 |
| A most-definitely un-romantic Valentime's hedline |
To
that end, Thursday must have been a very sad day – what with the Chicago
Sun-Times giving us the front page hedline “Van Dyke Beaten in Lockup.”
THE
ATTACK SUPPOSEDLY took place on Van Dyke’s first day at the federal
correctional center in Danbury, Ct. – within just a few hours of him being
placed in a cell amongst the prison’s general population.
No
word on the exact nature of the attack. As in was it a batch of black inmates
who wanted to beat the stuffing out of the cracker, or white inmates who wanted
a shot or two at beating on a cop?
Or
maybe it was a bizarre mixture, as in Van Dyke is the factor that can unite the
various factions of societal slugs who are amongst the prison populace.
To
me, the sad part of this story is that I can easily envision way too many people
amongst us back here in Chicago taking some sort of pleasure out of the
Sun-Times hedline – which also is turning up in news organizations across the
nation on account of the Associated Press doing their rewrite to spread the
word.
IT’S
ALMOST LIKE on a certain level, we want to let the thugs amongst us make our
correctional centers are hellish a place as they can possibly be. Is it our way
of giving the one-time bullies of our school yards something to aspire to?
As
in they can be stupid and go to prison and have the run of the roost once they
get there?
For
what it’s worth, Van Dyke’s wife did her part Thursday morning to spread the story
by making herself available for television cameras – where she was quick to
denounce prison officials for not keeping her husband in strict segregation
from other inmates.
 |
| Van Dyke's new 'humble abode,' for the time being |
Which
has the potential to backfire. Are we going to get a significant share of the public
eager to believe that Van Dyke got what he deserved, and probably warrants much
other constant abuse for the next few years – or until the Illinois Supreme
Court gets around to ruling on a measure by the state Attorney General’s office
That
could result in Judge Vincent Gaughan being forced to impose a harsher prison
sentence than half of six years, nine months.
OF
COURSE, THERE are the people who envision Van Dyke having to do another 30 or
40 years in prison until he finally dies. Which strikes me as a depressing line
of thought for people to have – if they must be obsessed with Van Dyke’s life,
their own must be incredibly lacking.
It’s
not like I’m overly sympathetic to the plight of Van Dyke. But I do find it contemptible
the degree to which some are going to find joy in his agony. Which invariably
is going to motivate those amongst us willing to excuse the misbehavior of law
enforcement into thinking their guy is the ultimate victim.
Although
it should be noted that Van Dyke’s being placed on the East Coast, albeit in a
minimum-security facility.
Illinois
Corrections Department officials made the arrangements to have Van Dyke do his
time elsewhere largely because they figured his very presence in a local prison
facility would lead to exactly the kind of incident that occurred in Danbury.
EVEN
DURING THE time that Van Dyke did at the Rock Island County Jail awaiting
sentencing, he was kept in segregation away from other inmates.
So
it will be interesting to see exactly how the one-time Chicago cop manages to
cope with the next few years, and if officials outside of Illinois are willing
to take any precautions to protect inmate safety in this case.
I
know I’ve heard various prison professionals say there’s only so much that can
be done to protect the inmates, and that ultimately the inmates need to be
entrusted to behave themselves.
But
I suspect we’re going to keep getting similar stories about Van Dyke’s plight
in prison, and a certain segment of us are going to take far too much pleasure
from reading them.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment