After 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury came back with 8 not guiltys for the defendants in the Martin Lee Anderson case. Otherwise known as the Boot Camp Death Trial on Court TV.

This was a jury I am really thankful that I wasn’t on. Martin was on his second day at the boot camp. He went there because he had stolen his grandmother’s car. He wasn’t a bad criminal but had come from a broken home and was perhaps heading down a bad road. His mother took him to the boot camp and checked him in, I’m sure with the hopes that they would take her son and turn him around. Never in her wildest nightmares would she have ever guessed the outcome.

Most everyone has seen the video. It looked to me like the guards were ganging up on this 14 year old child. At one point it looked like one of the guards was either kicking him or kneeing him in the groin area. I was horrified.

The defense basically said that the guards treated Martin just like every other kid at that camp. Unfortunately he had Sickle Cell trait and because of that, when he got overly tired, he got very sick very fast. The guards had no idea and thought he was just trying to get out of the exercises they were doing. The nurse said that there wasn’t anything in the way Martin was acting to show that he was in trouble.

The prosecution said the guards used improper force, then that they suffocated him and finally said that it was “a fatal failure to act on the part of the defendents”.

Supposedly this shifting of theories by the prosecution is what lost them the case. I’m sure the jurors will be interviewed by Court TV at some point and everyone will know what was in their minds when they made their decision.

I do know that there was a lot of prayer from both sides asking for God’s will to be done. And His will is not always our will, nor will it make everyone happy.

I hope that the prayers now will be for Martin’s family to find peace, because of all the people involved in this whole thing, they are the ones that really lost, regardless of the verdict.

After reading MelFamy’s post today, I searched on Google. Sadly, there are hundreds of these signs. Even so, some of them are pretty funny. I have to admit I’m kind of curious about the Chicken Legs w/Thing.

When I go to the grocery store and buy enough to carry out my purchases in a cart, I always return my cart to a designated place. It’s never more than a few steps away and I just consider it extra exercise. It’s really not a hard thing to do, is it?

Sometimes I will see an elderly person leave their cart beside their car. Ok, I can kind of see where they might not have as much energy or mobility to walk those extra steps to put it up. And the stores do pay people to come out and retrieve those carts.

One thing I will never understand is when someone who is parked in the handicapped spot and they leave their cart in the spot next to them blocking that entire spot from the next needy person using it. “Do Unto Others”, y’all!!!

But what really bothers me is when I see someone who is completely able bodied come out and empty the cart and then jump into their car and take off, usually leaving the cart partially in the parking place. That’s just lazy. Normal behaviour for a lot of people, but lazy.

Then today, the thing that prompted this rant, was probably the most ridiculous behaviour I’ve seen yet from a grown woman. I had put my groceries in my car and as I was walking a few feet over to return my cart, I noticed this woman shoving her cart aside to get back into her vehicle. I was tempted to walk over and get her cart while she was still there to see it and returning it for her in hopes of her noticing how lazy she was. As I was having that thought, this woman (very nicely dressed and driving a very expensive SUV) came back out of her vehicle with a handful of garbage, mostly fast food bags and drink cups, and dumped those into the cart. Then she just got back into her very expensive SUV and drove off.

Something like that should not shock me, but it did. I guess I still expect certain behaviours from people and i especially expect grown ups to act with some degree of manners and thoughtfulness. And when they are well dressed and driving expensive cars, I guess I have even higher expectations of them. I see now that I’m just going to have to lower those expectations. What a shame.