be clear, what happened is NOT a reason to be more kind and classy to your roller sisters. It was an isolated incident that had nothing to do with anything.

It’s too bad that when roller derby finally gets some national coverage it’s because some idiot goes and does something dumb. So please don’t feel anything about this. It’s stupid. It has nothing to do with roller derby, she’s not the roller derby terrorist. She’s not even a roller girl. She’s just some crazy obsessed whack job who probably needs a hobby herself, poor thing.