He's really a good boy

The other day in the Natomas neighborhood of Sacramento, there was an officer-involved shooting in a shopping center during lunch time. A Sacto PD officer followed a car full of armed robbers and their accomplices to this shopping center right after one of the perps had held up a teenager at a bus stop a mile or two away. As soon as the driver of the suspect vehicle saw the cop approach, he gunned the car and hit the cop's cruiser, then hit the cop. The cop jumped onto the hood of the perp's vehicle and had no choice but to open fire. He pumped 8 shots through the windshield, killing the driver and injuring the front seat passenger. This all happened in front of a huge audience of diners at an In-N-Out Burger and people in the parking lot.

I read a follow-up article about the incident in today's front section of the Sacramento Bee. Family members of the dead suspect and the injured suspect were interviewed. They said the grating words I often hear from family members of criminals. Here is a sample from the article. See if you can find what grates me:

At the North Sacramento home [Eugene] Gallegos (the dead suspect) shared with his siblings and grandmother, a steady stream of friends and relatives Tuesday filed through the front door.

Rosie Aldana, who had helped rear her grandson, said she didn't believe he was solely responsible for veering the car into the officer on Monday.

She said he was likely prodded by those in the car to "go, go, go" and succumbed to the pressure.

"That was out of character for him," Aldana said, surrounded by family, "That's why it's so hard to take this."

Late Monday, relatives told Aldana they had seen newscasts of the maroon Chrysler that Gallegos bought three weeks ago now riddled with bullets.

Gina Gallegos, who nicknamed her brother "Chitho" when he was a toddler, said Gallegos had a good heart and took care of the family, but at times kept bad company.

"He hung around with some of the wrong people," she said.

Tuesday afternoon, as the family grieved, Gallegos' father, Eugene T. Gallegos, 40, was arrested on unrelated charges.

Monday night, members of the police gang unit searched Gallegos' home. Family members on Tuesday said he was not a gang member but acknowledged some of his acquaintances were.

That was the interview with the family of the dead suspect. Let's see what the family of the injured suspect, Saul Rabago, had to say?

On Tuesday night, Marisol Rabago said she planned to see her brother in jail to prepare for his court appearance.

Her brother just turned 19, she said, and recently made a commitment to his family that he would try to change for the better.

"Two weeks ago, he said, 'Give me 25 days,' " Marisol Rabago recalled. "He got a job and was starting to come back to family events, dinners; we started to believe."

But when he got paid Friday, the family said he slipped out of sight. They last saw him Saturday night, before spotting him on the news Monday evening.

"He's not a bad kid," Marisol Rabago said. "He was just at the wrong place, with the wrong people.

"If he was in his right state of mind," she said, "he would not have done the things he was doing."

Family members of both perps essentially said the same thing: OK, so my relative held up a teenage boy with a gun and robbed him, then tried to kill a police officer, but he really is a good boy.

Sorry to rain on your delusional parade folks, but NO! They are NOT good boys! They were nasty little thugs who, of their own free will, did bad things to good people. Don't give me this crap about how they also helped proverbial little old ladies cross the street so they were really not bad. I can think of lots of people who help little old ladies cross the street, and yet, they don't also rob and attempt to murder people. This is an extreme example, but did you know that Hitler was an animal-loving vegetarian? Does that make him a "good boy" after all? I am so sick of this fear that people have of acknowledging evil. I see this all the time at my work. We teachers are constantly told, "Remember, they aren't bad kids, they just exhibit bad behavior." That one always makes me cluck my tongue. So does that mean there is no such thing as a good kid, only good behavior? I'm sorry, but your actions define you. If you do bad things, then you are bad. If that truth hurts, then it is just something that you are going to have to live with.

By the way, Officer Kevin Howland - the Sacramento PD officer who shot Mssrs. Gallegos and Rabago - has some serious knee damage after being hit by the car driven by Gallegos, and is recovering. He is expected to eventually return to full duty.

Good Day to You, Sir