::daily thoughts and ramblings::things that get on my nerves

the justice system is messed up on all levels; local, state, and federal. there are plenty of innocent people in jail, and more importantly, lots of shitty, guilty people walking around free because they weren't convicted of crimes they committed.

first of all, there is absolutely no reason that ANYONE should be acquitted, charged with involuntary manslaughter (self-defense), or any misdemeanor for murdering or raping anyone. that is my stance, and i'm not going to veer from that. so, i'm kicking it yesterday, still trying to wear off the weekend, and one of my friends tells me that the parrish boys were charged with involuntary manslaughter and assault and battery in the shooting death of tahleik taliaferro. those charges were downgraded from first degree murder and attempted murder. (for those of you that have not been following this story, taliaferro got into a verbal altercation with joey parrish. [the rest of this is from what i understand from reading stories and following it on the news.] after the argument, the boys were going to fight it out, but i guess something happened and the parrish boys were feeling extremely threatened. [i say extremely threatened because there is no way i could go around taking lives if i didn't feel as though someone was going to take mine.] in the process of feeling threatened, while taliaferro was walking away, joey parrish's cousin, ethan, shot taliaferro and another teen. the parrish boys admitted to shooting taliaferro, but in self-defense because taliaferro "was going to kill them" during this fight that apparently they suggested.) so... explain to me this: you get into a argument with someone over whatever the hell, lets say a love interest. so post this argument, you decide you're going to duke it out, like some champs. and you've got your people there to back you up, and so does your opponent. but the difference between you and your opponent is the people backing you up are human beings, and your opponent's people are smaller in number, but they have semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns, something your people don't have. now let's be honest. if you had that much heat on you at one time, you had planned or were planning on putting a hot one in somebody. period. nobody carries that many pieces just to defend themselves. no fucking way. i don't get that. and more importantly: since when can you claim self-defense when you shot someone in the back of their head? why are you allowed to claim self-defense for shooting someone in the back of their anything? if my back is turned to you, especially if you see me walking, running, or somehow moving away from you unarmed, and you fucking shoot me in the back of my goddamn head, i do not understand how in the FUCK you can claim self-defense? let that guy kick the shit out of you, get a couple licks in, and make sure that you have his ass sent to jail. not to make it seem like its all the deceased fault, but if it were, from what i understand... he had a full ride to BC. if it were all his fault, and you just let him beat your ass, he would have lost that. completely. he would have lost out on 5 good years of his life. the most you would have had was the pain in the ass of filing the police report and whatever bumps and/or bruises you incurred from the fight. but NO joey and ethan parrish, you decided to take the "high road" and let your guns make your decision for you. it is NOT justice that you are losing 11-16 years of your lives, respectively, and tahleik taliaferro lost his LIFE. yea, his life. all of it. you take a life, you should lose your own.

so what is wrong with this? little picture says that the parrishes got off for a crime that they did commit. the bigger picture is that our justice system is fucked, mainly on the state level. this is not the first, but the second time that the commonwealth's attorney has either dismissed or accepted lesser charges for crimes that were blatantly murder. back in 2007, there was a shooting here in richmond, as a cause of a robbery. there is a law in this commonwealth that states that you may not use a firearm to protect property not belonging to yourself, so if someone comes into your place of employment and tries to rob you, though you feel that it is self-defense, you may not shoot someone to protect your place of business. that incident involved the robber being shot at and leaving the store and the store manager running out after him, which resulted in the death of the robber. being that i worked in that store, it did make me feel fine to know that someone who attempted to rob us at gunpoint wouldn't be able to repeat that, but it did make me very angry that the store manager was able to completely leave the store to run after the assailant and proceed to shoot him in the back and the sides, injuries that the robber died from, when he was clearly leaving the scene. that guy would have been caught because it was a sloppy job, and he would have caught quite a bit of time for armed robbery, and absolutely nothing would have happened to the store manager. but no, he decided to run after this man and take his life.

but there is a commonality in these stories.

considering the sentences that all of these men should have gotten, respectively, they all got nothing, respectively. nothing. in two years, two lives have been taken senselessly and all the men doing the taking got were slaps on the wrist, if that. i know in the latter story, by the end, all charges were dropped. so clearly that means that something(s) is(are) wrong with the justice system and maybe, just maybe, that's where the adjustments need to be made. in both situations, i pray that all of the people affected find solace and comfort in knowing that everyone will answer to something bigger than all of us. everyone. and i will continue to pray the strength of all the families of lives lost.

and now that all of that is off my spirit... i can't wait to get my next kiss. :)