Friday, June 10, 2011

Crime and Punishment, the Short Version

I've been following a local news story. It goes like this: A guy wanted to borrow his friend's truck. The friend agrees to do it in exchange for some crack. Already you can guess this isn't going to turn out well. It doesn't. While driving the borrowed truck, the guy hit and killed a six year old boy. He didn't stop. He took off, ditched the truck, then called the owner of the truck. He told him the location of the truck and said to just get it and stay out of Troy (where the accident occurred) for a long time because the police would be looking for the truck.

Fortunately someone got the plate number. The police headed right over to crackhead truck owner's place. By then the story was all over the news so the truck owner flipped on his friend to get the cops off his case.

Here is where it gets interesting. The guy who hit the kid, Roy Sanders, stopped running. He turned himself in. Then he did something that is almost unimaginable:

Sanders pleaded guilty to all charges at his arraignment on an indictment handed up Friday that charged him with leaving the scene of scene of a personal injury auto accident without reporting it, a felony, and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, an unclassified misdemeanor. In most criminal cases, several months pass between an arraignment and a possible plea.

Sanders faces 21/3 to 7 years in prison when he is sentenced next month.


This whole thing is awful in every way but one. Roy Sanders did something bad and wrong, then took full responsibility for it. Tax money won't be wasted and the child's family won't have to deal with a drawn out, painful trial in addition to losing their boy.

I wish for hope and healing for all everyone involved here and I think Roy just did the very thing that will get that process started.

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