Affluenza my a$$

[Kizmet]

Read the entire statement and you will understand:

Hollie and her daughter Shelby are friends of mine. I went to school with Hollie. When this happened, I went and stayed with her brother, Wesley Woods, for a week. This family has been through a torade of hell over the last couple of years. They lost the Father and then a short time later, the eldest son to Cancer.

I met Eric, Hollie's husband, for the first time at the Funeral in Rural Georgia. Just outside of Rincon. There wasn't much to say at the time, just support and assistance as I could. I scheduled the pall bearers, helped keep track of the miriad of things Wesley had to do to support his mother, who returned to Savannah Georgia when Hollie was killed. You see, Hollie and Shelby took care of the mother/grandmother for several years. Shelby would have finished up her RN degree in March of 2014. She wanted to help the elderly and practiced on her Grandmother.

Now Maggie, the matriarch of the family, is home in Savannah in a Retired living facility. She was devestated when she came home, as you can imagine. Her son Wesley, one of my best friends growing up, was now responsible for her care. Today, she is not doing so well. The horror of the last few years is finally wearing her down. She has early dimentia and as you can imagine, is pretty broken simply due to the loss of most all of her family. Wesley is stronger but he too has been worn down by all of this.

So, forward to 48 hours ago when the verdict happened in Texas. It was completely unbelievable for any of us to accept. I sent text to Wesley so he could let Eric and his remaining daughter Maggie, know that we were going to hit Social Media about this and that attention may be drawn their way if we were successful.

My son and I started placing posts on Facebook, asking all of our friends to share the links that we had to the information about this trial, including the Judges name and contact information to the Governor of Texas. I have watch social media draw crowds and focus anger and disbelief in the past, but I had never witnessed it first hand. Within a half hour, my son's post was well over 1500 shares. Mine had a lot as well but nothing like the shares he was bringing to bear on the family and perpretrator of the crime in Texas. We searched the internet for Ethan Couch about a half hour after we started this blitz and the entire first page of Google returns was about him. Within an hour, there were ten pages of returns on Ethan Couch. It was working.

For the last 48 hours, we have continued our blitz and people all over the world are now aware of the injustice that took place in Texas. Austrailia, England, Europe, all over the world. Here's one from England:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-hes-rich.html

Austrailia:

http://www.news.com.au/world/rich-ki...-1226781114284

Canada:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/affluen...-dui-1.2462273

I could go on and on with the links but this will do. So, how did he get off you ask, simple; big money. His father is very rich. He bought a defense of, now wait on it, "Affluenza" to the trial. The short of this is that the defense attorney convinced the Judge that the young man was too pampered to know the difference between right and wrong.

Nope, I can't believe it, and the family damn sure can't believe what happened. So, I guess we'll just leave it at that. I've worked for the Judicial System in this country for 20 years and this is the one that I just can't wrap my head around.

If any of you have participated in sharing this data from facebook, let me say Thank You.

Posted in the playschool forums:

http://discussions.playnet.com/showthread.php?t=433010

[Sniper62]

totally ridiculous, i agree! its all about money, if you have enough money you can get away with almost anything...look at all these celeberities that get into drugs and such and they get let off with a slap on the hand. But when some bum gets picked up for drug stuff he goes to jail for a long time.

this kinda reminds me of the movie Law Abiding Citizen...

[Pegasusbelgar]

I saw this on the news last week and thought it was pretty disgusting, but it just clicked when you mentioned the names Kizmet that it was related to what your family and friends have been going through and I am very sorry. Must be agornising to go through all this pain and to see he got off with probation after killing 4 people.

I dont use Facebook cancelled my account a long time ago but I do hope with public support that something can be done. We do have retrials in the UK if they feel the sentence was not fit for the crime. I hope you have something similar.