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December 02, 2005
Of tears and the immorality and indecency of the Adopt-A-Murderer Club
It’s five pm and the John and Ken Show starts their “Tookie Must Die” hour. I listen to the clips of the latest circus antics of the Tookie-ites, from the NAACP to such pillars of persuasive pontification as Mike Farrell.
Most of the time I grin or roll my eyes at the tortured rhetoric from celebrities about their latest Death Row pet (though I noticed that 1000th executed perp,Kenneth Lee Boyd, didn’t have the usual retinue of Adopt-A-Murderer club members). What a wonderful way to gain fame, to see one’s name in news reports, clips on television, radio interviews …
And that’s just the celebs.
Thursday night got to me. I’m listening as I drive home from work and I find myself weeping. It was not Tookie. He overdrew his moral bank account long ago and I just await the account’s final closing.
The co-worker I partner with is on vacation this week, and as it happens, this week was all about little fires. From processing the reports on a major shooting that got wide media coverage last weekend to numerous “We have to have it now so we can go pick up the perp” walk-through warrants, it was if my small corner of So. Cal had gone nuts.
Or nuttier.
Some of it rolls by me with barely a second look – drug charges, early Christmas shoplifting (only 23 thieving days left!) Some make me laugh – people actually flying in from the east coast to burgle or use fake credit cards at the local malls.
Then there are the cases of violence.
Technology now allows a police officer to use a digital camera, download the pics to a computer and print them off on the color printer. All the better to accompany the report (rather than waiting for film to be processed, a delay that saw actual photos meeting up with a case long after filing). Late yesterday I process a walk-through warrant and am confronted by two sheets of color pictures taken in ER. A woman, her face swollen with lumps and deep purple and red with bruising, a broken arm, bruised and cracked ribs, who was beaten and kicked into unconsciousness by her husband. In front of the kids. I can’t help but imagine the pain she went through as she lay on the floor trying to avoid the beating, but the kicker was near the last line in the report.
Wait for it.
She doesn’t want to press charges. (Thank God she doesn’t get that choice) My emotions are torn between horror at her injuries and rage at her stupidity.
But she’s not why I wept. She was just the preamble to my emotional venting. It was what my agency liaison told me to expect in the next day or so.
First, one small 18 month old, admitted to ER Thursday with fractures of the arm, leg and more than six ribs. 18 MONTHS OLD. What’s a child that age like? It is a child with baby-plumb cheeks and pudgy little hands. A child that sees everything around him or her as new and needing of touching and exploring. A child that will climb into your lap to hug your neck and lay his/her head on your chest to hear your heart.
Second, a FOUR MONTH OLD, admitted to ICU Thursday with FOURTEEN separate fractures and was not expect to live. A baby that died this morning.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, people! A FOUR MONTH OLD BABY!!! And some of the fractures are not “new”. Four months old with healing fractures.
That’s why I weep. It’s the kids that get to me. Every time.
I was thinking of those babies driving home and listening to the Tookie circus. Where is Mike Farrell when these tiny victims are laying in hospital beds instead of being in a home in arms that love and cherish them? Jamie Foxx said "The only birthday present I want from the governor is clemency for Stan `Tookie' Williams." But where is he for the baby that won't even have a first birthday? Elliott Gould? The ex-Mr. Babs doing anything to see his name in print? Obviously no thought for victims.
They all DISGUST ME. They all live far from gang violence, the predations, threats, violence. They don't have any contact or any real knowledge of the human offal that Tookie Williams created and sustained.
Broken baby bodies won't get them the press they crave.
Posted by Darleen at December 2, 2005 12:14 PM
Comments
Congratulations!
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05336/616063.stm
Posted by: shingles at December 2, 2005 12:56 PM
If the news shows started publicizing these poor children and their tragic story, you would have millions of Americans lining up to donate. Blogs could raise money for them, too. Remember when that couple scarfed down a boatload of fertility drugs and had septuplets? They got a TON of money from perfect strangers due to the publicity. (Plus a book deal. I actually know someone who bought that book.)
We can play "second guessing people's priorities" all day. Why didn't that couple just adopt seven needy orphans? Frankly, that couple and their admirers sicken the guts out of me. But this is a fruitless game.
Posted by: JDCasteleiro at December 2, 2005 11:48 PM
My usual horror regarding child abuse was raised several years ago when I intereviewed a local police officer for a class. He deals primarily with child abuse. One thing that had never occurred to me was the softness of an infant's bones -- he told me that for an infant to suffer a clean break, the bone had to be bent to almost a 45 degree angle.
Now when I read stories about child abuse, I not only fight the urge to inflict violence on child abusers, but crying and vomiting as well. At times I genuinely hate the human race for being so able at making the weakest among us suffer so.
Posted by: Lauren at December 3, 2005 10:37 AM
Excuse me -- I was so horrified by your story and the information the PO gave me. I believe he said ninety degree angle.
God.
Posted by: Lauren at December 3, 2005 10:38 AM
That makes me so mad, Darleen. I want to be alone with whoever did thse things and make them understand that they did something wrong. With extreme prejudice.
What can I do? Is there any way for me to help those kids?
Posted by: Kelly Parks at December 3, 2005 01:44 PM