CourtTV

For the last week or so, I watched the trial on CourtTV’s “In Session” show where a father was on trial for the brutal murder of his 15 year old son for the alleged rape of this man’s 3 year old daughter – the boy’s half-sister.  There was a lot of emotion over this from people calling in, tweeting, and on Facebook and, as a parent, I found the man’s behavior in this beyond heinous.  If you watched the trial, the defense tried to make the defendant appear to have committed a crime of passion and over a situation that the evidence says never happened as reported.  On CourtTV, those rabble rousing talking heads were stirring the pot, asking viewers questions like should something like this not be handled by the parents alone and generally asking what parents should do about such things.

I don’t condone what reportedly happened… but, yeah, it does happen.  It always has happened and even though we teach our children about such things, the cold reality is that it can still happen and for various reasons.  But this isn’t about what the dead kid did or didn’t do:  This is about how his father reacted.

As a parent, I know I’ve been pissed with my kids enough to even say to them, “I’m gonna kill you!” for whatever it was that got me that angry… and all three of them are still very much alive and well, thank you.  In this case, the father came to discuss the situation with his son – carrying a loaded weapon he was legally licensed to carry; then he beat the kid, made him strip and walk to a field and, with the boy and his mother begging for some sort of mercy, shot the child in the head – then calmly walked away as if nothing happened.

My thought about this is, okay, this is some bad shit and here are the options:

1. Talk to the “offender” and get him professional help
2. Talk to the “offender” then call the police and let them deal with it
3. Beat his ass, then get help or call the police
4. Beat his ass, humiliate him to let him know what it feels like to be a victim, then do #1 or #2

But that’s where it stops – it has to stop there.  Option #5 is not pull out your Glock and kill your child execution style.

This is a message to parents everywhere.  No matter what that child did to draw your ire, killing them is never an option.  You get mad, punish them, have them arrested and incarcerated to get them under control, send them to counseling for the rest of whatever but you just do not kill them or, worse, execute them – and then for something that can’t be proved in a court of law.

This situation was like watching a very bad car accident; you know you don’t want to see this but you can’t stop looking.  This dude got 35-80 years handed down this morning for second degree murder; the prosecution was going for first degree murder but even I think the jury split the difference here.  The prosecution implied premeditation in this horrendous crime but it wasn’t good enough to sway the jury; likewise, the defense just didn’t make a case for manslaughter – this was not a crime of passion.  If the father had walked in and caught the boy in the act, that’s different – and still not a killing offense.  But he had almost 12 hours to think about this situation and, to me, he planned to kill this boy.  Be that as it may, the jury decided what they decided and the judge, instead of following sentencing statutes, exercised his right to go beyond them and has sent this maniac to jail for a long time and, personally, I hope the guys who hate child killers have fun with him.  Sound bad but there is just no fucking excuse for killing your own child like the way he did.