I had the pleasure along with my wife and son, of helping Susan Cahill transform the ground floor of a venerable old home into the cheerful and attractive All Families Health Care Medical Clinic — a clinic where Susan Cahill would continue to provide loving medical service to hundreds of her patients. Loving? Just ask her clients, or read the letters currently in the paper from those who chose her for medical attention.

A little over a week later, I walked through it again. The experience was viscerally stunning. Virtually every object was destroyed, all medical supplies poured on the floors, paintings knifed, pictures of Susan’s family knifed, records strewn… all topped off by fire extinguishers discharged over it all. You could feel the hate in this destruction. It was palpable.

The victims? Susan and her office staff of course. She has devoted her life to her medical practice and the care of her many patients. To experience this aimed directly at her, personally, has shaken the trust, that in our community we can have differences of opinion but still maintain mutual respect. This was violence and it was hate.

 Susan’s hundreds of patients? There is no All Families Healthcare clinic anymore.

The jailed suspect Zachary Klundt? The responsibility for the crime committed against the All Families Clinic and Susan Cahill goes deeply beyond this man, It extends to those who think and speak with hate in their heart, those who encourage or even tacitly support that thinking, and lastly, to the large majority of us who tolerate or remain silent about the presence of hate-think in our community. The alleged vandal winds up at the end of this progression a victim himself — a victim in the belief he is doing something “right” or “necessary” defined by the rhetoric surrounding him. If found guilty, his choice of action based on these beliefs will result in deserved prison time, but however deserved, another incarcerated American will do little to address the heart of this problem.

We all have to take responsibility for this in our community. This illness of hate starts with seeing those with different beliefs as “other,” then it creeps into our speech, then into hateful rhetoric. The step from there to action and violence becomes easier to contemplate, easier to do. Then we have a sickness, a collective sickness. We are no longer diverse neighbors with differences, we are perpetrators we are victims: we are enemies.

Crissman is a resident of Kalispell.