Is it bravado–or is alcoholism?
NOVEMBER 2004
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: “This defendant’s actions are another tragic example of what can occur when bravado and machismo overtake judgment.”
So said Deputy District Attorney Tom Rubinson, after sentencing Pete Marron, 20, found guilty of shooting 25-year-old Marc Antenorcruz to death in a Dodger Stadium parking lot after an argument in September 2003. However, it’s also what can happen when confronted by an alcoholic.
Rubinson described Antenocruz as having been drinking and belligerent the night of the shooting. Marron may simply have overreacted, after words were exchanged between the two. On the other hand, it may have been a classic case of alcoholic v. alcoholic.
In research I conducted for the section on probabilities of alcoholism in convicted criminals in my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits, cop after cop told me the same story: very often, there’s heavy drinking on the part of both parties to a dispute. The fact of such drinking is not, in itself, conclusive, but we can increase the odds of alcoholism when there are bad behaviors, regardless of which side is legally at fault.
There is a possibility that both Pete Marron and Marc Antenorcruz lived their short lives as undiagnosed alcoholics. If this is true, because parents, friends and – prior to this murder – law enforcement ignored it, made excuses for it or didn’t attempt to coerce abstinence, tragedy was inevitable.
Instead of being “another tragic example of what can occur when bravado and machismo overtake judgment,” the actions of both may have been another tragic example of what can happen when alcoholism is allowed to progress unimpeded.