Below is a note I sent to Brooke Sanders regarding her news story on McKim. Thought I'd share. Feel free to comment. ~ Kath
As I caught up on the area news this evening, I read an article explaining the District Attorney denied Steven McKim pretrial diversion, basically, probation. Given what I know about the incident, I feel proceeding with prosecution on a charge of criminally negligent homicide is a ridiculous miscarriage of justice. This was a completely abhorrent accident, but an accident, nonetheless. For those of you who do not know the case, Steven McKim is the father of an 8 month old little girl. In his rush to make it to a meeting on time, he left Mia in the car, completely forgetting she was there. This was the first time he had ever had the task of dropping her at daycare in the morning and she had fallen asleep in her carseat. He, running late, parked and ran inside to the meeting. Later, in the middle of the meeting he jumped up and raced out to the car screaming for someone to call 911. He instinctively knew, she would need care, as it was mid-Summer in Memphis. She was found dead in the car.
Now, whether or not you feel this is something you could ever forget, I would hope you could understand, somewhat, the utter dispair a parent would feel in this situation.
Now here's the rub...as I'm percolating on this entire matter, wishing there was a difference I could make, Fox 13 news broadcasts a story about Courtney Rhyan. This is a 19 yr old kid who did receive pretrial diversion (probation) after participating in a vicious gang beating. This was in no way an accident. He didn't "accidentally" forget NOT to beat other people senseless. This was a malicious, intentional brutal act. An act he most likely thought was a 'cool' thing to do as part of a gang.
Meanwhile, here's McKim, a parent, who accidentally took his child's life and will have to live with it every moment for the rest of his life. Each time he looks in his wife's eyes, in the mirror, and someday in his children's eyes, he will be haunted by Mia's death at his hands, his forgetfulness, his urgency to be ontime for a meeting.
Why isn't there, or is there, a list of qualifications that must be used as a guide to determine if someone can receive a pretrial diversion? Similar to the ways a charge must fit a set of qualifications.
Anyway, I'm not fool enough to think my opinion or railing at the 'way things are' is going to change anything; but I did feel incredibly compelled to say something.
Talk about miscarriages of justice....Gimme a break!
P.S.--- and on a side note....this has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with color, race or religion as almost everything in Memphis usually is somehow tied to. i just feel things should be dealt with evenly no matter who the perpetrator is. it really bugs me that so many people point to color right away. our city is predominantly african american, so of course, numerically, more crimes will be committed by that race than the others, with the next largest race in our city's population having the next highest crime rate. simply...we are all people. we are all good. we are all bad. period.
Sincerely,
Kathy Bryan
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