The Tribune

MONDAY, July 11, will mark 11 years to the day that international fugitive Colton Harris-Moore was captured in Harbour Island, Eleuthera. The capture ended a brazen two-year crime spree during which the teen, better known as the Barefoot Bandit, stole airplanes, boats, broke into businesses and homes and evaded police in three countries while taking the world along for a ride, post after Facebook post.

Police and media were in a race, competing to find the Barefoot Bandit first and while there were hints that he may have made it to another island after crashing a stolen Cessna 400 in Abaco the week before, there were no sightings.

The capture alone was the stuff movie directors dream of. It was the wee hours of the morning when an alert security guard at a resort with a marina spotted a boat being taken out next door, silently, no engine.

The guard knew something was up. With help from a visiting yacht, he and they jumped in a tender, took off, the boat ahead of them now speeding up, police joined the chase, shots were fired and before the light of day, Bahamian police had done what none in Canada or the US had managed to do. They captured the most intriguing fugitive in the world. And the world was captivated.

In the end, Colton Harris-Moore - who had been on the lam for so long - was just a tired teenager, his 6’5” frame sunken, his body and energy so taxed by his own escapades he could hardly speak when questioned. I handled the media relations for the event. I heard the police tapes, the weariness in his voice and my fascination never waned.

The world was fascinated as I was – and conflicted. Was he a villain? He committed his first crime at age 12. By the time he was 13, he had added three more stealing charges to his record. Years later, as the Barefoot Bandit, he was suspected of 100 thefts in Washington, Idaho and Canada and those offences were before he arrived in The Bahamas via one of five planes he was charged with stealing.

The charges he faced, state and federal, were serious – interstate transportation of a stolen aircraft, interstate transportation of a stolen boat, piloting an aircraft without a valid airman’s certificate, attempt to elude, illegal landing, The Bahamas charge.

He pled guilty to all and in January of 2012 was sentenced to six and a half years on federal charges and seven on state charges, running concurrently. He is out of prison now, is trying to sell movie rights to his story, was the subject of a Canadian-made documentary and has a Twitter account.

Yet, for all the crimes he committed, there is a part of us that wants to keep him in folk hero status. Why, we ask ourselves? Does our heart go out to him because his mother was an alcoholic who used their social services money to buy booze and cigarettes so what he stole at age 12 was food to keep from starving? Do we pity him because child protective services seemed to have ignored calls from neighbours reporting what they perceived as neglect and abuse when he was a child? Or because when he needed a father, his was a drug user sitting in a prison cell?

Does a part of us admire his bravery and possible genius, teaching himself how to fly by watching a video, getting into a plane and flying it across international borders?

Do we forgive him because he may have a touch of Asperger’s which could account for extraordinary intelligence and lack of social skills and the relationship constraints most of us have?

Or, is it deeper – do we hold the Barefoot Bandit in hero status because he avoided the law and took us on a ride we could never have engineered or executed ourselves?

Is our need for heroes so great that absent those we can point to readily, we grant the status to someone we can see and name?

There is, in all of us, a desire to be more than we are, or more than we can be, and thus, it manifests itself in a wish for heroes.

Whether or not Colton Harris-Moore is a villain or folk hero may be a question that does not have an answer. Maybe he is a bit of both. Maybe the more important question is why we have so few heroes we can point to and our children and their children will be able to look up to.

That is the troubling question and it needs an answer.

Please, for the sake of Haitians who have suffered enough

The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise and the wounding of his wife allegedly by foreign nationals from South America disguised as DEA agents swooping down on their private home sent a message of fear to Haitians everywhere. As Louby Georges said: “ If citizen number one is not safe, who is?”

No country in our region, no people in our region have suffered more than Haiti and the Haitian people for events not of their making – economic deprivation, political greed, avarice and corruption that built gilded palaces while the population starved, an earthquake in 2010 from which the country has yet to fully recover.

This is a time to show compassion, love and to uplift a people who need the world’s support. This is a time to take the high road and show what being a caring country and a loving people can be. We do not know what true oppression feels like but if we put ourselves in the shoes of a Haitian friend or colleague, if we look that individual in the eye and think about oppression, then nod our head in support or shake a hand or offer a fist bump saying “ I may not fully understand, but I will try and I will stand up for you,” then we have taken the first step to taking the higher road to humanity.