Thursday, January 22, 2009

caught

they caught two of the three suspects that shot wendy when their mothers recognized them on television and called the police. i applaud those mothers. it is my understanding that the boys are to be tried as adults and i agree with that decision. if you commit an adult crime then you must face the consequences of your actions as an adult. if found guilty, they will be sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. juveniles are not allowed to face the death penalty. i'm troubled by that. please don't get me wrong, i am angry over wendy's death. it was brutal and senseless and she doesn't get a do-over. there are no more tomorrows for wendy. yet, there is something that creeps over me when i think of fifteen year old boys spending the rest of their lives in jail. part of me says good, let them rot. the other part of me wonders how they got to this point of carrying guns and shooting someone down in the street. did their parents let them down? did their schools let them down? did society let them down? why do we have a generation of children running the streets attacking and killing people like this was damn mogadishu? wendy is dead and three boys' lives are over. no rehabilitation. no mercy. no second chances to reintegrate into society, nothing but the rest of their lives in a gray cell. i think we are doing something wrong. i don't have the answers but we really need to start asking ourselves the hard questions of what it takes to destroy the innocence of childhood, turning children into murderers and thus ending the life of a beautiful woman. i'm sorry wendy is dead. i'm glad they caught the boys but i am sorry that multiple lives are ruined by something in new orleans that taints and lets violence run rampant and has for the entire length of our history.

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