This Tribe STILL Needs An Enema

I will not go on and on, just rambling away about how frustrated I am. But, let it be known, I am frustrated. I am embarrassed to be associated with some of these people. As you may or may not have known, or guessed, today was the annual tribal meeting. I usually try to hang in there to the bitter end, but today was too much. I got so disgusted I left. I'll say it again...This Tribe Needs An Enema. Might be just the Chief needs one because he really is full of shit.

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Enough! (I say that a lot, don't I?) Jury duty totally sucked. Now that it's over, let me fill you in on some details. There's some real crazy people out there and here's a little story about one of them. This dude, Mr. McKee, rented an X Box from Rent-A-Center. Then he pawns it for some quick cash. When it comes time for the X Box to go back, and it's still in hawk, he decides he needs to find another way to make some quick cash. So, he goes and picks up a dude he'd only known for a couple months, a Mr. Like (that's not how you spell it, but that's how it's pronounced, so that's how I'm going to spell it). An unsuspecting Mr. Like thinks they are going to go find a job where they can get paid in cash that day, like odd jobs for old people, or something. Mr. McKee is driving and he takes them to the park where he says he wants to take a look at the river to see how it looks for fishing. They drive through River View Park and come across a 60 year old woman, Ms. H. She's sitting in her truck, eating a sandwich she'd gotten at Nott's. Mr. McKee pulls up, gets out and pretends to be lost and asking for directions. Mr. Like is sitting in the car, where he does nothing, possibly the biggest thing he did wrong. After giving the guys directions, Mr. McKee hauls off and punches Ms. H in the face. Twice. Then he opens her truck door and pulls her out of the truck by her ankles. The whole time she's telling him she doesn't have any money. When Mr. McKee gets her out of the way, he grabs her purse, which was beside her in the truck, runs back to the car and speeds away. Mr. Like is scared and doesn't know what to do and keeps telling Mr. McKee to stop. They only get a few miles down the road before they meet up with the cops. Seems Ms. H still had her cell phone and called 911 immediately. We got to listen to the 911 call and Ms. H was still on the phone with the 911 operator when the suspects were down on the ground. All in about 5 minutes.

Now, those weren't all the details, but the main part of the story. The extent of Ms. H's injuries were actually pretty severe for only being punched twice. It shattered her orbital bone, broke three teeth, caused permanent hearing loss in one of her ears and nerve damage to her eye. She's had to undergo a couple surgeries already and this was only nine months ago.

We found Mr. Like not guilty. Not because we felt he was totally innocent, but because we felt he was not guilty of what he was charged with. The other guy, there was no question, he was guilty. We found him guilty of course, but the hard part was deciding on a sentence. We ended up giving him 20 years. After MUCH deliberation. If this had been his first offense, we would have been more lenient. But, he'd been in prison before, and he is only 26. The other guy, Mr. Like, is only 19 and had only turned 19 twenty three days before the incident.

Since Thursday, I've thought an awful lot about Mr. McKee and Mr. Like. Hoping and praying that Mr. Like is taking his second chance serious, not taking advantage of his freedom. Hoping and praying that he learned something and that he will pick and chose his friends a little more carefully from now on. Then there's Mr. McKee. How should I feel knowing that I am partly responsible for taking 20 years of this young man's life away from him. I realize that he is ultimately responsible for his actions and he is paying the consequences of his actions. But I had a part, I felt like I had his life in my hands. That wasn't something I took very lightly and I don't want to feel that again. I never knew it would hang with me like this.