You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Shooting a man to watch him die.
This ain’t’ a Johnny Cash song – This is real life.
And life just got real ugly in the heartland of America.
DATELINE: DUNCAN, Oklahoma.
Christopher Lane, a 22-year-old Australian was living in the small town. He was reportedly here in the USA on a baseball scholarship.
According to published reports, Christopher Lane was jogging.
He wasn’t wearing a hoodie or buying skittles. He was just running.
That’s when a couple of teenagers decided to shoot him in the back.
“He was a victim of random violence,” the police chief said.
The victim of random violence?
That’s horse crap.
He was the victim of hate. He was the victim of ignorance. He was victim of a society that is crumbling all around us.
According to published reports, three teenagers, ages 15,16 and 17 spotted him, then jumped in their car and followed him. Then they reportedly pointed a gun at the Australian and blasted him.
“They just wanted to see someone die,” the Chief said.
They just wanted to see someone die?
Did he just say that?
It’s said with the nonchalance of someone asking for a cup of coffee.
“Yes I’ll take cream and sugar with that. And, oh by the way, they just wanted to see someone die.”
Everyone can kiss my ass!
Are you outraged yet?
You would be if someone threw a sack full of cats out of a moving car. You would be if someone shot a dog just to see it die.
Well get outraged. This is a human being. This is a 22-year-old man who was visiting our country on a baseball scholarship.
Someone in the United States of America, a person who represents our nation, pulled out a gun and shot this Australian.
“Because they wanted to see someone die.”
It’s repugnant.
It’s certainly not very neighborly is it?
If guilty of this heinous crime, I hope we get to see them die too.
Sadly, and eye for an eye doesn’t necessarily work.
It punishes the families of the punks, and even the families of the victims.
It’s hard to know if it sends a message of deterrent to future offenders.
I know it sends a message to the tax payers that they had better get ready to open their wallets for a very long time.
I’ve seen a man die. It’s not all its cracked up to be.
There is no slow motion last gasp of breath like a Clint Eastwood movie.
There is no Ennio Morricone instrumental to heighten the cinematic expiration of life.
What really happens? I think the sphincter and bladder relax and the victim soils himself.
It’s not good.
I watched a man die in Greenville, North Carolina.
I was in the back of a police car working a gang story. We had intel that something was going to happen. The streets were hot, the mood was angry, I was playing a hunch.
As if on the cue, the scanner crackles to life that there has been a shooting on West 5th Street.
My first son will be born in Pitt Memorial Hospital just a short drive from this location. I think of that as we race to this emergency traffic in the heart of the hood.
I’m in the back seat of the squad car with a bad ass Sgt named CJ Hardy.
Lights activate and the pedal hits the floor.
We are flying through dark angry streets.
I remember seeing CJ’s face in the rear view mirror. He had a long scar from a knife fight on his cheek. The violence he had seen and the violence we were racing to was not lost upon me.
The squad car screeches to a halt and we hop out.
The scene is chaotic.
Squad cars are arriving and blue lights are reflecting off the little homes lined side by side.
It was 1992 but I still remember it like it was yesterday.
I hear a woman wailing.
My baby. My baby.
She is a big black woman. She collapses like hope lost into a man’s arms.
I look down and I see a lifeless teenager on his back. I almost stumble over him.
I will later learn that someone put a bullet in the back of his skull.
I am standing 2 feet from him. I am staring at him, just staring at him. I am there before the paramedics arrive, before the scene can be cordoned off.
It is raw, it is real, it is life and death.
I think the kid’s name was Rasheeba Summerall, but I couldn’t swear to that now. He’s one of a thousand dead kids I’ve covered in my career.
But this was different. This was close. This had a stench, a raw energy to it.
It was horrific like biting down on tin foil with an absessed tooth.
This kid couldn’t have been dead more than a minute. He was warm, still wearing that look of surprise on his face.
Some of the chaotic moments have dissipated. But I will never forget the color of the blood oozing out of his lifeless body. It was the color of red wine. It was thick like syrup. The street lights painted the scene an eerie orange.
I stood very close to his body as the blood oozed around him. It was a trickle, then a stain, then a puddle, filling in the asphalt void around his head and his shoulders.
I remember watching his blood puddle expand, feeling helpless, wishing I could resuscitate him. He was dead. He probably never saw it coming.
Just wanting to see someone die is not a good enough answer for taking another human’s life.
The death of this Australian man, who was simply jogging, here on a baseball scholarship, should anger all of us.
What kind of world is it when teenagers decide they will follow someone and shoot them in the back to watch them die.
It’s disgustingly sad. it’s ridiculously heinous.
And I dare say that we haven’t heard the end of this.
Facebook is all ready alive with the twinges of racism that scurry out of the darkness when times are at their worse.
The victim was white. At least 2 of the suspects are black.
Those angered by the marches for Treyvon Martin are all ready making noise, questioning when Al Sharpton is going to march for the dead Australian.
The suspects have been arrested. If they are guilty they will go to jail.
That’s about all the system allows for. If they are found not guilty, then I can promise you, another Crazy Rant will appear in this space.
Sadly race shouldn’t play a role in this abortion, but it probably will.
For now, I’m disgusted by the callous disregard for life, white or black.
“Because we wanted to see a man die.”
That sentence should repulse every single person on Earth.
Life’s Crazy™