Tragedy and Justice

The father of a three-year-old Detroit boy who fatally shot himself in the head has been charged with second-degree child abuse...a 4-year felony.

Tragic. If you're a moral and rational person, I don't think there's any punishment that could be meted out that would be worse than the knowledge that your actions led to such a result. I'm not saying their shouldn't be legal consequences, but just think life would be literal hell and those consequences would pale against the guilt.

I don't normally post these types of stories. A week and a half ago, a few contributors sent me a link for "The Only Ones" files: a story about the New York police official's son who killed himself with his father's negligently stored pistol. My reply as to why I didn't want to post on that incident:

Yeah, I saw this last night and decided not to do an "only ones" feature on it just because of the nature of the poor kid and the horror his parents must be going through--maybe I'm copping out, but I wouldn't wish this hell on my worst enemy, and I've accused the other side of dancing in blood at tragedies--I just can't bring myself to use this story to my advantage.

I still feel that way. The only reason I bring it up here is to note that under similar circumstances, I see a citizen facing 4-year charges, but not the cop.