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Meanwhile, they want revenge on Cash. Last week an unusual coalition of Muslim and Jewish activists, mothers and radio deejays drove 400 miles north from Los Angeles to stage a protest in Berkeley's historic Sproul Plaza in hopes of ostracizing the college sophomore--if not ejecting him altogether from the University of California system. "This isn't a guy who should be going to Berkeley. He should be going to San Quentin," said an irate Conway. "We're going to do everything possible to get his ass kicked out of Berkeley and make his life as miserable as possible."
Yet Berkeley chancellor Robert Berdahl made it clear last week that there would be no expulsion. "The public has been outraged not only by the crime itself but by reports of callous and reprehensible statements attributed to the student. I had the same reaction myself," he said. But rules are rules; Cash violated no law. "Most people seem to be under the impression that I was in a position to stop the heinous crime," Cash wrote in an angry e-mail sent to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Daily Californian. "I did not witness the alleged molestation and murder." Staying mostly out of sight in his dorm room in modernistic Putnam Hall, Cash gave no interviews. His lawyer, Mark Werksman, however, said Cash "regrets" his statements to the Los Angeles Times. Werksman warned that lashing out in frustration to expel Cash is no answer either. Then the lawyer sighed. "What can I say? I can't explain or justify what he said."
In Sproul Plaza, many students were at first horrified, then angry at Cash, and finally resigned to doing nothing. "I personally think he's a psycho, but I'm not sure there's legal ground," said a student. Rajan Bhattacharyya, 19, a sophomore, says he knew Cash in junior high as a "normal bratty kid" and defended his legal right to remain in school: "I don't think this is the first time someone has left a crime victim at a scene or something like that. They can't just kick him out because they don't like him." Masoud Seberi, 22, a junior, agreed: "He's not here to uphold any moral standard or position. He came here to get an education."
A few were angry, however, or disconcerted by his presence. "I'm appalled to be at the same campus with this guy," said sophomore Keith Palfin. "A seven-year-old girl lost her life, and he's bragging about getting chicks?" Young women in the neighboring dorms said Cash gives them the creeps. Candice Blagmon, 17, a freshman, said the baby-faced Cash had been sociable, helping other students in his dorm set up their computers--but now, she said, "the dorm people are outraged." Stacy May, 17, another dorm neighbor, said she and others had decided to snub him. "Everybody I know is not going to say hi to him. He's an awful person." Ethan Berger, 18, had more practical advice: "I'd leave if I were him."
Marc Klaas of Sausalito, Calif., who became an activist against child molesters after his daughter Polly was kidnapped and killed, spoke at the Berkeley protest. "Fate gave David Cash the opportunity to be heroic, and he turned his back on that opportunity," Klaas declared. "He was in the singular position of being able to save a seven-year-old child, and he chose to do nothing. For that, he will have to answer to his own withered soul forever."
--With reporting by David Willwerth/Berkeley