Real men accept punishment

This is a story I once heard about an errant young fellow, Sammy, who

ends up in jail. One beautiful Thursday in early February, Sammy is

walking across a college parking lot when he spots a car with the

keys hanging from the driver’s door keyhole. Sammy’s first thought is

to walk over to the car, remove the keys, open the door, throw the

keys on the seat, close the door again and walk away. But when he

gets to the car, he sees a small boom box on the passenger seat.

Sammy succumbs to the temptation to steal the boom box, which he

takes back to his own car and puts in the back seat. He then walks to

class.

A security attendant at the far end of the parking lot sees all

this, and within a few minutes Sammy finds himself being dragged out

of class, handcuffed and driven to the police station. Once there,

he’s booked on a petty-theft charge and allowed to make a phone call.

Sammy calls home and in a frantic tone tells his mom -- a.k.a. the

“Mominator” -- that he’s in jail and bail has been set at $1,000.

Well, the Mominator swings into action, rushes to her local bank

because it’s almost closing time, withdraws the money and drives to

the police station. Her thoughts are racing: “Sammy is in jail. He’s

so young. He just had his 18th birthday last month. I pray he won’t

get hurt there. I’ve heard so many horror stories about young boys in

jail.”

About 30 minutes after Sammy’s phone call, the Mominator is

standing at the desk of the police station with $1,000 in cash. The

sergeant fumbles with some paperwork and then tells her the bad news:

“Ma’am, your son’s bail has been revised. You need to bring in

$10,000.”

The bank is closed. The Mominator panics but is not defeated. She

drives home and puts in a call to the family attorney. He, too,

sounds disturbed. “You’ve got to get Sammy out of jail!” Mominator

calls a bail bonds business and finds out that the charges will total

10% of the bail amount. She decides to wait until morning and pull

the rest of the bail money out of her bank account in order to avoid

the charges.

Around 4 a.m., the phone rings. The family has spent a sleepless

night. Sammy’s dad hears his son pleading, “Please, get me out of

here. I haven’t slept all night. The guys in my cell are threatening

me.” The Mominator calls in sick, and, at opening time, she is

waiting at the bank’s door. She gets a cashier’s check for $9,000 and

again drives to the police station. More bad news: “Ma’am, we can’t

accept both cash and a check. You have to bring all cash.”

Back at her bank, Mominator hears from the manager that he can’t

cash her cashier’s check, since, it being Friday, he’s going to need

all the cash on hand for other customers. Even after hearing why she

needs the money, the man rejects her plea.

I know the Mominator well -- she won’t take no for an answer. She

walks across the parking lot to another bank, where she had once had

an account. She recognizes a woman, once a teller at the bank, now

sitting at a desk.

Mominator walks over and tells her story. The woman looks at the

check, then back at the Mominator, then back at the check -- all very

slowly -- and finally says, “I have no trouble with that.” At that

point, the Mominator melts into tears. A young teller comes over and

gently escorts her into a private side room, saying that she’ll be

back in a few minutes with the cash.

Some 15 minutes later, an exhausted but determined Mominator is

once again at the sergeant’s desk. He takes the envelope stuffed with

$10,000 in bills and disappears. Finally, after what seems like

forever, a haggard, crumpled Sammy appears and hugs his mom. Mission

accomplished.

Why am I recalling this story? I owe it to the Mominator, a

longtime friend of the highest caliber. Sammy, officially an adult by

one month, was jailed as an adult. During the interrogation, the

investigators tried to bully him into signing a confession that he

was a member of a big-time auto theft ring. Sammy refused to sign,

and so the police threw the book at him and raised the charges from

misdemeanor petty theft to felony vehicular burglary.

Sammy came from an unpretentious middle-class family. Both his

parents worked 40-hour weeks and lived in a small home in one of the

first tracts built in Orange County. No high-profile family there,

and definitely no big bucks for fancy lawyers. Sammy had committed a

crime, and he paid his dues. He was young, but no longer a boy. Sammy

was officially an adult and faced judgment as an adult. Under no

circumstances did anyone, from the arresting officer to the

investigators to the cellmates, treat this 18-year-old as anything

other than a man.

Greg Haidl, in spite of all his financial backing and his

high-profile daddy, is an adult too. As such, Haidl needs to assume

responsibility and face judgment for his actions as what he now is --

a man. Equal justice under the law -- Sammy and the Mominator would

expect no less.