It is early morning you had just returned home from the firing range to put your guns away before heading uptown to a nearby department store. You didn’t pay a lot of attention to that vehicle that looked almost exactly like yours that just sped by. Just like you didn’t notice how similar you and its driver were dressed. You were however in a complete state of shock when you found yourself surrounded by police vehicles all with lights and sirens blaring away. You were even more confused when they ordered you out of your vehicle and to lay face down on the wet pavement with guns drawn pointing dead at you. You didn’t know what to think when an elderly gentleman stepped out of a patrol car pointing at you saying yes that’s him. You found yourself speechless when they read your rights asking if you understood them then announcing that you are being charged with double murder. You tell them it is a mistake you have done nothing wrong. When you are booked in jail the crime scene investigators come to swab your hands for gun powder residue which you test positive for of course. You explained that you had been out at the gun range. While sitting in jail you learn that two people had just been robbed and killed by a person seen driving a vehicle just like yours, by a person that looks and is dressed a lot like you. Still, you feel it will be ok because you know you didn’t do it and they will learn the truth. Meanwhile, the story has made the news, your picture is on the front page of your local newspaper and the top story on your local news channel is telling the story of the two innocent people you are charged with robbing and killing. They say that you have been identified by the witness that saw you. Still, you are confident it will all be cleared up. Some of your close friends believe you and stand by you, some do not. Your bond is too high no one can afford to get you out of jail so you sit there for days, weeks, months until you finally get to court and your whole world has crumbled down. Everything you had worked for and built has been lost. Your attorney tells you things are not looking so good. They have a blurred video that shows a vehicle that looks just like yours pulling into the parking lot, a person of your build with very similar clothing pulling a gun and killing two people. There was a bystander that identified you and your vehicle leaving the crime scene. There was gun powder residue found on your hands and clothes and not the first person that can say they saw you at the shooting range. Your best bet is to take the plea barging to second-degree murder and life in prison or you will face execution if you are found guilty in a trial. Of course, you are thinking what do I have to be afraid of I’m innocent. So you choose the trial. There you find that every rock in your life had been looked under, every closet door opened. Everything that you have said or done in your past that was even remotely bad was brought up to point out how dangerous a person you really are. Your friends felt compelled to tell your secrets as well none of which seemed all that bad until they are tagged to the face of an accused killer. Twelve jurors of your peers have heard the evidence against you and for you. From this, they find you guilty of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Your sentence is death by lethal injection. You now sit on death row going over and over in your mind how this could possibly have happened to you when you know in your heart and mind you have done nothing wrong. But it can happen, it happens all the time. I wrote this scenario for you to imagine it is you and how easily something can be taken for what it is not. Everything is not always as it seems. Just because you saw something does not mean it is the missing piece to the puzzle. You cannot read between the lines, look closely there are no words to read. Please. Before you accuse, before you point a finger, scream that’s the one, or shun someone because of what someone else or the media puts out there. Look for and understand the truth. Don’t destroy an innocent life on an assumption. Don’t hate someone because you think you know why they did what you think you saw them do. An assumption is just nothing more than a guess. Could you live with yourself knowing you destroyed a family, a life based on an assumption? Everything is not always as it seems. If you must know, know only the truth, based on provable facts. Not what you think you know, or what you heard… If you don’t want it done to you…don’t do it to someone else.
Simply my Thoughts
Dean Butler
