So I read the story about the Black former Gristedes van driver who basically ran over and killed a Hispanic woman in Brooklyn while he was driving drunk. The 29 year-old was married with three young children. Oh and wait on it… she was also three months pregnant.
BLANK STARE
I’m not going to get into how in his tipsy state, witness testified that dude was speeding and slowing down so that his boy could cat-call female pedestrians as they drove by. Seriously? No. I’m just going to say that I was happy as hell to hear that received 15 years in prison. At first. And then I was sad. really, really sad.
Why?
Because then I remembered a very similar DUI manslaughter case sentencing that took place only four months ago.
Equally horrific details- a married mother is mowed down while while hailing a cab. Except in that case, the driver was a White off-duty cop who was heading home from the bar with another cop when he ran over the Black woman. The victim was also a married mother. Oh and it definitely gets better… when the ON-DUTY cops (you know the ones that were supposed to protect & serve the victim) arrived on the scene, they not only advised said drunken officer not to take the breathalyzer-they also instead gave him a stick of gum, two bottles of waters and allowed him to leave the scene (to go home & sober up).
He received exactly 90 days in prison. Uh huh, you read that correctly, NINETY DAYS.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that dude who killed the pregnant lady should’ve gotten a lighter sentence. When you decide to drive under the influence, that’s the dangerous gamble you take. In this case, homeboy lost.
But, just so I’m clear lemme do the math:
Jan 2011 Black van driver kills Hispanic mother= 15 YEARS
Sept 2010 White police officer kills Black mother= 90 DAYS
Granted, I only made it as far as College Algebra but err um, the discrepancy seems like… a lot.
