Oct

15

Terrorism from Within

I attempt to stay away from politics when it comes to my web site and my blogs. I’ve made an exception but not for the purpose of endorsing one candidate or another. My focus is to ask all to take a look at shattered lives that are the result of a crumbling infrastructure at home. We spend billions on two war fronts, preach fear from outside our boarders but miss the fact that the war we may be losing is not the one thousands of miles away but the war within.

We’ve lived through a period where fear and hatred was turned outward – to countries we do not understand and this vague war against terrorism that can’t be clearly defined in a way that all agree except through preaching fear and the need for safety from the villains across the seas bent on destroying our country and democracy in general.

What happened to also taking the time to protect our own at home and also reach out to others around us rather than hiding behind that thin veneer we call civilized society, unwilling to take action. While focusing on that fear abroad, we’ve failed to protect families living within our boarders, we’ve somehow misplaced our compassion and caring for our neighbors living just up the street and we’ve somewhere along the line moved more and more towards a group of pessimists unwilling to look with hope into the future, content to complain about what is being done to us.

It is time we opened the door to our neighbors, stepped out with hope and begin the process of rebuilding our own infrastructure. I would like to share a true story from a friend and his wife regarding the senseless loss of their son in a random drive by shooting and for the sole reason he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The media was too busy with stories about what we should fear from abroad, what Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears were doing yesterday and other chatter that more and more replaces what use to be real news. The media didn’t have time to at least recognize that a wonderful man’s life had been stolen, leaving his wife alone and his young child fatherless.

After my friend shared his family’s story, an article finally appeared in the newspaper that touched on the life that was lost and how special that son was. Up until that point the police had little to go on and were overburdened with other cases that seemed more pressing. Following the publication of the article, though, the police began to receive calls regarding the murder that, per the assigned detective, could be promising leads. This is a sad statement. No one was willing to come forward before it became news because of fear, lack of interest – who knows what.

I can be hopeful that this family and the murdered son can find justice. I guess I can also be hopeful that Americans will start to rebuild the America that is deteriorating from within, an America that represents the values this country was built on. Sensationalism and politics turning our heads away from the journey we all need to take is getting very old. Here is their story…

Our Story

We were awakened by a call shortly after 1 AM on Sunday, August 31. The caller identified herself as a neighbor of our son and his wife in St. Louis. She said that our son had been involved in a terrible accident and that his wife needed us to get there as soon as possible. Having been asleep for less than two hours, I struggled to understand what was going on. I asked for more details, but the neighbor said she had to go. Within a few minutes, my wife and I were packing our clothes and collecting the belongings that we thought we might need for the next few days. We woke our oldest son and told him the news. We were ready to leave the house when I called my son’s wife’s cell phone to get more information. She told me there was no rush in getting there, “My husband has left us.” She cried and could not say anything more. My wife and son broke down immediately when I shared the news. I was strong; I knew I had a mission to get us to St. Louis safely and that wouldn’t happen if I allowed my emotions to kick in.

The five hour drive to St. Louis was painfully long and silent. My wife and I felt sick and we had to stop at every rest stop along the way. During the drive we discussed the various scenarios that might have happened. We had figured that he was in an automobile accident coming home from work. Our son worked at the St. Louis airport. His shift usually ended around 1:30 AM.

We arrived in St. Louis just after dawn. As we drove down the street approaching the house, my wife spotted some yellow crime scene tape that had been left behind. As I pulled closer to the house we both spotted blood in the street and the disposable rescue equipment that had been left behind. It hit us hard.

We went inside and we both broke down and cried as our son’s wife explained what had happened. She just couldn’t make herself tell us by telephone. Once I regained my composure, I went outside with a plastic bag for garbage, a scrub brush, a bucket, and a bottle of bleach. I did not want my son’s death to become some freak sideshow for the neighborhood. Nor did I want any other family member to have to see what we saw. I put the disposable CPR mask, gloves, paper towels, and the other trash left behind by those who tried to save my son’s life into a plastic bag. I then got down on my knees and scrubbed the remaining blood from the street. The firefighters that were responsible for cleaning up the crime scene after the detectives were finished had done a sloppy job. Soon after I finished, my son’s wife’s parents arrived.

We all sat for hours, numb. No one was telling us what was going on. Where was his body? When will we get to see him? What’s next? Is there any new information in the case? Finally, I called the homicide detective. It was 16 hours after my son had been taken from us that a detective called me back. Few details and no leads in case.

Two hours later another detective called. He was going to have the car returned to the house. He told me something I didn’t realize, the police don’t clean the car when they are finished. Cleaning the car was our responsibility. I asked him not to bring the car back to the house. It was too soon. We could not bear to see it. I begged him to give me until Monday (Labor Day) at noon. I would arrange to have someone else pick up the car for cleaning.

My son had gotten off work early. He sent his wife a text message that he was stopping at a grocery store to get what they needed to make martinis and a carton of eggs for breakfast. My son’s wife was on the living room floor playing with their daughter. Around 12:40 AM, my son’s wife heard some loud voices then a “pop, pop, pop.” She looked through the cracks in the window blinds and saw a white vehicle speed away. She went outside with her daughter and saw her husband slumped over in the front seat of their car. She heard neighbors’ voices screaming, “Call 9-1-1!”

Neighbors came out to see what had happened. Two houses away lived a St. Louis firefighter. He worked to save my son’s life. Because my son’s pulse was fading, the firefighter knew he may have to give him CPR. With help from another neighbor, my son was lifted from the car and laid on the street. Neighbors held my son’s wife back and wouldn’t let her see what was happening. She yelled, “I love you!” The firefighter told us that our son squeezed his hand twice. That was our son and daughter-in-law’s private way to communicate nonverbally. My son’s pulse stopped so the firefighter began CPR. Within a few minutes the paramedics arrived, but it was too late.

My son’s wife was not allowed near her husband. She wanted just to touch his face or his hand one last time. The next time she saw him was when she had to identify his body in the medical examiner’s van. The police taped off the crime scene and later towed the car away to the crime lab. The detectives talked with her and then left. My son and daughter-in-law had moved to St. Louis in May. They didn’t have any family or close friends living there. For the next four hours, she sat by herself holding her daughter until we arrived.

French Avenue is a one way street in an older neighborhood. There are no driveways so people park in the street. Often, getting a parking space requires parallel parking. If you’re not used to that kind of neighborhood, you probably don’t expect cars to be backing up on the street.

Our theory is that our son was backing up to parallel park when the passenger(s) in the vehicle behind him yelled at him for backing up. Our son with his window open (doesn’t like to run the air conditioner in the car), may have yelled back that he was trying to park. His left arm was on the steering wheel while his right arm was behind the back of the passenger seat as he maneuvered the car into the parking spot. Before he could put the car in first, the white vehicle behind him drove up beside him and the shooter fired three shots into the left side of his body. All three were direct hits into his heart and lungs. The shooter must have had a steady hand; he was a cold blooded killer.

Originally, the detectives were questioning my son’s habits and his past. They were looking for anything that may have caused a person to seek revenge. It was hurtful to the family. It took until Wednesday night when the detective returned to the house and told the rest of the family present, “Your son was truly an innocent victim.”

Tuesday we went to my son’s work. We met with the Human Resources department. On Monday night, my wife said, “I pray that our son did the right thing and signed up for life insurance.” He did the right thing. He signed up for $50,000 worth of life insurance. Unfortunately, the policy would not take effect until September 1. When the Human Resources manager told us this, my daughter-in-law’s father lost it. My son had died 23 hours before his policy would be effective. We pleaded with them to talk to the insurance company and ask for an exception. My daughter-in-law’s father and I decided not to mention this to Jamie. We knew she would be devastated. (It’s been a week now. I followed up today. No news.)

Wednesday was moving day. There was no way that my daughter-in-law and granddaughter could stay in St. Louis. There were no friends or family living there. My daughter-in-law had no job; she was only there for her husband. We agreed not to do any packing until she had left. Her sister was taking my daughter-in-law and granddaughter back to our home where they would move in with us. She had not been out of the front door of her house since the shooting. It took until three in the afternoon before she left. Once she was on her way, we started packing. My daughter-in-law’s father and I went to get a U-Haul truck and trailer for towing their van.

Wednesday evening, my wife and my daughter-in-law’s mother went to a neighborhood meeting which had been previously scheduled. My wife addressed the crowd gathered there. She held it together as she gave a brief description of what had happened. Many of the people attending the meeting had not heard about our son’s murder. It never made the news. None of the local newspapers, TV stations, or radio had mentioned the shooting. Our son’s murder was referred to by the police as homicide #119. Finally, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran the following story on Friday, September 5, five days after his murder:

09/05/2008

Police and residents of a quiet neighborhood south of Carondelet Park do not know who killed a 23-year-old man or why he was fatally shot over the Labor Day weekend.

He was shot three times in the side of the chest about 12:40 a.m. Sunday inside his car in the 3700 block of French Avenue, police said. He had just returned home from a late shift at work, police and neighbor friends said, when he was shot as he was parking his car in front of his house.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Neighbors heard a brief argument, followed by several shots and the sound of a vehicle speeding away, police said.

Before the weekend shooting, the neighborhood of Boulevard Heights had only one reported incident involving a gun — an assault — this year, according to police statistics. Violent crime has been similarly rare in past years, statistics show. Residents on the block said occasional car break-ins and thefts tend to be the lone issues.

Some neighbors theorized that because a new housing development was going in only a few blocks away, property values might drop if his story was told. Also, the mayor lived in the neighborhood and might not want the story publicized. We don’t know if that’s the case, but the police have asked us not to go public with our story until they have had more time to pursue leads.

We worked late into the night packing and loading.

My wife and our daughter headed back to home on Thursday morning in order to go with our daughter-in-law to meet with the funeral director. It rained almost the entire day. How fitting. It poured rain on us just three months earlier when my wife, my daughter-in-law’s father and mother and I moved my son and his wife out of their old apartment for their new life in St. Louis. We finished packing and cleaning the house Thursday at 9:00 PM. As soon as we left St. Louis, the rain stopped. We arrived home at 2:12 AM Friday morning.

We had a visitation for our son on Friday evening. It was the first time we saw him since we had gone to St. Louis a couple of weeks ago to visit. It was our son, but then again, it wasn’t. It was completely surreal. Saturday we held a memorial service for our son. The church was standing room only. One by one, people stood up and shared their stories about our son. One common thread that I heard was that our son had an ability to make people feel good about themselves.

My daughter-in-law asked if I would read a romantic letter that my son wrote her shortly before they got married. I was the best man at their wedding so I felt it was appropriate. As my wife, her parents and I packed their belongings, we experienced first-hand the many expressions of their love for each other. He was far more romantic than me.

This is not the whole story. There is so much more. But this does give you some insight into what happened and the challenges still facing our family.

My professional career has been about helping others with their problems. I am a troubleshooter. I fix things. Unfortunately for my wife, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter this is one problem I cannot fix.

People ask if there is anything they can do. Pray that the police will find who took our son away from us so they can’t do this to another family. Pray that the hearts of the insurance company executives will be touched by our story and that they will do what is morally right. Please pray for our families so that we can somehow find the strength to get through this.