I’m The Gingerbread Man

"During the call, an altercation ensued and Officer David Whitson and Rojelio Gonzalez Pacheco, 26, were injured on the scene. 

The suspect had two knives in his possession, but no guns. The officer may have been shot by his fellow officers during the altercation."

It’s come out since then that Pacheco was tased first and it "didn’t take", that he was impossible to talk down, and that he came at Officer Whitson with the knives.  There were four shots fired at least, but as yet the official autopsy results of neither of the men have been released. 

Horrible enough.  A good Officer is gunned down by his fellow Officers trying to protect him.  A wife and children are left to mourn.  Two officers of the three others there fired their guns and ballistics are now being tested to find out who fired the fatal shot, although it is obvious that both surviving Officers will need counselling through this.

Is that enough for this city to mourn?  Oh hell no.  This is Kentucky after all….A week before an election.

Turns out Gonzalez-Pacheco was here Illegally. Let me tell you, the newscasters here couldn’t ‘report’ that breathlessly, or emphatically enough when it came out November 1st.  Suddenly it wasn’t a story of a man with knives gone batty and an Officer shooting.  Oh NOOOO.

It was about how if Illegal Immigration were somehow fixed, none of this would have ever happened.  The implications: if only those damn Democrats weren’t all the time screwing up GWB’s working to keep the bad guys out of Good, Sovereign States like Ours, Officer Whitson would be alive and Protecting and Serving today.

The Ron Lewis for Congress ads ran like mad all across the local news channel,  seemingly worse than ever scourging his opponent for being easy on Immigration as well.

But the facts are, although no one seems to want to deal with those in matters as highly charged and emotional as something like this:

Gonzalez-Pacheco was charged in 2003 with DUI, having a fake ID, not having a driver’s license, and not having insurance. He was in illegal alien then, living in Kentucky. 

From the WBKO (local newschannel an Bowling Green, KY) archive on this issue:

"Warren Circuit Court Judge Steve Wilson says being an undocumented worker is not illegal under the state law, because it’s a federal offense.

Judge Wilson says when undocumented workers enter the courtroom, there are two choices, send them to jail for their offense or release them.

"If they’re released, the INS or the federal government would have to at that time pick them up and have deportation. If they do not do that, they would have to be released," said Judge Wilson.

Judge Wilson says when he was the Warren County Commonwealth Attorney, he noticed if the undocumented person committed a felony the federal government would begin the deportation process. He says if it was a minor offense, they usually were not deported."

WHAT?

If my happy ass wandered into a courtroom with a DUI, no insurance, no driver’s license and a fake ID, I’d get jail time.  So this guy goes in with those charges and not "Illegal Immigrant" status…but "Undocumented worker"

Doesn’t that sound nice?  Or nicer, I guess….

And I suppose gets probation and a fine, sent on his merry little way to continue to work and live here illegally.

And really, that’s fine with my liberal little heart.  Do I like the KY State illegal immigrant policies?  No.  But I really hate the REPUBLICAN policies that are continuously being touted. 

What makes me flaming mad is the way Kentuckians are hypocritcal jerk-offs about this.

Rojelio had a job at the time of his death on a dairy farm.  He lived in a little place on the farm and was responsible for getting up in the early AM, rounding up the cows, getting the herd rounded up and in the dairy and hooked up, taking care of business, another words.  Had hours free during the day off and on and then was responsible for evening round with the herd again.  Here in KY with the milking jobs, you live on the farm in a little house on the Dairy Farmers land and get to know the Owner well.  His employer KNEW Rojelio was an "undocumented".  He *should* have checked it and sent the paperwork in to the government like all employers and landlords are required to do.  But that would have screwed up the Dairy Farmer’s cheaper employment, wouldn’t it? 

Master Officer Whitson was buried with honors, as befitting his life and death.  I join our area in mourning the loss of a fine man and an Officer.  I am sick with anger that the other two officers were put into the position of feeling whatever they are going through now because one of their own is dead because of their guns. 

To blame all this on the tragedy that occurred on October 31, 2006 is being a bit generous to Kentucky Commonwealth Laws, and far too lenient on the lawbreakers who enabled Rojelio Gonzalez-Pacheco’s presence in Kentucky.  He has four brothers living at Vine Street.  His girlfriend of eight months is left behind, mourning his death, questioning why this happened, hoping this will not turn into a focus on illegal immigration.

I don’t know if the toxicology report will show why Gonzalez-Pacheco was waving knives around in a yard at 10:13 in the morning on All Hallow’s Eve.  He was worried about his hospitalized mother still in Mexico it is said.  It is also said he worked hard, adored his girlfriend’s small children as if they were his own and wished to marry her someday if he ever attained legal status.  What we do know for flat-out facts are this:

In 2003 if Gonzalez-Pacheco had been picked up by Immigration he wouldn’t have been on Vine Street to get shot, wave knives or have this happen.  Steve Wilson and "KY law" aside bullshit…an illegal immigrant was in court on charges and walked back out the door free.  Now he and an Officer of the Law are dead.  And this is a Republican State.  *sigh, it is to laugh*

If Gonzalez-Pacheco’s employer had asked for his driver’s license, social security card, green card or worker’s permit as required by federal law…not "state law" when he was hired, he wouldn’t have had the Dairy Farm job, or the place to live.  Would that have meant he’d have still been in Bowling Green?  Would the immigrants who are undocumented workers or illegal immigrants or whatever you wish to call them come in droves or stay for years on end if the Employers and Landlords actually enforced the Laws meant to help keep down Illegal Immigration?

Kentucky is a hideously racist state.  I stopped watching local news a long time ago if I could avoid it for the very reason that started this rant. 

 "Gonzalez-Pacheco was a "breathless outraged tone" ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT!"……"John Davis, a black male, was arrested today for failure to pay child support …"…."Rod Jacobs was arrested today on methamphetamine charges and given recognizance bail"

Guess who the caucasian was…yeah, the guy whose race wasn’t mentioned…I don’t know about everywhere else…but here the race is ALWAYS mentioned if the subject is black or hispanic.  That’s what got me into politics so fervently though…I started watching the 24 hour channels.  LOL

Oh, and while I’m on it…just as an aside…the Wall…the President’s brilliant Wall…how much is that going to cost?  And it covers how much of the Border exactly?  Great idea, George, as usual.  Dumbass.

*Blessings, Y’all*

Libby, my eleven yo daughter skipped off to school yesterday with her backpack full of notebooks, texts, pencils, homework, various girly-girl things, snack and money for a juice drink and her little purse.  She came back home with all of that, sans snack and money, plus one red Gideons New Testament Bible, given to her during Language Arts class by three men in business suits, sanctioned by the principal of the school.

She only mentioned it to me this morning right before she left for another day at her happy little school of learning, eager to bounce off to more learning about reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and the Blessed Savior.  She was puzzled at first why I was upset by her nifty gift during what should have been a simple hour of learning how to write sentences with her spelling words included, which only annoyed me more.  Apparently I have not done my job properly with this child, or she is one who has been assimilated into the hive that is This Town already and we need to move post haste before she turns metallic inside and loses all her internal organs and begins to look like Jerry Fallwell.

We live in a very, very, frighteningly small town in a big, big county.  That may sound strange and impossible unless you live in the South or perhaps the West.  We live almost directly across the street from the school, I can walk to the doctors office, the pharmacy, the town square, get to the grocery in 4 minutes in the car.  Everyone knows everyone’s business in this little place.  There are 17 churches, almost all of them Baptist of one form or another.  One Catholic, three Methodist, one presbyterian.  No Temples, no mosques.  If Becca needed to find a Coven here she’d have to go 3 counties over.  Luckily she has one in our old hometown. 

The county, however is huge.  It’s an Amish county as I’ve mentioned before a while back, and all of the town’s parking lots have rails set up for the horse and buggies to tie up…we are all familiar and comfortable with the peacable and lovely Amish community members who come among us daily, and I don’t believe I have ever witnessed a rude driver blowing their horn at a slow driving buggy clogging up the traffic on our busy roads.

This little town, this big county…Mayberry RFD on Valium as I like to call it, is a very religious community.

But it’s still America.  I was foolishly under the idea that meant something until this morning.

Libby wanted to know why I was upset that she and her classmates were handed out Bibles in school.  "I’m a Christian, Mommy.  I have a Bible already.  What’s wrong?"

"Do you remember when you thought you wanted to be Wiccan, Libby, because you liked the idea that Wiccans loved the environment and women and were loving?  Do you remember how mean everyone was to you because you said in school that you were Wiccan?  How they told you that you’d go to hell?  You came home crying and worried that being a Wiccan meant you couldn’t love God too…and you asked why I’d let you be a Wiccan if you were going to hell?"

"Uh huh.  That’s why I go to church now.  I want to be a Christian so I’ll go to heaven."

"Yes, I know.  I let you do that now because this is the time for you to explore religions, learn what you like and don’t like, what you believe and don’t believe, and for you to hear lots of different things so we can talk about them.  But mostly because people here are so pushy and mean if you don’t believe what they do.  But giving out Bibles in class is just making it worse, Libby.  It is showing all those kids that they are right to act that way.  It’s bad enough when the churches and their parents tell them they are right, but now the school is doing it too."

"Huh?"

"What if you were still a Wiccan?  Really believed in Wicca?  Or Jewish?  Or a Buddhist, or an atheist?  Or what if other religions brought in *their* books and handed them out, would that be okay?"

"ohhhhhhhh, I see.  Can I go now, I’m gonna be late."

Why do I feel like that went zooooooming right over her head?

I called the principal as soon as Libby left, and of course she’s going to be in meetings all day, but even worse, I have this gut feeling that as soon as I protest this things are going to suck for Libby at this school.  Yeah, that’s the kind of school it is, the kind of county it is.  No more chances for Beta or Academic team for Libster, no more Best Citizen of the Month, no more anything that would require a nod from the faculty. 

The worst part is that we can’t really move as long as I am ill, and that’s not going to change.  Maybe Mike will get another job and we could move then, but the whole point of living here is that it is close to Mike’s work and he can run back and forth for lunch and check on me, he can be here in 7 minutes if something’s wrong with me, and that’s a safeguard we need in my condition.

I was looking up Kentucky Law Court Rulings on Religion in Schools, hoping to find something on Bibles and the handing out thereof, some precedent, I don’t know…I found out that no other state is as eager to fight the Ten Commandment Supreme Court Ruling as KY and even now we have a Bill in the KY house on it.  I did find this in the Kentucky Post, however and found it interesting…

Schools are required to adhere to court rulings and to maintain an air of neutrality on religious issues — not promoting religion or religious practices, but not preventing them, either, Blavatt said.

"In this case, what they’re asking is for school districts to certify that they will not support any religion and will not take proactive action to prevent or exclude anything religiously," he said.

Except of course, in the case of sticking Bibles in the hands of eleven year old little girls and boys during Language arts class.

*Blessings*