What do you say to a criminal?

Thursday, May 17, 2007
What do you say to a criminal?


What to you say to a criminal that pushed the hand of fate and almost altered the path of your life? This is something Dan and I have been supposed to be working on for awhile, I thought we had until July 9th. Well I was wrong, we have until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning one of the "sunset six" as they are now called in the media is being sentenced and one is entering a change in plea. Dan has read the investigation completely and told me more bits and pieces of the events that night. I haven't asked lately but I wonder how often he plays it over in his mind? Thankfully I try not to think of it too often. Something will usually trigger it, a news story, a newspaper article, or someone will ask about it again. And of course today it was the phone call from the DA's office.
So what do you say to a person such as this. One thought was to tell them that they have had no effect on our lives...what a lie that would be!
My second thought and words that have been in my mind since the very night it happened are: "who do you think you are! what right do you have to endanger innocent citizens and law enforcement officers?
Of course I think the one thing that stands out to me as well is how selfish these young men are. They weren't thinking of anyone but themselves. So I hope they get a long sentence in prison so they will have many days to sit and ponder on their selfishness and where it has gotten them in this world. And perhaps if nothing else they will learn from that. The choices and actions that you make ALWAYS have concequences, whether they are positive or negative. They tried to take away the lives of numerous people that night and I am glad that our judicial system is able to take away their freedom for those choices they have made. I don't believe any leaninacy(sp) should be given to them, because heaven knows that had an innocent father who was just doing his job been taken away that night, no one was going to be able to "go easy" on the grief their family would endure for a lifetime.
Our family is very resilent(sp) and I think on most days has coped very well with this situation as it's been handed to us. There have however been buckets of tears cried and hours upon hours of lost sleep. Cell phone lines have been a buzz at all hours of the night so that a reassuring spouse could get the other through the night.
I am relieved that the beginning of the end is now upon us. This has been one of those life experiences that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy and hope and pray that no else you are close to ever has to go through it. I am not sure anyone will truely ever understand the feelings and emotions that this rollercoaster has put us through. I just hope that we both emerge better people afterwards.