Spare Me the Tears

Here's the story. A week ago, a 20-year-old drug-crazed zombie got into her car and went careening down the road. She smashed into two cars, each time fleeing the scene. When a Florida Highway Patrolman finally was able to arrest her, he handcuffed her and took her to a Pinellas Park FHP station. In her brain-befogged state she imagined a chance to escape. She bolted from the station out into the street.

The smoky, fearing that she was headed out into traffic, tased her. She went down, hitting her head on the pavement. She struggled to stand, said, "I can't get up," and lapsed into a coma. Doctors said it is unlikely she'll ever wake up.

This rant isn't about whether or not this is a tragedy. Of course it is. Rather, this is about who's to blame. You may draw the obvious conclusion, the common sense conclusion, the indisputable, unarguable, undeniable conclusion that it's the woman's own fault that she's a vegetable. In a black and white world you'd be right. Not so in our alternate universe, with its myriad shades of gray.

Come now the bleeding heart knee-jerks wringing their hands, beating their breasts, ripping their lapels, and wailing to the heavens, pillorying not the perp but the cop who arrested her.

"It just doesn't make any sense," said a University of Illinois professor of the tasing. "I don't see where it's going to be that hard to apprehend her."

Well, you weren't there, were you, Sparky? Let's suppose the trooper chased her instead of tasing her. Let's suppose that, during the chase, she ran out into traffic. Does he let her go, perhaps to be killed by a car, or does he follow her, risking his own life and limb? Easy to sit in your sheltered ivory tower in the middle of fly-over country and second guess, isn't it?

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted an independent review and thankfully determined that the trooper's actions were "legal and within the scope of his duties."

You would think this closed the case, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong, burnt flesh-breath! The perp's mom has hired a lawyer and intends to sue the FHP. And this brings us to the purpose of this post.

We need a law that will assign responsibility for a person's actions to that person. We need a law that says any death, personal injury, and/or property damage that occurs as the result of the commission or fleeing the scene of a crime shall be solely the responsibility of the person(s) found to have committed the crime.

A burglar whose ankle is crushed in a bear trap while he is trying to rip off a sporting goods store ought not to be able to sue the owner. An armed robber who loses a leg to a shotgun blast after sticking up a convenience store ought to be SOL. The family of a drunken driver who flees police at 100 mph down an Interstate and who ends up as splatter on a bridge support ought not to have recourse of any kind in the courts.

The irrefutable logic of this proposed legislation is quite simply this: If there had been no crime committed, there would have been no resulting death, personal injury, and/or property damage. I challenge anyone to put forth a cogent, coherent argument against this incontrovertible truth.

No parent is to blame for this stoner's condition. No teacher nor society as a whole, and certainly not the FHP. One makes choices and either reaps their fruits or suffers their consequences.

It's a shame she ended up in a vegetative state, it really is. But it's on her and no one else.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Keep the change.