Winning lottery ticket creates havoc

Once, when I went “off topic” here (in the CCN “blogosphere,”) the Great Spirit of the Reporter Tribe (known by the name of “Webmaster,”) sent me a cosmic message via the electron highway:

“You get to go off-topic once. After that, you’re done.”

I get it, Great Spirit.

Here’s my off-topic, it being November and Thanksgiving and Spirits are in the winds, from each of the four directions:

Earlier this month, for no apparent reason, I started thinking about a news event from 2006, about a 19-year old who lived in my neighborhood. Thankful I am that I did not grow up in his household, for in certain respects, the cards were stacked against him from the start.

Though his mother is a good and loving mother, he grew up in a one-parent household, and the family, like many, many families was cursed with addiction. Whether you believe that addiction is a matter of choice, or a matter of biology, it had its affect on this young man.

One day, after drinking a large quantity of hard liquor with a relative, he went outside with an unloaded, antique rifle and began breaking car windows, and somebody called the sheriffs. Two sheriffs came out and told him to drop his weapon (or raise his hands, I don’t know which,) but when he started to raise his hands, he was still holding the unloaded, antique rifle. So, the sheriffs shot him in the chest, neck and head.

The video from the sheriffs’ squad car captured this, and it was later shown on the news because considerable public interest centered around whether he actually posed a threat to the officers, who did not appear fearful enough to take cover behind any protective barrier. The video shows him smiling as he seemed to raise the rifle in an almost off-hand way.

Anyhow, what happened, did happen, and the flurry of news subsided, and the last we heard was that Chad Allen Berryhill was charged with one or more felonies, including attempted murder of a police officer, and that was it.

Right after it happened, I spoke with his mother and grandmother who were grieving but in a way that was almost a denial of their grief and anger. Because we all know how conservative this place is, on the surface, and nobody likes getting their car windows broken out by some drunk teenager with a rifle….So, because of the kid’s vandalism-whether he was conscious or not of what he was doing-there was little sympathy and a lot of condemnation from the pious, and his mother and grandmother were given notice to quit their rental.

When I spoke with them, the grandmother immediately took on the responsibility for what had happened because she admitted that she was addicted to alcolhol. And so, they had been drinking together. And though she was sitting in a chair before me, she was somewhere else. And her eyes were still seeing what had happened, and it was hard for her to give words to what she was then going through.

His mother admitted almost immediately that she had an addiction to the drug we all hear about which is so poisonous, you wonder how in God’s good name anyone would want to put that stuff in their body. She too, was taking on guilt; taking on the responsibility of what happened. She was feeling so guilty, that she could not stop talking about how wrong they were, and how the community was right to condemn her and her son and his grandmother.

But what was so odd, is how considerate she was being of everyone else but what had happened to her son–guilty or not guilty, in the eyes of The Law. She had pushed her anguish deep down inside her. She denied all the rage of a mother who agonizes for her son regardless of his momentary choices which could end in disaster, as it did that day. I expressed my sympathy in any event, and extricated myself from the situation. Then, I forgot about it until now.

It started at the beginning of the month. I must have been going through saved newspaper articles, but something reminded me of the events which had taken place in my neighborhood. I decided to surf the Net to find out what had happened to Berryhill. How had his trial gone? Had he recovered from his injuries? What would his family be doing now?

In a paragraph from a Tribune obituary, I learned only that Chad Allen Berryhill had passed away at the age of 23 on November 3, 2010. The Buddhists have a saying that “all life is suffering,” and that we suffer because we can never keep things the way we want them, indefinitely. That is because life is change. And so, Mr. Berryhill was born, loved, made imperfect choices like the rest of us, and left this life sooner than he deserved.

Because Mr. Berryhill went through what he did, the County Coronor’s Office decided to do an autopsy on him to determine the cause of death. I have no doubt they were seeing spirits of their own, in the form of a civil lawsuit coming down the pike, as it would be natural to ask whether Mr. Berryhill would still be alive if he hadn’t been shot in head, neck and chest.

The results of the autopsy were never reported, so I pulled up his death certificate in the DMF. Over a year later, the cause of death was “still pending.” What were they waiting for? A call from the Spirit World?

Well, the call seems to have been misrouted.

When bringing a lawsuit against a police officer for excessive use of force, or anything he does, even a claim of wrongful death under U.S.C. Sec. 1983, the claim must be brought within a year, or you lose your right to have the matter litigated. Certain statutes will stop the ticking on the clock, so to speak, as when the agency avoids reaching a conclusion as to cause of death. It appears the County is waiting for the clock to run out on the statute of limitations.

So. As I sit in my cozy home, and thank the Cosmos that I have made it through another year with the gentle little creatures of the earth who have made it through with me, I am saying my goodbye to Chad Allen Berryhill who was not all bad, and not all wrong, but mostly unlucky and sorely missed by his family.

The moon sits like a pearl in cashmere for you too, Mr. Berryhill. Rest in peace.