New Haven Register July 2007

Sections in Black were published, Underlined were headings Red were not

The home invasion in Cheshire is going to continue to make headlines and fuel debates. Many people will continue to mourn the loss of such a wonderful family while others will debate the gun control laws citizens’ rights, etc…

There are many other aspects which are not going to make headlines. First the expenses.

Three police cars were damaged when the “suspects” were fleeing. One cruiser was rammed at the scene while the other two acting as a blockade down the street were rammed at 60 miles an hour. Who is going to foot that bill? As a tax payer I’d rather pay for a few bullets than the other two police cruisers.

Secondly, while we as a society determine the fate of the suspects, they will be treated to “three hots and a cot” – a lifestyle better than what some of our war heroes have awaiting their return. They will sleep safely at night, a pleasure that our troops do not have, a pleasure that we, as citizens in CT are loosing as well. Due to the nature of the crime, more money will be spent on psychologists, psychiatrists and lawyers by the state (read as you and I) for the “suspects” than what many of us will spend on medical expenses in our lifetimes.

Weather the “suspects” get the death penalty or not, they will be treated to “three hots and a cot” for the many more years. In that time us taxpayers will have paid more to support them than what most of us will have spent on renting or purchasing a home.

Lastly if these suspects get the death penalty, in time more people will be concerned with the rights of the suspects than those of the survivors.

Our finest and bravest, our first responders will be haunted by images of the gruesome hell and forever wonder if they could have done more. The people at the bank will forever wrestle with feeling of guilt wondering if they had done more or done something sooner, would they have been able to make a difference. Even with a full physical recovery, Dr. Wiliam Petit’s mental state has been forever sentenced to a hell that only a Holocaust survivor may understand.

Lately there has been much press about botched executions and the inhumanity of the execution process, never mentioning how each criminal’s victim(s) died. While the press states that the children died of smoke inhalation, the charges filed against the suspects indicate that these children may have endured hours of sexual abuse before their final fates were decided. Knowing the father’s condition, it’s safe to assume that the children were either restrained or assaulted to the point where they were physically incapable of escaping the inferno. A bullet or a knife would have provided a more humane death.

Putting these two criminals in anything less than a coffin or urn poses an unnecessary risk to many members of society. Such deliberately callous criminals pose a serious risk to prison guards and to those convicted of lesser crimes. These two criminals will be taking two slots of our system. These two criminals will be eating better meals than our children receive at school and will also have better sleeping accommodations than our troops, homeless and many of our elderly. While the death penalty will not undo what has been done nor bring anyone back, it will help us, as a society move on and allow the state to allocate resources to more deserving individuals.

I would also like to add that I feel everyone involved did their best. If the people at the bank did not contact the police, it may have been impossible ever locate these criminals due to lack of evidence because they may have had the time to thoroughly destroy the crime scene. Cheshire’s finest and bravest first responders had little clue as to the intensity of the situation that they were called to control, yet still put themselves between us and the callous demons before they could spread their hell to anyone else. To these people, a Thank You is not enough, but something they do not receive enough of.