RE: Weekend Freewrite -2/15/2020 - Single Prompt Option CONTINUATION: filthy rich
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Have you worked in law enforcement? I'm impressed at your knowledge of the investigative process, and the problems prosecutors have when they know a murder's been committed but they also know there's no way they could win the case.
Great job!
0
0
0.000
Nope, didn't work in law enforcement ... but grew up on everything from Sherlock Holmes, everything Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, Matlock, and then grew up and became a journalist who studied the investigative side with interest and used it both as an award-winning reporter in college and then as an editor, seeing if stories actually hung together, in real life -- before coming onto a senior housing board where we couldn't hire an investigator yet because of what was going on ... so, I put in the work, to the point that investigators and law enforcement officers and lawyers asked the exact question you did! I also learned the limits of what can be found and what can be proven in that process -- there was a bruising court case! So, quiet community investigator with investigative journalism background ... I also do research to make sure I'm writing within the rough limits.
One more thing: I'm Black (or, African-American, but I'm old school), so I know how the law and procedure are not followed at all when there is an assumption of guilt, and I know too many people who have suffered that. It isn't a matter of history: I got new stories TODAY of folks who have been brutally mistreated by police for just being Black, male, and driving a good car in a well-off neighborhood where they LIVED. My pastor is a retired law enforcement officer, and has been educating the entire church on what procedures are in play in certain situations, what decisions private prisons are making in our state, and how we can avoid deadly situations as much as possible. We also have reached out to our local police station, and they know: if they let something go down and get out of line, we know and WILL call them out. I have the new captain's card ... and, he is part of the inspiration for thoughtful Captain Hamilton.
Amazing! A real investigative reporter I think, really gets into the nitty-gritty of a case and they pick up some really good skills, which is apparently part of your life story!
Things haven't been fair, that's for sure! I do think the second chance act (is that what it's called?) that got that lady, Alice Johnson, who had been sentenced to life in prison for drugs, out of prison now and back with her family, is a good thing, that should have been done before now.
She spent 21 years of her life in prison. That's sad. Pedophiles that rape kids don't spend that much time in prison. It was a travesty of justice!