American carnage rages on

The last year has only exacerbated the despair that seems to define 21st-century America

America.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

On Wednesday afternoon it was reported that Jeffrey Smith, a member of the Washington, D.C., police force, had taken his own life. He is the second law enforcement officer known to have committed suicide after responding to the riots at the Capitol on January 6 and the third to have died. Goodness knows what conspiracy theorists will make of all this.

The news of Smith's death comes amid reports suggesting America's long-rising rate of suicide increased even further in the last year, not least among school-aged children, which is why many districts are beginning to open again despite the objections of cynical teachers' unions. Most of the dead will remain anonymous to everyone save those who loved them. Others, like the artificial sugar tycoon and philanthropist Donald Tober, are comparatively well known. In other cases still, the previously obscure will become famous because they do not go alone — in a distressing number of recent murder-suicides, the killers are mothers and the victims their young children.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.