Q: Please state your name.

A: [Redacted]

Q: And your date of birth?

A: [Redacted]

Q: Thank you, Mr. [Redacted]. I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Please try to answer as succinctly and accurately as possible. How did you know Jessica Weiss?

A: We were… She was my girlfriend. We were engaged. We lived together.

Q: How long did you live together?

A: Less than a year. Since May of that year.

Q: And where were you on the night of October 21, 2027, Mr. [Redacted]?

A: Well, I was at home.

Q: Which is… [Redacted]?

A: Yes, that’s right.

Q: Which is where you lived with Miss Weiss.

A: Yes. Uh-huh.

Q: And if you could fill us in on the details? Go ahead, Mr. [Redacted].

A: Well, I was at home and I think I was watching something on the couch. Cooking shows or something. I think I got home from work around six-thirty, seven. Something like that. It was a Thursday. I remember it was raining. It’s always raining that time of year. I know because the awning on the porch was broken and I always smoked outside when I could, but if it was raining I had to smoke inside and just sort of blow it out the window.

Q: And was this a typical evening after work for you?

A: No, not really.

Q: In what way was it unusual?

A: I usually worked late on Thursdays. That was just when the hospital had me on shift. But I had off that night because I wasn’t feeling well and I had asked to switch with another doctor, so I would take Tuesday the next week instead. You know, we did that all the time.

Q: And was Miss Weiss present at that time?

A: No, she wasn’t home. I thought she was working late. Sometimes she had to work the late night shifts and we didn’t always coordinate our schedules.

Q: She worked late at the hospital?

A: Yes. Different hospital. She was working at Advocate and I was at [Redacted].

CHICAGO, IL

A thirty-four year old man has been released in connection with the death of twenty-nine year old Jessica Weiss. The man, whose name has been withheld under the Violence Prevention And Reduction Act, was admitted into a therapeutic retraining program.

According to court records, the subject saw his fiance, Miss Weiss, coming out of a cab after embracing a man with whom she had been having an affair. When she entered the apartment, the subject confronted Miss Weiss and a heated argument ensued, during which the conflict became physical. The subject evidently pushed Miss Weiss down a staircase, whereupon she struck her head on a stair and bled to death before the ambulance arrived.

The defense attorney successfully argued that the subject’s Aggressive Impulse Diversion technique had not been properly taught due to state budget cuts, and that this constituted a major handicap given the circumstances. The jury agreed, and the subject was released with a mandate for AID retraining.

When asked for a statement, Chicago Police Department representative Charles Baron praised the jury’s finding, saying “the Violence Prevention And Reduction program in combination with Aggressive Impulse Diversion training has resulted in an 83% drop in violent crime across the city. In the last ten years our prison population has grown slower than it has over the previous three decades, charting a bright new future for the City of Chicago.”

A: Around 2 A.M. Maybe a little bit after 2 A.M.

Q: You remember her coming home at 2 A.M.?

A: Somewhere around there. I was watching a show and I lost track of time. I fell asleep for an hour or two and then woke up again later.

Q: You said that you fell asleep?

A: Yes, that’s right.

Q: And you weren’t feeling well that evening. Which is why you requested to switch shifts with another doctor.

A: Correct.

Q: So I imagine, Mr. [Redacted], that you must have been very tired that night.

A: Yes, I was.

Q: What woke you up?

A: There was a cab outside pulling up in front of the apartment. I could see the street from where I was sitting. I was laying on the couch by the window so I could see it from there. I looked down and I saw Jessica getting out of the cab.

Q: And was she alone?

A: No, there was a man with her. [Hesitates.] I recognized him but I didn’t know why he was there.

Q: Mr. [Redacted], what happened next?

EXCERPTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF MASS BEHAVIOR – ISSUE 7, P. 49

Dr. Herbert Rhinegold is a male behavior specialist trained extensively in AID and related Behavioral Adjustment techniques. In the words of Dr. Rhinehold, “the male brain is inherently aggressive. Males of all species display violent behavior, particularly in ultra-social structures like those organized by chimpanzees and other advanced apes. Human beings are no different. With AID techniques, we train the male to override his instinctive violence at a pre-conscious level.”

Dr. Rhinegold is one of several contributors to the development of Aggressive Impulse Diversion, a once controversial technique that has since been embraced by fourteen states and seven municipalities. In an AID training session, a tube is inserted into the mouth, and the subject is equipped with ocular restriction devices and presented with a sequence of innocuous images intermingled with violent imagery. When a violent image appears, a burst of pungent liquid is piped into the tube; when innocuous images appear, saline is piped into the tube. In a second phase, the tube is affixed with a rubber nipple which, when bitten, restricts the flow of the fluid. Administrators then test the response time of the subject. The treatment may be re-administered as many times as necessary to achieve the desired response time. “Our goal is to make this process mandatory for every male child,” said Dr. Rhinegold. “Statistical methods show that wherever mandatory AID training has been enacted, crime has plummeted.”

Women’s rights activists applauded the adoption efforts surrounding the AID technique. “Women are the primary victim of men’s inherent violence,” said Dr. Camille Hohn, professor of Mass Behavior at McGill University. “Any effort to reduce male violence in our society is a boon for the greater effort to achieve justice for women.”

Q: Tell me what happened then, Mr. [Redacted]. Was there a confrontation in the apartment?

A: I told her that I saw her. I saw it. She was with a man. Somebody I knew.

Q: And then?

[Silence.]

Q: Mr. [Redacted], what happened when Miss Weiss entered the apartment?

A: I don’t remember. I felt very confused. I thought that maybe I was dreaming or something. I was very tired, like I said.

Q: You mentioned before that you had felt sick or unwell earlier that day. How would you describe how you felt that night when you woke up to the sound of the cab pulling up to the apartment? Were you feeling disoriented?

A: Disoriented, yes. I felt confused. I didn’t know what was happening. It was like I was sick.

Q: Thank you, Mr. [Redacted], no further questions.

EXCERPTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF MASS BEHAVIOR – ISSUE 7, P. 56

During the course of the trial, the defense team presented the subject’s AID training history as primary evidence. The Training Center where the subject had been treated at ages ten and twelve had failed to administer the test within the 0.6 second response time mandated by the State of Illinois and so, the defense argued, the subject had not been capable of acting with “sound mind and judgment.” In the course of the trial, the defense argued that the subject had acted in response to emotions which he had been improperly trained to handle, using the analogy of a driver who had not learned to use the brake. The State was therefore implicated in the death of Miss Weiss. The jury found the subject not guilty by reason of insanity, and the subject was released into the supervision of the Department of Mass Behavior under the stipulation of mandatory retraining.

The subject spent the next nine months in an Intensive Retraining program in a Cook County correctional facility. Given that he had no previous criminal background, the subject’s name was erased from court documents, in accordance with standard DMB procedure.

Written by Robert Cane – © Robert Cane, 2018

robert@robertcane.com