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I have spoken a number of times about this increasing American cultural trait: stupidity. It permeates those divisive, hate-driven pockets of our diverse society which, in some areas, has turned on itself in a time of its worst health crisis.

That’s what happened at a Family Dollar store in Flint, Michigan last Friday.

Stupidity, fueled by anger, created a tragedy at the store.

It began with an argument over a face mask.

An executive order from the governor’s office is in place in Michigan requiring the wearing of a face mask in stores such as the Dollar store. Calvin Munerlyn, a father of nine, was hired as a security guard at the store, specifically charged with the responsibility of making sure that all customers wore face masks inside the store.

Sharmel Teague and her adult daughter entered the Dollar store last Friday. The daughter did not have on mask. Munerlyn told the woman she would have to leave the store. That set Teague off in an angry rant about the face mask requirement.

Teague and her daughter stormed out of the store. The pair apparently went home where Sharmel riled up her husband, Larry, and a family friend named Ramonyea Bishop. The trio, their common sense gripped in the throes of stupidity, returned to the Dollar store where they confronted Munerlyn, setting off yet another angry rant egged on by Sharmel.

The argument ended abruptly when 23-year-old Bishop put a gun to the back of Munerlyn’s head and pulled the trigger. The security guard later died in a local hospital.

Right now Sharmel is sitting in a Flint jail cell where husband and Bishop will soon join her after the police locate and cuff them.

Sometimes, beyond tragedy, stupidity produces poetic justice.

Inmates in the Genesee County jail where Sharmel sits are required to wear face  masks. Her stupid husband and their idiotic friend Bishop will also have to wear a face mask once they change out of their free world garb into a jail jumpsuit.

The chances of the trio getting the Covid virus have increased by about 500 percent.

The heartbreak is that the Munerlyn family is now shredded by grief.

The Teague family will spend years in prison—if they can scurry about the recesses of a jail and prison environment where the Covid virus lurks and survive its clutches.

Hate and anger have the entire state of Michigan in a vise-like grip. Seething, simmering cultural and racial divisions, fueled by some elected officials, have boiled to the surface as the Covid virus eats away at both the medical and mental health of the state.

The Teague’s were byproducts of this cultural rage.

Munerlyn is yet another fallen hero from the ranks of first responders. He died trying to keep the rest of us safe.

Beyond stupidity.