SpeakOut 3/23

I was just reading the Benton Court report in Tuesday's paper. The very first one was a charge of nonsupport was sentenced to three years in the Department of Corrections. Sentence was for failure to provide six month support within a 12-month period. The next one was a theft/stealing given five years probation. And then you get another one for meth, five years probation. And then you get these ones for attempted burglary, five years probation. Then you have sexual sodomy, five years probation. Endangering the welfare of a child, five years probation. This is ridiculous. The more you read it, the worse it gets. Then you have one that was sentenced to the Department of Corrections for four years on forgery. You have forgery and nonsupport, they're getting jail time. But you have sodomy, you've got meth, you've go endangering the welfare of a child, and they're all getting five years probation. Something isn't right.

This is black history month. It's typical that we have a hometown paper, the Enterprise Carrier that runs a weekly report on the history of Charleston. I've called several places in Charleston to find out about the black history of Charleston, for the first school that was ever integrated. And surprise, they told me it was Charleston High School. It was not. It was Eugene Field School. I was one of the kids that went. I was just calling with this information to show how much history is really being reported in our hometown.

I'm calling in response to the Good grief in SpeakOut on Sunday, March 9, regarding the memorial service at SECC in Charleston Correctional Center. The good reason, the caller had little or no understanding as to the total event. The offender that passed away, his love for basketball transcended racial and religious barriers. His cellmate wanted to have a small memorial service in the chapel. And it turned out that 265 inmates signed up to come. This was an usually high number so they decided to have two memorial services in the recreation area of the gym, with less than 140 offenders per service. The recreation area in the past has handled in excess of 200 inmates at one time. Custody was well in control of the services and they concluded without incident. It is my understanding that Mr. Harris had nothing to do with these services. I applaud custody's professionalism. This is a level 5 maximum security institution and they do have murderers and rapists. I don't know what policy the gentleman was referring to or the person he was referring to, but again, it was well under control and 600 inmates did not attend the service.

This is to North Ingram, I believe you. And while you're at, would you have them come down here to the 900 block of Stanford and check and see how fast they're running down here? There's a red car and a black truck that goes down here like they're in a race. The police need to patrol more, maybe they'd get some of these idiots.