A Killer Walks Free

As we are all aware, a young man is dead.  He was an innocent young man, shot on a dark night.  And yes, the man who shot him now walks free.

Many of you are outraged, and I can understand why.  It does not seem justice has been served.  Sure, there was an investigation and publicity and tons of questions.  The media had a field day.  People protested and are still protesting the situation.

The perpetrator and the victim came from different backgrounds and were of different races.  Lots of questions remain regarding the motivation behind the shooting.  What were they both doing there on that dark night?  What really happened?  Some of the answers we will never know.  Some of the answers we do know. 

And now what is the role of the federal government?  We want the federal government to come in and take a really good look at what happened that night, and to bring the shooter to justice, but that just does not seem likely.

And I must ask, what good would it really do?  This is just one incident.  The real problem here is much bigger than this one killing.  And let’s face it, you cannot bring back the person who was shot.  Nothing that the federal government can do will bring back the dead to life.

The reason we want justice is that we want people to know that there are consequences, especially for taking someone’s life.  We want to see consequences for the shooter, certainly.  But more important we want consequences for the system that seems to want to brush this under the rug.

From the beginning it appeared that there was a whitewashing of what happened, a cover up if you will.  Government officials did not seem sincere in their attempts to bring the killer to justice.  Only after outcries and public pressure did they begin to listen to the public and take things more seriously.  Their initial story seemed a little weak, and it appeared they had no intention of bringing the killer to justice.

And here we sit, with a young man dead and his killer walking the streets and there is a feeling that justice has not been served.  I say the people need to keep up the pressure.  We need to hold our government accountable and see to it that justice is done and we get to the truth, because in the end if we do not demand that the truth be known our government will think it is not necessary.

We cannot solve the underlying problems behind this one incident by seeking justice this one time.  And I know that with all of the publicity and attention the issue has received many are weary of the discussion.  But we must keep up the fight and demand justice.  Every time.

Rest in peace, Chris Stevens.  (RIP all four).