requiescat in pace

By now you may have heard or read about the police officer who died in the line of duty last night. Sadly, Officer Nazario was a member of our school family. Her daughter is a recent graduate of our school, and her sister (who is also a police officer) has a daughter (who I taught four years ago) in our 5th grade.

According to the news, Officer Nazario and her partner were responding to an ongoing car chase between another police vehicle and a 16 year old unlicensed driver in a Cadillac Escalade. The driver was also allegedly drunk. He plowed into the police car on the passenger side at such a high speed that both officers had to be removed with the Jaws of Life. Officer Nazario was killed... her partner (who was driving) was injured.

The 16 year old was apparently was being chased by officers because they suspected the SUV was stolen. He fled from the officers because he had escaped custody in Family Court last year and "didn't want to go back to jail." He floored it (they estimate he was driving between 50-70 mph), ran several red lights and then hit the car that Officer Nazario was riding in. He fled the scene on foot and was caught by police. I just read that he's going to be tried as an adult.

It's always a terrible tragedy when an officer is killed in the line of duty, and this is no exception. But there are so many things about this particular case that make me angry.

• The boy was only 16 and already had a record. How sad is it that by the age of 16, he had already done enough to get in trouble with the police?
• If he was indeed drunk, how did he get access to alcohol? Was it stolen? Did someone buy it for him? Was it readily available to him at home?
• He was driving a car without a license. How did he have access to a car? Who gave him the keys? Was it stolen? Or "borrowed" when some family member wasn't around?
• He ran from the scene. Apparently he thought he was man enough to drink underage, man enough to drive an SUV without a license, man enough to get involved in a car chase with the police. But he's not man enough to own up to murder. When the shit finally hit the fan, he ran like a scared little boy. And maybe that's all he really was in the first place. Maybe all the things he did were just a way for him to get noticed.
• And while we're on that subject... where the hell were this boy's parents? A 16 year old who has a record, who drinks, who drives recklessly without a license... how does it manage to get this bad without someone in his family noticing and doing something about it?

It's a terrible waste of a life. The city has lost another officer... a girl has lost her mother. Please pray for the family of Officer Nazario, especially for her daughter Jazmin. And pray also for the family of the murderer. They have a very different cross to bear this weekend.