MY LIFE - DECEMBER

Friday, December 8, 2000

I opened up today's paper and found a little bit of reason smashed in between a whole lot of nonsense. Anne Hetman was acquitted of vehicular homicide in the death of three year old Bria McCall in a case that should have never gone to court in the first place. For those who haven't heard about what's going on, McCall was hit by Hetman last summer in an accident that occured because little Bria was in the street. Hetman was not charged by police who indicated that Hetman had been driving legally and that led to outrage by the little child's parents.

They made the claim that the police weren't investigating the case properly because it was a black victim and a white driver, essentially bringing race into the mix. A grand jury would not indict Hetman with any charges, but the city law director decided to press charges anyway despite the fact that it would have been hard to get a conviction. Meanwhile, the McCall's said anything less than a long jail sentence would not be justice for Bria's death.

During the trial, the witnesses for the prosecution gave conflicting testimonry, made sarcastic remarks, rolled their eyes at both lawyers and the judge, and basically killed the case for the prosecution. That led to the father to say that he'd get his own version of revenge, a remark that doesn't exactly make it easy to feel sympathetic for the family. Extra security was placed in the courtroom despite Mrs. McCall saying to him that they'd just file a civil lawsuit (more on that in a moment).

The case never went to the jury. The judge dismissed the charges and basically criticized the prosecution and the law director for even allowing it to go this far. He also told the McCall's that they should realize that this was an accident and that Hetman had done nothing wrong and had not purposely hit the child, nor could she have reacted to avoid the accident.

Isn't that what I've been saying from the start though? Didn't I say that this was a stupid case from the beginning? I believe I have and I feel vindicated to this point that the court agrees with people like me who have a little bit of common sense. Yes, this is a terrible accident, but turning to revenge and the like is not going to change what happened. This family refused to accept that Hetman was truly sorry about this. They refused to believe it even though every time I've seen her face, she's had tears in her eyes.

This is killing her and she will forever be marred by this accident. Life is tough enough as it is without these emotional barriers. The McCalls will never be the same, but nor will Hetman. She has to live with what she was a part of. But that's never been enough and never will be enough. You know for sure that the McCalls are going to continue to pursue this until someone finally smacks them and tells them to wake up.

I still laugh when I think back to their comments. They claimed they hadn't made this an issue of race and that if anyone did, it was the Hetman family. Yet it was Charlean McCall who claimed that the police weren't investigating properly because the victim was black and the driver was white. She said those very words, yet she didn't make this an issue of race?

Now comes the possibility of a civil suit. This will backfire as well because then Charlean will have to answer questions as to how she could half an hour without knowing her child's whereabouts and what the child was doing in the street. There will be no ducking these questions as she's ducked them since the accident. She will have to answer them and face the tough reality that this happened because of a lack of proper supervision.

Those teenage kids can't be considered supervision. They let the child run into the street. They also can't agree if someone called Bria across the street or not. One teen says that Bria was called to the house, another says that wasn't the case. No matter what the reason was, Bria should have never gone into the street unattended. That's why this accident happened.

It wasn't negligent driving. It wasn't intentionally. It was a three old running across the street by herself without anyone really seeming to know what was going on. Charlean has no right to demand justice when she wasn't even paying attention to the child. One minute, she has no clue, next minute, her child's dead and she's claiming a crazy driver was responsible.

This civil suit will only make things more difficult for the McCalls, which is why they should just let it go and move on with their lives, as difficult as it may seem. Continuing to charge after Hetman will continue to be fruitless and make a hard life even harder for her to live. She's been tortured enough, so why should we continue to torture her further?

I'm just grateful that the judge had the reasoning to realize that this was silly. I hope that Hetman lives a better life and doesn't have to deal with this mess much longer. I hope the McCalls realize that this is just making a bad situation worse.

Good luck Anne.

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I haven't been feeling well again and my back's been tightening up on me also. I haven't said anything to anyone I talk to since it seems like most of them have more important things to deal with than my sudden fights with illness and my back's unwillingness to cooperate. It's been a day where my nose has not stopped running (no "catch it" jokes people) and I've had a headache. I did not feel like leaving at all today, even when it became clear that I was going to need something for my break tomorrow and the rest of the weekend.

I got myself together and went to my bank to pull some money because I get sick of trying to figure out all those damn card machines. They all work different ways and you always use it the wrong way or end up messing it up and look really bad in front of the cashier. Nothing like embarrassing yourself in front of an attractive cashier. Anyway, I pulled the money and went to Target because I needed some gloves. I can only take so much.

Then I went to Tops and bought some milk, some dinners, and some other junk to try and keep my sorry ass occupied for at least a little while. It doesn't usually work, but hey, it's fun to try. I bought some clementes (tangarines) which I pretty eat like candy. I like oranges, but these are small, easy to peel, and usually taste very good. So I was set food wise and I went home.

I went online and I got to talk to Pam, a person I've been talking to online for probably over two years now. She's going to school in Massachusetts and out of school lives in New Jersey. She's been a pretty good friend to talk to and she's told me some things about her personal life that I didn't expect to be told. But I've also told her things about myself so it's a give and take kind of thing. It's a really good friendship and we try to help each other out when we can.

Here's a picture:

She's an attractive one, isn't she? That's my opinion but this is just a friendship and is probably best at that right now, especially since we live far away and she's had someone special most of the time that I talk to her. I just thought I'd mention her as an ongoing thing to mention the people that I talk to on a regular basis. She may or may not be contributing an entry to this site. She's said she will, but I don't know if she'll have time. You'll know it if it happens though.

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This week's CHEERS and JEERS:

CHEERS to the judge in the case mentioned above involving the death of Bria McCall. Finally someone with some sense makes a good decision.

JEERS to the McCall family for threatening with further action, albeit violent or legal. Not letting this thing go is the worst thing they can do.

CHEERS to Cleveland Cavalier fans for realizing that we actually have a basketball team that's willing to play hard every day and scrap for wins. This team's 7-0 in games decided by five points or less and is in the hunt for first place.

JEERS to Browns fans everywhere calling for the dismissal of Chris Palmer as head coach. How can you open up the playbook when your offense consists of a quarterback who wasn't even on the team at the start of the season, a rookie running back, a depleted receiving corps, a depleted offensive line, and a defense that's been on the field much too long this season? He's doing the best he can with what he has. We saw how they played when healthy, so let's be patient.

CHEERS to the Box and other music television networks for showing Eminem's video "Stan" complete with all four verses. The fourth verse was cut out of "Saturday Night Live," but the song's not the same without the last verse where Eminem responds to his fan, Stan.

JEERS to all the heavy editing done to the video. We already know what he's saying and he's not even swearing. So cut out the heavy-handed editing of some of the lyrics. 6 million kids already own the damn album. If you don't want to hear it, change the channel.

One more note on this whole election mess. The Florida Supreme Court ruled in Al Gore's favor and said a recount must be performed on certain votes in certain counties. George W. Bush has vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which means this is only going to keep going on.

One more joke about any kind of chad and I'm going to beat that person to death with a butterfly ballot. That's the honest truth. I can't take it anymore.