Arthur Thompson's blog

Sean Taylor, Meet Rae Carruth.....

I doubt that anyone reading this post actually subscribes to ESPN the Magazine, but if you do, then you have seen the cover story this month  about how scared the NFL players are of citizens and criminals and the extraordinary precautions they take for security.  Ha...ha...ha..ha...ha!....I'm dying here.  That is sooooo funny my stomach aches!  Really, stop, your killing me.

This is supposedly a result of the incident last year in which Sean Taylor, a player on the Washington Redskins, was shot and killed during a burglary/robbery at this home with his girlfriend and child in the house with him.  DURING THE SEASON.  He was home in Miami during the bye week when several young men broke into the house and he ended up confronting them and getting shot.  He died of the gunshot wounds.  He had an alarm system in the house but it wasn't activated.  The house had been broken into just nine days before and burgled as well.

It was an awful and tragic crime, he was a victim of black on black violence.  I don't know the neighborhood but am told it wasn't the best.  You have to feel sorry for him and the family that this happened.  The young men that shot him did not know who he was.  Again, this was terrible and unfortunate for Sean and his family.

But to associate this with paranonia over security of NFL players is laughable.

The NFL has a long and terrible history of violence against US, that's right, US.  The fans, friends and relatives of NFL players have much, much more to fear from them than they do from us.  Seriously, these oversized, steriod injecting criminals do far more harm than is done to them.  Lets start with a body count: 

NFL players killed: (2)  Sean Taylor  Washington Redskins

                                  Darrent Williams  Denver Broncos

NFL killers (3) victims (6):  O J Simpson  (2)  Nicole and Ron

                                        Rae Carruth  (2)  Seven months pregnant                                                  girlfriend

                                        Ray (the knife) Lewis two hairdressers                                         after SuperBowl

And that's only the ones I can recall off the top of my head.  Should we all get state of the art home security systems if your city has an NFL team?  I guess so.  Rediculous!

And let's not forget the other acts of violence.  These are waaay to numerous to list.  NFL players routinely go out for nights of drinking, fighting, raping, theft, soliciting, etc....  There are at least two players that have been arrested the very night prior to playing in the SuperBowl. 

And if you added college football to the list, there isn't enough space in the internet to list the football players and their crimes.  Most of which get thrown out or dismissed, or acquited, much like O J and Ray.  Dead is still dead.

These guys start by beating people up in grammer school and never stop as they go through high school, college and into the NFL.  The drinking and drug use as they get older doesn't help.  Few players drafted by the NFL teams have a clean rap sheet.  Most have violations and arrests somewhere along the line.  And they fear US?  Like I said, that is patently absurd.  They go looking for trouble, looking for situations that might escalate into violence.  I don't and I don't think most of their fans do either.

Wake up ESPN, you are out of touch with reality.  You and the NFL both need to grow up.

Taking Down The Post....

I am going to take down the post I put up about my son's fighting.  I had a chance to talk to him and it turned out I didn't have all the facts.  I knew that was a risk when I posted it, I even mentioned that the information I presented was all I knew, but it was incomplete and the parts missing were key.  The first thing missing from the second hand description I heard was that our kid was not the aggressor.  He punched in response to a shove, not just words, but a hand on the chest and push.  Not exactly a punch, but it was designed to instigate a fight.  So be it.  The other information that was missing is equally important.  The two guys had run across each other before on that same night and were already at the stage where they were pissing each other off.  The incident wasn't rash and spontaneous, it was brewing.  The fight was quick and over.  I spoke to him about the dangers that exist when you get involved with an unknown someone after drinking.  I haven't changed my view on fighting or bullies.  I detest both.  But that wasn't the case here. 

I think that part of the problem I had in this case is that I want my kids to listen to what I say and avoid some of the situations that I have had to go through.  I had my share of fights when I was young.  And I realised as I spoke to him that my last punch throwing fight was at age 22.  He is still 21.  I would sure like to spare him the ordeal of learning the hard way that someone can always fight better than you think they can.

What Was He Thinking?

One day in April of 1993, 17 yr. old Carmen Tagliere III and a buddy were racing some friends to school in his car along the roads of Colorado.  While trying to get around one vehicle, he almost ran the guy off of the road with a very deep drop off of the shoulder down to a rocky bottom some thirty feet below.  Vern Smalley, the driver of the vehicle became incensed over the incident and sped up to take the lead again just as the two vehicles were approaching the freeway on ramp.  Instead of getting on the freeway, Vern, 52, pulled off the road onto a turnout and waved the high school students to follow.  Vern was really going to let the kid know what he thought of his driving that morning.  Carmen obliged, turned off as well, parked ahead of Vern, left his passenger in the car and got out to confront Vern.

Carmen came charging back to Vern's vehicle, angry and frustrated.  Vern was upset and annoyed.

When I first heard this story, I was in Colorado and knew the area, knew which high school the kid went to, knew where the other guy had worked, was familiar with most of the details.  What do you think at this point?  My first thought was: teenage high school students drive like idiots the world around.  So what?  Did Vern really think he was going to set the kid straight just by lecturing him on his poor driving habits?  And what about Carmen?  What was he thinking?  Was he going to yell at the old guy and tell him to get off the f---ing road! cause he wanted to drive by and race his buddies?  It struck me that neither party had a rational plan in place and that therefore there wasn't really a reason to pull over and engage further with each other.  But they did.  Couldn't Carmen have just gone on to school?  Couldn't Vern just taken down the plate number and called the police and complained?  Of course they could have, but they didn't. 

According to his testimony, Vern pulled his loaded .357 S&W revolver out of the glove box and put it in his lap until he determined that Carmen did not have a weapon.  Carmen charged up to the car and immediately began punching Vern in the face and side of the head, breaking his glasses and possibly knocking him out.  Then he walked away from the car.  Stopped, and returned.  This time he climbed halfway into the car through the open driver's side window and began punching Vern again.  Only Vern had slumped over to the right, the passenger side and for Carmen to keep hitting him, he needed to get halfway into the car.  Oops.  The gun went off, although Vern isn't saying if it was deliberate or not, and tore a hole in Carmen's chest through the left lung and the major artery coming from the heart.  He left the car, staggered off toward his vehicle, collapsed, and died.

Now what do you think?  Fault?  Blame?  Terrible tragedy?  Hot headed kid meets vigilante Charles Bronson wannabe?

Turns out neither party was exactly a saint.  Vern turned out to be a retired Air Force officer that decided to engage with the kid that day for whatever reason.  The kid turned out to be an angry bully, kicked out of schools, malls and with a police record for threatening to kill other students.

Regardless, Vern was charged with 2nd degree murder, manslaughter.

My point with this story is that you never know who you are dealing with when you meet someone, some random stranger, under whatever circumstances.  He could be a student in a hurry that was running late and just wanted to get to class.  Vern could have been someone like me that doesn't drive around with a loaded revolver on his way to work, or shopping, or wherever he was headed.

So when my son decided to take a poke at some mouthy stranger that threw a slur toward him on Halloween, he was, in my opinion, making a huge mistake and taking an enormous risk with his life.  The other guy could have easily beat the snot out of him, or had his friends do it for him.  He could have pulled a knife, as happened at one of the S.F. Giants games over the summer, and stabbed him dead on the spot.  Or a gun.  Dead is dead, doesn't really matter how.

And here's the point I want to make to him.  No matter who ends up injured or dead, the fault and legal responsibility always rests with THE ONE THAT STRIKES THE FIRST BLOW.  If he wins the fight or kills the other guy, off to jail he goes, if not, then he dies and the other guy goes home.

Vern Smalley was acquited of all charges and sent home, he didn't spend a single minute in jail.

Son, defend yourself...yes.  But be the aggressor and throw the first punch?  NEVER.