By Christopher Gabriel, CGabriel.com

This wasn’t supposed to happen.  Not here.  Not during China’s moment.  This would be more than just a nation’s 15 minutes of fame.  That’s what we’ve been told since Beijing was awarded these Olympic Games.  This was going to be a country playing show and tell with the world, and the world would be dutifully impressed. 

China was better than the world understood it to be, and they were going to prove it.

In what was, arguably, the most spectacular Olympic opening ceremony in history, the world had to catch its breath as we witnessed a display of dance, percussion, music and special effects carried out with the precision and majesty of a Chinese gymnast.

And in the blink of an eye, just one day later, China’s grand moment was interrupted by tragic reality.

On Saturday afternoon, Todd Bachman, the CEO of Bachman’s, a popular flower and garden center based in Minneapolis, was killed in a knife attack at the historic Drum Tower in Beijing.  His wife, Barbara, sustained life-threatening injuries and remains, at the time of this writing, in an intensive care unit at a local hospital.  Their daughter, Elisabeth, herself a former U.S. Olympic volleyball player was unharmed.  Incredibly, she is married to the current U.S. men’s volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon.  That was what brought the Bachman’s to China for these Olympics.

China is a country that rarely sees violent crimes against foreigners.  The grip the government has on its citizens is as vivid as the history and beauty of the country itself.  When you add the component of hosting the Olympic Games, security throughout Beijing, as well as anywhere else events would be taking place, was increased to a force of more than 150,000. 

The first priority at the Olympics is to protect the athletes.  They are, in so many ways, easy targets.  I remember only too well the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Games of 1972.  Equally important, however, is protecting the visitors coming to the Games.  Long after the Olympic flame has been extinguished, the memories most will carry home with them amount to much more than the athletic competition they witnessed.

With everything from local law enforcement to the military watching over Beijing, how does something like this happen?  How, in a landmark as historic as the Drum Tower in central Beijing, in broad daylight no less, can this possibly happen? 

About a month ago, I took my family to Philadelphia.  While there, we went to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.  As someone who has lived his entire life in and around large cities, I’ve practically been trained to stay aware of everything, and everyone, around me at all times.  But as I look back on the time we spent in Philadelphia’s historic district, it’s dawned on me that not a single thought of anything on the order of violent crime ever crossed my mind while there.

Visiting landmarks and monuments in areas overflowing with people, in broad daylight, makes you feel insulated.  With security personnel most everywhere your eyes can see, the thought of some sort of violent incident seems remote.  It’s not hard to imagine the Bachman’s feeling exactly the same way as they toured Drum Tower.

The tragic death of Todd Bachman is a terribly sad reminder that once you get past the pageantry and idealistic speeches at the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games, slogans like Beijing’s “One World One Dream” seem little more than empty rhetoric. 

Over the next two weeks, teams and individuals will win medals, records will be broken and chants of “USA…USA” will blast into our living rooms.  But it’s the one voice silenced in Beijing, in a vicious act of senseless, unprovoked violence, that forever will echo the loudest.  

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