My mother began screaming over the phone. I began to cry after I told her. With all that has been going on in my family this was the last thing we wanted to hear. My niece, the young mother who has a beautiful 23-month-old son will be raising him alone. He will grow up without his father because of a foolish decision. By the time his father will be released from prison, the little boy will be 12 or 13-years-old and that's only if his father gets released at that point. If he does well in prison, as the judge told him, he will get out and still be a relatively young man.
But my nephew will not have his father.
My prayer is that my brother, his PaPa, will be the man he looks up to for guidance; his life is changing and he is becoming the kind of parent and grandfather I always knew he was capable of being. My prayer is that Little Squirmy's uncles Davon and Anthony, my own precious nephews, will be able to be great role models for him. By the time his dad is released, they will be adults that may make better father figures for him than his own biological father. I am even praying that my niece will be married by then, hopefully not waiting for her baby's father, and will have moved on. I hope she will meet the kind of man that will love her enough to help her raise her son.
It is a shame that my niece, my baby-girl, will have to deal with parenting alone until then. I cut and pasted part of the article that details what will happen to this absent parent, this young man. It has truly broken my heart that my family is battling against the demon of fractured families. One niece is in foster care, which has been a bigger battle getting her released back to her paternal family than anyone could ever know, and then the other has to be a single mother at least for the next ten years.
It is indeed a cryin' shame.
"18-year-old sentenced to 11 to 32 years in prison for party store robberies, shooting
by The Grand Rapids Press
Tuesday February 24, 2009, 5:30 PM
GRAND RAPIDS -- An 18-year-old who confessed to robbing two party stores, including one where the store owner was shot in the leg, will spend the next 11 to 32 years behind bars.
Jeremy Deanda was sentenced Tuesday for two April 17 holdups, at Gerk's Works Party Store, 1298 36th St. SW, where owner Hung Nguyen was shot, and Kay & Kay Party Store, 1273 Chicago Drive SW.
Victims of the robberies say there were two people committing the crime, but only Deanda has been charged and convicted of robbery and assault.
Deanda's lawyer, Damien Nunzio, negotiated a plea agreement that called for Circuit Court Judge Christopher Yates to make the minimum sentence no more than 9 years on the robberies and assault, plus 2 years for felony use of a firearm.
Yates told Deanda that his lawyer worked out a good deal for him.
'You're a very young man and if you do all the right things in prison, you could be a relatively young man when you get out,' Yates said."
No comments:
Post a Comment