...is the chronic stupidity of those individuals that operate our criminal justice system.
At lunch break today I went to my parent's house to eat dinner with them, as I often do on Friday's. When I arrived I found the folks sitting in shocked disbelief in their living room.
A local black girl from a hard-working and upstanding family had been savagely beaten and stabbed at her flower-shop shortly after opening for business. This shop was located beside my brother's home in a pecan orchard on the south end of the small delta town of Dermott.
When my brother arrived he was able to provide us with more information about the attack. He is the chaplin at the local prison, and hears a lot about such crimes on their radios. Evidently, the girl put up a fight that was one for the books. Flesh for the perp was found deeply imbedded under her fingernails. She had been so savagely beaten that she was blinded.
Her sixteen year old son was contacted at the school, and rushed to her side. She died in his arms while giving a description of her attacker. Black man...red truck.
A doper after money....with an accomplice in the truck.
Here's the kicker in all of this....the scumbag had been arrested twice within the last six weeks for two felony assaults. The first involved a break in of the home of two elderly residents, who he tied up and beat for fun, and then robbed. The other was the break-in at another resident in which a girl was raped.
He had also tried to persuade an elderly Chinese-American lady of my acquaintance to try to tutor him. She is a co-worker of mine who teaches GED classes at our juvenile facility. As it turns out, he was a former resident at our facility. He had turned 18 and been transferred to a state prison unit just down the road from us that handled young adult offenders.
Now...despite the fact that he had committed these other two felonies and been positively identified by the victims....the authorities LET HIM OUT!
I've been so angry about this today I've been sick to my stomach. My family has known hers for three generations. While I didn't know her personally my parents and my aunt and uncle did and they were all crazy about her. An absolutely precious person....whose life was cut short by an absolutely worthless animal released from jail by some crap-brained, nose-picking, thumb-up-their-arse public servant.
The judge that allowed this to happen couldn't garner two votes right now if he was up for reelection. Both white and black residents of this town are positively livid.
I am sick and tired of ivory-tower types in the justice system who have forgotten that, while their job may involve safeguarding the rights of the accused, it also requires them to temper that responsibility with some common sense.
Sorry for the rant, guys, but it's been a long time since I've been this angry.
Just had to blow off some steam.
Regards, Shuckins
