From the Editor's Desk
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seems to have a lot of roads pointing toward the fiery beyond.

People lose their shit in this state when it comes to their cars. Two years ago, state cops spent their spring processing the aftermaths of two separate psychotic episodes in which the victims (or the perps, depending on your point of view) wound up dead.

In February of 2004, a 21-year-old kid named Derek Cataldo punched his ticket when he lost control of his SUV. If you're reading statements of state prosecutors, Cataldo bit it after fleeing an enraged 26-year-old Myrta Diaz and her boyfriend following a rush-hour collision with Diaz's Celica. Diaz's defense counsel insists Cataldo had been driving recklessly all along, and Diaz was following safely from a distance to get a license or registration number.

One month prior, in a slightly more cut-and-dry case, 26-year-old Lynn Bader also died after her car crashed on I-93 following a road rage incident involving fellow motorists Jerone Jones and Gwynne Doyle. Witnesses and accident investigation reports indicate a physical and verbal exchange, but unlike in the Cataldo/Diaz incident, it became blatantly clear who caused Bader's death. The bullet from Jones' handgun that nearly took her head off snuffed Bader before her car came to a stop.

(In one of the greatest dog-ate-my-homework explanations ever, Jones pled not guilty to murder and claimed his gun discharged as he was loading it -- because he always loaded it when nearing Boston -- and the reason the bullet didn't shatter Doyle's driver-side window was because she just happened to be tossing a butt when the gun went off. The only more fascinating note: a Middlesex County jury convicted him only of involuntary manslaughter and gun possession, and we at Arriviste can only hope the 15 years he'll be spending at Cedar Junction are filled with love -- rough, non-consensual male-on-male love...)

But an incident we find even more frustrating than the two above happened more recently, when Roy C Dowds Jr. stole a Ford Explorer from a parking lot in Danvers, Mass. Dowds should have considered that adage "If it looks too good to be true..." when he came upon the SUV with the keys still in it and the motor running because when he hopped in and started driving, the SUV's owner, 20-year-old Keith Koster came running out of the clothing store where he worked and jumped on to the vehicle as Dowds pulled away.

Dowds swerved to shake the kid free and did so, but only after jumping a curb and crashing into a telephone pole. Koster died shortly after, and Dowds promptly was arrested.

And although attorneys and juries have to sort through the road rage blame games in the first two incidents above, it's the court of public opinion that's wrestling with the Koster/Dowds affair. Should Koster really have tried to apprehend Dowds rather than call the police? Should Koster's first move have been a giddy call to his insurance agent in anticipation of his pending new car? Is Dowds really guilty of murder instead of merely theft?

The course of events clearly indicates that if Koster made either phone call, he'd be alive today, but we can't help but absolve the kid of his bad strategic thinking. A man's ride is sacred, and most men are hardwired to protect their property -- it's an instinct passed down since the pioneers, and Koster acted on male instinct.

In the old west, criminals didn't commit crimes unless they were damn sure the victims would go down easy. When Roy Dowds met Keith Koster, he met a victim that didn't go down. He underestimated the resolve of his quarry, and he should bear the full burden for his poor planning just as Koster bore his.

(We can only hope Dowds spends his next 15 years playing Village People cowboy to Jerone Jones' Indian in Cedar Junction.)

Koster's sole intention, when faced with becoming a victim or defending his property, was to stand up to Roy Dowd and say, "Hell no. Not me." If more people shared similar intentions, maybe blatant criminals like Jerone Jones -- when faced with the possibility of repercussions -- would think twice before capping a chick over a highway squabble.

Oh, those good intentions...

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