Verdict in death of teen has resonance
This week it was reported that a toddler being treated at Texas Children’s Hospital had tested positive for measles.
It is the first case of measles that has been reported in Houston since 2013, and the child’s suffering made an impression on one of his nurses, who posted about his condition on a Facebook page called “Proud Parents of Unvaccinated Children-Texas.”
The nurse, who was subsequently fired, explained she had thought about swabbing the child’s cheek so that her own 13-year-old son, who is unvaccinated, could be exposed to the disease — presumably as a way of inoculating him against it.
That might make for a good column, I thought; I’m lucky to have the platform that I do, and I could use it to speak up for the value of herd immunity. Alternatively, though, I could use this platform to take Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to the woodshed for his ongoing efforts to exploit the murder of Mollie Tibbetts, a college student in Iowa who was reported missing July 19.
Her body was found last week, and authorities announced that the suspect charged in her slaying was a Mexican national who had entered the country illegally. Many Republicans heralded this news by blaming Democrats for Tibbetts’ death. Patrick, additionally, challenged television personality Geraldo Rivera to a debate over immigration — to be broadcast on Fox News and, ideally, moderated by Sean Hannity.
Patrick is running for reelection and had already refused to debate his Democratic opponent, Mike Collier, so this
was a direct insult to the Texas electorate — as well as to Tibbetts’ grieving family members, who had been moved to defend the Hispanic community.
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food,” Rob Tibbetts said at his daughter’s funeral Sunday.
Furor over firearms
I also considered using this column to discuss the opinion that state Attorney General Ken Paxton issued Tuesday, declaring that election judges who are licensed to carry firearms may do so at polling places. Granted, the previous evening, President Donald Trump had warned evangelical leaders about “violent people” on the left. But the fact is Paxton’s opinion could easily intimidate voters on both sides of the aisle, most of whom are armed only with the franchise.
The evangelical leaders who gathered at the White House should be ashamed of themselves, by the way; that was another thing I considered writing about for today’s column. The religious right has always been a political movement rather than a Christian one; that’s self-evident, at this point. The leaders who attended Monday’s dinner — like Robert Jeffress, the pastor of Dallas’ First Baptist Church — have sought to achieve political power rather than to evangelize.
Their devotion to Trump doesn’t surprise me. But it is troubling, at a time when so many Americans have clearly been whipsawed by various institutional crises and the failures of leadership they represent.
American Catholics, for example, are reeling from a Pennsylvania grand jury report, released two weeks ago, detailing the alleged abuse of at least a thousand children in that state at the hands of priests who were subsequently protected by the clerical bureaucracy.
They are in anguish in part because their church — an institution that has betrayed so many of its most vulnerable members — has also, for them, been a source of pride, solace and strength.
Many Americans, I suspect, can relate. In a sense, we’re all people of faith, but our faith is being tested these days, as John McCain suggested in his farewell statement, released by his office after his death Saturday.
“Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here,” McCain wrote.
In light of all of these events, I decided to use my column to commend the jurors in Dallas County who Tuesday convicted former police officer Roy Oliver of murdering 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in April 2017.
Edwards, who was African-American, was unarmed and defenseless when the white officer opened fire on the car Edwards and his friends were riding in after leaving a party in Balch Springs.
In Oliver’s telling, he felt he had “no other option” than to use lethal force, because he thought the driver of the car was going to run over his partner, Tyler Gross.
Body-camera footage suggested that any such fears were misplaced.
Gross, who testified at the trial, said he hadn’t been worried for his own safety.
Dallas officer convicted
Still, it’s rare enough for a police officer in America to face criminal charges over such a shooting — and even in this case, the jury could have opted to convict Oliver of manslaughter, if the members had doubts about his intent.
So the fact they convicted him of murder was shocking to observers in the courtroom, and across the country.
Such a verdict isn’t something to celebrate; it won’t undo the injustice inflicted on Edwards, or end the sorrow felt by his family and friends.
But it does reflect a moral clarity on the part of his fellow Americans, 12 of whom served on this jury — and the rest of whom might be heartened by the reminder that we, as a people, haven’t failed each other yet.
Still, it’s rare enough for a police officer in America to face criminal charges over such a shooting. … So the fact that they convicted him of murder was shocking.