| The following statement was printed in the April 22, 1999 edition of the McAllen, TX Monitor. The article deals with the then recent shooting that occureed near Littleton Colorado on Tuesday April 20, 1999, and the linkage to Black Trench Coats.
It was written by BaronCarlos, when his personal web page, "The Homepage That your Parents Warned You About", was under scrutiny by the press and the FBI.
This also served as a statement to the viewing public at the event when Carlos' homepage was dismantled.
So you want to wear a trench coat?
There are many Internet websites that focus on the "Trench Coat" phenomenon, detailing the dark side of this growing trend amoung young people. One intricate site is operated by an astrophysics major from the University of Arizona in Tucson. These are his views about the shootings in Littleton, Colo., in which the assailants were members of a group called the Trench Coat Mafia.
There has always been an image associated with a black trench coat.
Picture this, a dark alley, populated only by one street lamp, the fog of the late evening settles against the damp pavement. The street lamp flickers, it's tired and worn filament aches with each surge of radiation, and the alley remains silent. A lone man emerges from the shadows, his
tall, dark frame is draped with a Black Trench Coat. The trench coat is remarkably dry in comparison to the wet environment surrounding him. The figure remains silent, as he takes a black gloved hand out of his pocket and lights a crisp cigar. The dark figure waits for his destiny to unfold.
The black trench coat is an icon of darkness and mystery. It is a trademark of the antagonist, the bad guy in TV and the movies. To |Carlos|, it is an image of internal strength, and something that causes other people to be wary of. When someone sees a black trench coat, one expects something bad to happen.
|BaronCarlos has| worn a trench coat for more then 7 years. |He| was attracted to the mysterious nature of the garment. It accented |his| natural height, and it provided an artificial image that intimidated people around |him|. It emulated power, it suggested a sinister personality, and it presented it all in an upper middle class reference since it was something that powerful businessmen would wear.
The trench coat is atypical, different, and distant. It is something that causes |Baron Carlos| to stand out, the opposite of |his| other intention of being covert and stealthy.
|The Man Behind Carlos| even created a character on the internet, based on |his| trench coat attire. He was dark, seemingly sinister, silent, and stoic, yet he held to a code of honor. He was not a man to be reckoned with. He was the epitome of the power of the trench coat. And the online community loved it. He was a hero in their eyes.
Tuesday, a pair of men stormed a high school, and in a tragic scene shot numerous people, with the intent to kill them. The one thing that caught everyone's eye, was the fact that they wore black trench coats. So much so, that at least 5 newspapers across the nation, found the homepage of this character, and asked if |The man behind Carlos| knew anything about the "Black Trench Coat Mafia", something that |Carlos| knew nothing about. But it only shows the stigma attached to the black trench coat, and the image of death that follows it.
Note: all text with |text| around it is edited from the original text to preserve the use of *Carlos Speak* and the Carlosian use of the Third Person | 
