Being a tragedy.....

Last night I caught a new episode of A&E's "First 48." It's a show about homicide detectives from different cities solving cases in the first forty-eight hours of a murder. Now the show is interesting because, a, it gives a face to a victim, that we may have read about in the local newspaper, b, if the murderer is caught, it lets us in to see some remorse or just hardened criminals getting future justice.

I first opined about this show some six or seven months ago, when the program was in Detroit. First, everytime they show Detroit, based off the first time I've seen them, I'm going to assume that the crime won't be solved. I have to admit that since then the detectives in Detroit shook off the fact that cameras were there, and did some police work and got criminals locked up.

Well anyway the City of Memphis was on stage and last nights case was about a mother of two being shot in her place of business. Apparently the woman and her husband were working in their tattoo parlor, when three young men, whom they knew, came in for tats. In exchange for cash, the men paid in xanex, due to some injuries the woman had suffered and she was apparently addicted to the pain killers. Well, the men had tats in mind, but not going with their part of deal and decided to rob the couple for the pills back. One of the boys took the woman in the back where the pills were and tried to get her to give back the pills, while another boy stayed with the husband. The woman according to one of the robbers fought and tried to get the gun away from him and according to him, the gun went off. Then the robber knew he had to kill the husband, but the gun jammed and they ended up hitting him with a fire extinquisher and fled the business.

The husband was able identify the young men and they were swiftly picked up, one of them was jailed during the day, so finding him was easy. The other three needed some work. One of the robbers/murderer lived with his mom and when detectives approached her about his whereabouts, she at first shied away and then came around. She inquired as to why the detectives were there and then said the most damning thing...

"I tell him to come in, I rather give him up to you, I don't want him to be no tragedy..."

The looks on both of detectives face was that of shock. Her son along with his friends took the life of a woman, with two kids and had not the gun jammed, be responsible for two deaths. But she's concerned that her son is going to be a tragedy if the police had to hunt him down. I give her one thing, she did call the detectives and her son did come in, tried to lie to the detectives and eventually gave up what happened.

You see, I understand her, the mother, saying she didn't want her son to be a tragedy, but what she doesn't realize is that the second the gun went off...a tragedy her son became. A woman's life is gone and two kids are going to grow up without their mother and angry! A husband lost the love of his life, and four mothers are going to see their boys either executed or spend the rest of their natural lives in prison, over some damn pain pills.

That's the tragedy....