"I want to tell you a story. I'm going to ask you to close your eyes while I tell you the story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead. Close your eyes, please. This is a story about a young man walking home from the grocery store one rainy afternoon. I want you to picture this young man. Can you see him? Bundled up, with a hoodie pulled over his head to keep the rain off his face as he carries a small bag of Skittles and Iced Tea home for his younger brother. Suddenly a man appears in the complex of his father's home and confronts him. The man is a stranger to the young man yet he is questioning him why he is here. The young man tells the stranger he doesn't know him and that he doesn't have to answer him. The stranger demands that he responds to him and becomes agitated at the young man's perceived defiance.
The young man again confirms that he is a stranger and he owes him no such explanation. Words are exchanged and a fist fight ensues as the rain falls during the dark night. A gun is pulled and shots are fired. The young boy's body goes limp and cold. The stranger stands up and paces nervously around the body waiting for the police who told him not to confront the young man to appear. The young man is pronounced dead on the scene. The stranger is allowed to return to his home with his weapon, the same gun that was used in the altercation that resulted in the boy's death. The boy's body is taken to the morgue. Can you see him? His body is tested for drugs. And even though a mobile phone is on his person no attempt to go through it and contact family was made so he is toe tagged and listed as a John Doe.
Can you see him? Laying there on the metal slab with a sheet draped over him. His father concerned that his son didn't return home nor was he reachable on his phone files a missing person's report only to have the local police come to his home bearing photo's of his son's corpse. Can you see him? I want you to picture that young man in the police photos. His life taken away from him at 17 during an avoidable dispute with an armed self appointed neighborhood watch man. What lengths would you go to get justice for him?! Can you see him?!" What if he was your son?!*
*Premise Based on Jake Brigance's closing in "A Time To Kill"
Dedicated to all persons that have lost their lives to violence and to their families that are still seeking Justice to honor them.
Be GREAT TODAY, because you may not be given the time to be tomorrow
TWIL
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