CONDITIONED RESPONSE
DA has odd approach to Alabama gun-toters
THERE’S a perverse humor in modernized, often politicized phrases.
For example, there are those who declare a new “zero-tolerance policy” on anything and everything from sexual harassment to cluttered workstations. But what was the previous policy, 11 percent, 14?
Then there’s “middle-class neighborhoods” and “working-class neighborhoods.” A middle-class neighborhood is one that mostly houses those who work for a living; a working-class neighborhood is one in which many unemployed reside. A middle-class resident who loses his job may have to move to a working-class neighborhood.
Then there’s “illegal aliens,” which, depending on point of view, becomes “undocumented immigrants,” as if the illegal aliens misplaced the documents they never had.
“Affordable housing,” of course, is built for those who can’t afford any housing.
And there’s “stray bullet,” as in “Stray Bullet Kills Stray Cat.” It’s as if stray bullets, after being fired, lose their way; they wander around until finally settling in someone’s kitchen or body. Fired intentionally, stray bullets often are confused as accidental bullets.
With that in mind, highly politicized debates last week raged about guns following the massacre of 49 people by a suspected radicalized Muslim in Florida. Despite FBI suspicions, Omar Mateen legally purchased a Sig Sauer MCX assault rifle — designed to kill as many humans, as opposed to moose or squirrels, as it quickly can — with which to commit the latest mass murder of the unsuspecting innocent.
But at roughly the same time as the Orlando massacre was being sorted out — bodies identified, loved ones notified, law enforcement explaining how Mateen slipped its grasp — Alabama’s football team and its legions of whatever-it takes supporters received great news that otherwise made little news:
Bama’s 6-foot-6, 330-pound star offensive lineman, Cam Robinson, and teammate Laurence Jones, a 6-2, 215-pound defensive back, would not be prosecuted, as per the decision of a Louisiana district attorney who apparently adheres to a selective-tolerance policy on crime.
Robinson and Jones were arrested in a car on a Tuesday at 2:33 a.m. in their hometown of Monroe, La. The police reported that they had marijuana — not the end of the world. But they also had two handguns, one in plain view, the other, stolen, was hidden — and either could’ve been the end of someone’s world.
But Ouachita Parish DA Jerry Jones de- clined to prosecute, citing “insufficient evidence.” However, his explanation to a Monroe TV station had nothing to do with “insufficient evidence.”
“I want to emphasize that the main reason I’m doing this is that I refuse to ruin the lives of two young men who have spent their adolescence and teenage years working and sweating while we were all in the air conditioning.”
Hmm. He did not say whether the car in which they were arrested had air conditioning.
Did it matter why they had guns, not to mention a stolen one? Did it matter how they got them? If the guns were “for protection” — a standard answer — protection from whom and why?
Was DA Jones concerned whether these guns would soon be en route to Alabama’s campus? Was he interested why a 6-foot-6, 330-pound college man would be in possession of handguns? Whatever these two were up to, it couldn’t have been good and certainly was illegal.
Are there people in Monroe or in Tuscaloosa who had worked and sweated at least as long as the suspects who deserve to have their lives threatened or ended by young men with guns, perhaps facing off against other young men with guns?
Maybe the two Bama players were in danger of being shot. If so, why and by whom? They had a stolen gun! Was there no crime trail to pursue?
But DA Jones didn’t want to get to the start of this, let alone to the bottom. He didn’t want to “ruin their lives.” So play ball!
Last preseason, the SEC mandated its full-scholarship student-athlete football recruits attend a seminar to explain that assaulting women, no matter what they previously thought or how they previously behaved, is wrong, even illegal. Who knew?
This season those seminars might include a little something about how the possession of guns, especially the stolen kind, should be avoided — even if DA Jones is good with it.
Or maybe Jones would have prosecuted such a clear-and-present danger and crime had the two played and practiced indoors, in an air-conditioned stadium.
This story also places a great burden on the SEC’s enabling TV networks — CBS, ESPN and ESPN’s SEC Network. After all, Robinson, according to ESPN, is perennial powerhouse Alabama’s best player. The telecasts will have to work extra hard to give this one a look-away pass.