Another One Bites The Dust

Ugggh! It’s happened again! Obviously we (I) don’t know the whole story but in todays Sacramento Bee we have another case where Sacramento County Police Department shoot a suspect with a TASER and he dies…the guy was running away!

Here is small snippet from the story, which takes a little bit of work to read…only because you have to do a quick registration to read Bee stories. Just take a minute and do it…it’s worth it.:

A 33-year-old Sacramento man died late Saturday after a struggle with police officers on a downtown street, becoming the fourth area man within the last two years to die after being shot by a stun gun.

Officers shocked the man twice with a 50,000-volt Taser stun gun after he resisted two officers' attempt to detain him and then tried to run away, officials said.

I don’t know if I have an answer on how to stop these unnecessary deaths except to STOP USING TASER and STUN GUNS until we understand WHY some people are dying when it’s used on them!

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I have to say that I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, I didn't even feel like posting anything until today. I’m not sure how to put it into words but I’ll try to be brief.

My good friend Downey, who I’ve written just a little bit about in the past, told me something last week that shocked and bummed me out.

She said that she wants to quit Criminal Defense.

Downey has been a CD attorney for about 8 years now and a good friend of mine for about 3 of those years. We got to know each other through work and we’ve spent many a long night talking about cases (our own and those belonging to others we know). I now know her family very well, and have even spent holidays with them! We’ve become extremely close friends and we have our careers to thank for it.

Now, her reasons for getting out of criminal work vary. She suffered a couple of recent losses in court, which I think she took too personally and she feels responsible for where her client’s have ended up.

She said she will always believe in this type of work (indigent defense) but she wants to be happy and this work isn’t doing it for her anymore. She seems lost and I want to help her…even though there is nothing I can really do or say and that would help and that’s what really bothers me. I’m not even sure if she wants to practice law anymore.

She's talked about getting out of criminal work in the past but it was usually when she was frustrated about some dumbass baby DA. I never thought that she was really considering it. She said she hasn't ruled out relocating to another part of the state or even out of state. I guess I'm wondering how our relationship is going to change. Is it selfish to think that?

She told me that she feels lost. I'm feeling kind of lost right about now too.