Demon: Hunter

This is what the devil looks like. At least it's what he looked like Wednesday afternoon.

WE GET THIS VIEW from Von Maur department store surveillance video, following the release of still photos from those recordings by Omaha police. In those stills, we see that Satan is a 19-year-old kid

(or is he 20, given the conflicting age reports?), more than a little crazy, and not exactly a natty dresser.

We also sees that Satan's preferred weapon against the humanity he so hates is an old semiautomatic rifle. To clarify, the Russian firearm was the devil's favored weapon two days ago. He likes to switch around and experiment a lot, depending on the situation.

The devil looks like a real loser. Then again, Satan is a real loser -- as we shall see in the fullness of time.

This is not a popular viewpoint in Therapeutic America, where people no longer commit evil, they merely make mistakes. Like Robert A. Hawkins walked into Von Maur with that rifle hidden under his sweats, got in the elevator, rode to the third floor and misguidedly gunned down eight innocent people before making the poor choice of blowing his own brains out. There is little doubt that Robbie Hawkins was a deeply disturbed young man, driven by faulty brain chemistry, inadequate socialization or God-knows-what to make one "poor choice" after another during the course of his tormented time on Earth.

Likewise, there is little doubt that young Mr. Hawkins, future terrorist and mass murderer, was failed by a lot of people and institutions along the way. While some mentally ill people may well be born a taco shy of a combination plate, I think it takes a village to take a lunatic and turn him into a mass murderer.

IT TAKES the hard work of "powers and principalities," too. The trouble with Therapeutic America is it doesn't deal so well with the mystery of evil. That enigmatic force that can take a disturbed young doper and dropout and turn him into a murderous ball of resentment, hatred and despair.

One capable of walking into Westroads Mall and ending the hopes, dreams, passions and lives of eight people who never did a thing to the man who hunted them like game in the woods. A society that seeks to assign blame for a killer's actions to everyone and everything but the killer himself ironically is unable to deal with the source and summit of horrors like that in Omaha this week: The devil, who really did make Robbie Hawkins do it.

If I understand how things like this work -- which I think I do -- Hawkins' extreme mental and emotional instability would be just the chink in a person's armor that the devil really can exploit . . . in this case, to spectacular effect. For instance, the devil probably had a hand in handing Robbie Hawkins his first joint. And his first beer.

SATAN PROBABLY WORKED a little overtime to get him into the house of a woman alleged to have tolerated impressive levels of toking and boozing by the teens under her roof. I know Satan and his junior demons have put in significant overtime in turning the United States into a nation awash in drugs, illicit sex, rampant violence (and the adoration thereof) and materialism so pervasive that it not only warps how we live, but also who we are. It wasn't for nothing that Jesus warned us that a camel can pass through the eye of a needle more easily that a rich man can get into Heaven.

Living in America is a damned hard spiritual slog for Average Joes like you and me. Imagine what it became for a broken vessel like Robbie Hawkins. Well, none of us has to imagine anymore, do we?

Hawkins had help in becoming the monster on the nightly news, that is true. He had help from the devil in us, as well as the devil on his shoulder. This is an assertion that, to modern ears, sounds positively medieval. It flies in the face of modern science, and it is an affront to our Western reluctance to deal with all that religious s***.

Science can explain brain chemistry, more or less. Science, however, can't unravel the mystery of the evil that descended upon Westroads Mall on Wednesday. That takes a medieval mindset.

One that knows about the devil whispering words of hate to a whacked-out kid. One that knows that during Omaha's blackest hour, a troubled soul surrendered itself to the prince of darkness and became one with Death. One with the devil.

It takes a worldview medieval enough to know that when Satan figured he'd gotten all the due he was going to get on the third floor of Von Maur, he climbed back out and back up onto Robbie Hawkins' shoulder. And then he whispered in Robbie's ear:

"Do it, faggot. Do eeeeet."