The Year in Review—May

The Nation | Top news stories for May, 2002 | Bob Jones

Candlelight vigilante

As the furor over pedophile priests dragged into its sixth month, the controversy turned bloody for the first time. Police had already led some perpetrators away in handcuffs, but one alleged victim couldn't wait for legal justice. On May 13, Dontee Stokes pumped three bullets into Maurice Blackwell, the priest he'd accused of molesting him in 1993. A polygraph suggested his charges were credible, but the Baltimore archdiocese ignored them, and Mr. Blackwell returned to the pulpit. Further allegations emerged in 1998 and Mr. Blackwell was placed on leave, but no criminal charges were ever filed against him.

The last girder

It took from mid-September to late May, but then, with a simple ceremony and a final Mass, the cleanup at Ground Zero officially came to an end. After some 100,000 truckloads of debris, the final girder from the twin towers was covered in black cloth and hauled away. The 16-acre hole in Manhattan was no longer a cleanup site, but rather a construction site, awaiting some fitting memorial to the 3,000-plus victims who died there.