The Ripple Effect
Dec. 11th, 2009 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadedmusingsI know I've brought this up before, or maybe I've only told Sam about it, but about eight or nine years ago there was a double homicide at the Sonic here in town. I was in my second year of college when it happened, and I was an acquaintance of both murder victims (I graduated high school with one's older sister, and the other I knew through my then best friend). They were both only seventeen years old, and their lives were cut tragically short by a gun fired by a fifteen year-old boy whose only motivation was to get his final paycheck after he'd been fired earlier in the week.
There was a third young man there that night. I didn't know him, but I knew who he was from my yearbook and from a friend or two pointing him out in the past. He was sixteen at the time, and somehow he survived a bullet wound to the head, played dead, and went an hid in the bathroom after his two friends were killed right next to him. It was too dangerous to remove the bullet, and he's since gone through life suffering permanent physical and psychological damage.
I mention all of this because I found out today that the one survivor of that horrible night died of an accidental prescription drug overdose this week and his funeral was today. His family and friends said he never recovered from that night, though he tried, and he was on medications to ease anxiety and other symptoms of PTSD and I assume pain medication since the bullet probably aggravated many things. He leaves behind a two year-old daughter and many family and friends, most all of whom were close to the other victims as well.
I wish there was something I could say, something deep and profound, but all I can think about is the emptiness I felt the night I heard of the deaths, and the sorrow that someone so young could be so full of anger at the world that he had to take two souls out, and now a third dies from the effects of one boy's actions. And that boy has lost his life as well. He was a black boy and his victims were all white, and if he had been just a year or two older, he'd be facing the death penalty, but he was spared by a Supreme Court ruling that effectively outlawed applying the death penalty to juveniles delivered not long before he pulled the trigger. As it stands, he will likely never be released from prison, and sometimes I admit I can't quite convince myself that's a bad thing for someone so broken - and the progressive/bleeding heart liberal inside of me cringes at those feelings. I know he'll never receive any sort of quality psychiatric counseling - not that anyone gives a damn because of his crimes. Hell, how would you even begin to fix this? It goes deeper than just murder. It speaks volumes about race, culture, and all those nasty little things we like to sweep under the rug or joke about being "too PC." Hey, it's almost 2010. Aren't we past this bullshit yet? No. Not by a long shot.
One day my son is going to ask me about the ugliness in the world and he'll ask me how it is one person's actions can destroy so many lives, and why there isn't more done to stop it. I'd like to think I'll have more to offer him than "I don't know," but I know I never will.
May all the families affected by that night find peace and a way to heal their pain, and may S finally find the peace life denied him.
There was a third young man there that night. I didn't know him, but I knew who he was from my yearbook and from a friend or two pointing him out in the past. He was sixteen at the time, and somehow he survived a bullet wound to the head, played dead, and went an hid in the bathroom after his two friends were killed right next to him. It was too dangerous to remove the bullet, and he's since gone through life suffering permanent physical and psychological damage.
I mention all of this because I found out today that the one survivor of that horrible night died of an accidental prescription drug overdose this week and his funeral was today. His family and friends said he never recovered from that night, though he tried, and he was on medications to ease anxiety and other symptoms of PTSD and I assume pain medication since the bullet probably aggravated many things. He leaves behind a two year-old daughter and many family and friends, most all of whom were close to the other victims as well.
I wish there was something I could say, something deep and profound, but all I can think about is the emptiness I felt the night I heard of the deaths, and the sorrow that someone so young could be so full of anger at the world that he had to take two souls out, and now a third dies from the effects of one boy's actions. And that boy has lost his life as well. He was a black boy and his victims were all white, and if he had been just a year or two older, he'd be facing the death penalty, but he was spared by a Supreme Court ruling that effectively outlawed applying the death penalty to juveniles delivered not long before he pulled the trigger. As it stands, he will likely never be released from prison, and sometimes I admit I can't quite convince myself that's a bad thing for someone so broken - and the progressive/bleeding heart liberal inside of me cringes at those feelings. I know he'll never receive any sort of quality psychiatric counseling - not that anyone gives a damn because of his crimes. Hell, how would you even begin to fix this? It goes deeper than just murder. It speaks volumes about race, culture, and all those nasty little things we like to sweep under the rug or joke about being "too PC." Hey, it's almost 2010. Aren't we past this bullshit yet? No. Not by a long shot.
One day my son is going to ask me about the ugliness in the world and he'll ask me how it is one person's actions can destroy so many lives, and why there isn't more done to stop it. I'd like to think I'll have more to offer him than "I don't know," but I know I never will.
May all the families affected by that night find peace and a way to heal their pain, and may S finally find the peace life denied him.
