If you check out the Tuesday (07/21/09) morning edition of the Lincoln Daily News, you'll see that even in the considerably small town of Lincoln, wild things happen on occasion.
The top pick on that day is a photo of a police investigation going on at Scully Park in the downtown area.
Go on to read the story and you'll see that it begins early in the evening, while I personally was in the downtown area at city hall attending the council meeting, and in came to an end shortly after I left there and arrived home around 8.
It appears by all accounts that this fellow, known as TATTOO went off the deep end, attempted an armed robbery at a residence in the area of Scully Park, but when his attempt failed, he walked a few doors down, knocked on a door, and the resident inside offered to drive him back to his home.
As this was taking place, the police arrived, and when they stopped the vehicle, the driver escaped, TATTOO baled out of the vehicle brandishing a gun, and the police shot him.
For a while it was uncertain whether or not it was a fatal shooting, but in the end, TATTOO is alive and is currently being cared for at a hospital in Springfield.
He underwent surgery for his wounds, but is expected to recover.
This is all very disturbing to me.
The Courier, which is a Gatehouse Publication, the local hard copy newspaper, and one that I am respecting less and less each day, reported on this on paper and on their gatehouse web site.
Gatehouse owns many, many of the small town papers in Illinois and across the country. Their website is generic in that it carries the same format for all their publications, and that format includes an opportunity for readers to log on and "blog" comments about the story they have just read.
I read their story, then I read the comments, which were many.
In the comments, the majority of the writers expressed remorse that the police had not killed his man.
They hate him, they want him dead, the resent the fact that the county will now have to pay his medical bills, go to the expense of a trial, and that his person will take up space in a prison.
The readers who wrote on the subject claimed that the police were not doing their job, that they were poor shots, and that their objective should have been shoot to kill. One reader/blogger said that the police were supposed to be trained to shoot to kill, and that our police department was obviously lacking in skill because this villain survived.
Others blogged accusations toward him of crimes he has committed with no evidence whatsoever. Obviously no evidence or he would have already been arrested and none of this would ever have happened.
What bothers me most about this vigilante mentality is the statement that the cops are trained to shoot to kill.
In response to that, yes they are trained to shoot to kill, they do know how to do that, BUT they are TAUGHT to spare life whenever possible. They learn that it is far better to wound and therefore temporarily disable a suspect rather than to instantly become judge, jury and deliverer of the death penalty.
What the police did was exactly as it should have been.
Those who are blogging that this man should have been murdered at the hand of the cops should stop and think about this. This man, 31 years of age is someones son, and I know for a fact he is someones father.
You see, I know this fellow. I met him a few years ago when I worked at Wal-Mart. He has actually been to my home when I had a garage sale in 2007.
He's one of the weirdest looking people you'll ever meet. He is tattooed literally head to toe, has piercing on his face including a bone like object in his nose, and he has a gold grill. He walks with a cane, wears long trench coats whenever possible, and has a passion for snakes.
He is a tattoo artist, and earns a portion of his living that way, and let me tell you folks, I'm not big on tattoos, but the man has remarkable talent.
But what is probably the most shocking thing about him is his demeanor when he's clean and sober, which is the only way I personally have ever seen him.
He is well versed, polite, respectful, soft spoken, and well mannered.
At Wally world, I was truly the only one there who had the nerve to wait on him. I one time spent nearly two hours with the man, helping him go through the photos of his work, and he was nothing but kind and decent when I helped him.
The other photo lab people would very nearly run when they saw him coming, because he looked like such a creep.
When he and his girlfriend came to our garage sale, Rich was home of course, and when they came in, we spoke, I told introduced him to Rich and he shook his hand and they stood a visited while his girlfriend checked out the stuff at the sale.
There was nothing about this man that screamed "I deserve to be shot and killed".
Now, I'll admit, I don't know what happened to this man that caused him to do what he did Monday night.
Rumor has it that he was doped up or drunk or both, and I would suppose there is a fair chance that is correct.
But that doesn't mean he should have died. It means that he needs help. He is a lost soul, someone who for whatever reason took a wrong turn and ended up in a very bad place.
In the end, he has suffered injury, he will go to prison, and perhaps a long dry spell will help him to turn things around, or it may make him worse, I just don't know.
But here is what I do know, he is a human being, as I said earlier someones son and someones father. He's not perfect, he's made some mistakes, but then again so have I, and so have you reading this, and especially so have the blogger's who wish him dead.
I hope and pray that those who wrote such cruel hateful words never have to deal with their own son, daughter, mother or father being in a similar incident, but you can bet that if they do, they'll have a very different attitude.
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