Dear friends,
I am trying to sort through the myriad ways by which people put others in danger.
People in power have greater opportunities to sacrifice our safety for their own profit, comfort, or advantage, and thus they are a lot more dangerous than random individuals who are reckless at the expense of others.
But random individuals are dangerous enough. In December, a driver killed Carlos Garcia-Ramos on West 24th Street in Manhattan. Garcia-Ramos was delivering pizza on his bike, when he was struck from behind.
The driver who cops say struck and killed Carlos, Edgar Maeda-Luca, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Jan. 11 to the charge of leaving the scene, a felony that does carry a top charge of six years in jail, but rarely leads to significant jail time. [Carlos’s] siblings don’t understand why the driver was not also charged with the recklessness or carelessness or mere indifference that led to Carlos’s death, or for the alleged drunk driving, given that officers told them at the hospital that the driver was inebriated.
Horrific stories like this often ripple out to people in power who failed to use their power to protect us from the danger of being struck by a car or shot in the face while teaching.
The six-year-old who shot his first grade teacher is acutely disabled and had been accompanied to school daily, until the week of the shooting, by one of his parents. His mother, who legally purchased the gun, is understandably distraught for her child, his teacher, and their community. She may face charges for not securing her weapon.
Under Virginia law, it’s a misdemeanor if an adult leaves a loaded, unsecured firearm in such a way it could endanger a child under the age of 14. The statute also says it is unlawful for a person to unknowingly allow a child under the age of 12 to use a firearm.
Virginia lawmakers have failed to attach severe penalties for keeping unsecured firearms. Really, it should be a federal crime.
Only eight states plus Washington DC have legislation requiring secure storage of firearms and more than 4.5 million kids in the US live in homes with at least one unsecured and loaded weapon. The danger also ripples outward.
In incidents of gunfire on school grounds, up to 80 percent of shooters under the age of 18 got the gun from their home or the homes of friends or relatives.
Tell your Congressional delegation that we need federal legislation to protect ourselves and our children from unsecured weapons.
As for what happened to Carlos Ramos-Garcia, the failure among powerful people to take action is also stunning. The driver, Maeda-Luca pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and was released on bail.
The prosecutor never mentioned the allegation of drunk driving
or the fact that Maeda-Luca’s car had been slapped with six speed-camera violations and one red light ticket in the 17 months before the crash. In fact, city records show that he received a speeding ticket in Manhattan 20 minutes before cops responded to the 911 call of a man, Garcia-Ramos, dying on the pavement of W. 24th Street. The speed camera that nabbed Maeda-Luca was on 10th Avenue and 22nd Street, just two blocks from the crash site.
Nonetheless, I had to revisit a report from last month that 16,000 drivers have been caught repeatedly speeding and/or running red lights. Just over 1,000 of them have been notified by the city that they need to take the mandated safety course. Only 12 of the 370 drivers who have failed to take the course have had their cars seized, as the law stipulates.
Tell the mayor that we’re in danger and we expect traffic enforcement.
There are all manner of dangers, of course. Exxon knew that its climate change denial was a lie, and that it’s own research showed that climate impacts from the use of their product would endanger us — all of us. The company’s potential legal exposure as they are sued by several states does not concern me.
The Republicans who are playing chicken with the Administration over the debt ceiling, increasing the potential for economic catastrophe, do concern me. The Democrats are refusing to negotiate, which is the right move. That doesn’t mean that the Republicans should be excused for driving us all toward the edge of a cliff.
I thought of dozens of examples of what Roxane Gay has referred to as our nation’s
unwilling[ness] to protect and care for its citizens — its women, its racial minorities and especially its children.
Like most people, I’m not entirely sure what to do about them all. This one gave me chills. A Sudanese refugee who was employed by an Oklahoma meatpacking plant was killed by police, who apprehended him on the job, claiming that the knife in his hand — a work tool — was justification for deadly use of force.
Nearly 4,000 people died in the US from Covid last week. Here’s a thing you can do to keep yourself and others safe:
Get a booster if you need one and wear your mask.
Take care!
with love,
L