This guy's name is Ring Paulino Deng. Born in Sudan, he found himself in the midst of the religious civil war there. He was kidnapped by military forces, and then was sold into slavery.

He was a slave for four years before his father sold everything he owned to buy the freedom of Deng and his sister. They escaped to Egypt, where they applied to immigrate to the US. Although they were unsuccessful, Deng's Aunt included him in her application, and she succeeded.

Deng moved to Nashville and attended high school for a while, hoping to get a college basketball scholarship. But eventually he dropped out to work at Walmart full-time. He would send most of his money back to his family in Egypt.

One day he drove into his apartment complex and blocked in three other cars. A dispute erupted. Deng was stabbed in the chest and died.

It would be easy to sum it up by saying that the whole story is high irony, and that it proves the US is not the apparent land of promise and security. But 2 million Sudanese have died from war or famine, and it's not clear what role Deng himself played in starting the scuffle that ended in his death.

i think the US is in really bad shape if we go start fights and there are fatalities for something as dumb as parking someone in. makes me wonder why we dont have tougher punishments for killers to make people think twice before taking someone's life. he was supporting his family out of the country too. its just wrong.

I feel sorry for this guy, I truly do, but that's how it is.

People hear "Land of Opportunity" and with the rep started out in the Era of Immigration in the early 20th Century, foreigners assume that success and prosperity are guaranteed. They forget, don't acknowledge, or don't realize that a "Land of Opportunity" gives you the same amount of opportunity to fail as it does to succeed.

And Verb, we do have tough penalties for murderers, but how do we strengthen them? Kill the perpetrators twice?

~Mike

yes! well, no. i just think that if you take one person's life away, on purpose with the intent to kill them, i just find the 'temporary insanity' thing the biggest load of bs since the clinton/lewinsky scandal. i find that the legal system is flawed, and it is not doing its job to protect. we need tough penalties to discourage people from doing it in the beginning, not just punishing them for their actions. (this should be a thread on its own)

oi, verbatim, i agree, SO MAKE IT A THREAD! =)
Someone has to start them here, I’ve done a couple the political area has been dead for awhile, why not fire it up with this?
Get the idea, this is not a *huge* community, everyone plays an important role, including you.
I've participated in some great debate/discussions here.
It’s why i keep coming back...but back onto topic...

Murder in the US seems to fall into 2 categories, those that get off too easy, and those that die, why not just jail *all* 1st degree murders for life, no exceptions. End of story. Personally i think McVeigh should have been left to suffer in solitary confinement for the next 60 years, for people like that being basically humanely put to sleep is far too nice. Allot of entirely innocent people died because of HIS political views, let him mull that over till he goes insane.

"Allot of entirely innocent people died because of HIS political views,..." Not to nit-pick here but they suffered from his actions, not his views. Hate-crime legislation advocates would like to prosecute beliefs but thats not going to happen.

I'd like to see us get away from the death penalty and move to life in prison. I'm not sure I would advocate mandatory minimums, however, since they've helped create quite a cancer in drug enforcement.

Now see, I'm in favor of the "penal colony" idea. England had a good idea with Australia, initially using it to store all their convicts and n'er-do-wells.

I say find a nice island chain or some sort of landmass in the heart of the Pacific, and dump all our prisoners there. It gets them away from us, they'd be visited by family more (if for no other reason than to get a nice trip to the beach), and as a bonus, you could probably plant some factories there and make them be productive.

Also, this would allow one to group the offenders by class, ranging from an island where you put all the murderers, child rapists and such on one island (preferably the one with the most carnivores) and one where you put potheads on so that they can watch cartoons all day and play hacky sack.

~Mike

alright. i will make the thread today.



but the whole penal colony idea--wasnt that covered in a movie a few years back? it was california, and i think it was about to fall into the ocean. i cant remember the name. but you still have to have guards on the island to make sure that nobody gets killed, in or out. it would be easier to put people in solitary confinement for life. (which makes them looney)

Would the moon be a harsh enough mistress?

Quote:

Originally posted by Tony Shepps One day he drove into his apartment complex and blocked in three other cars. A dispute erupted. Deng was stabbed in the chest and died.

Russ: y'know that's a little bit ill.

Verb: The movie was Escape from LA, and was Tons O' Fun.

I personally believe that everything should be deal with on a case by case basis. If you freak out and kill some dude for schtooping your wife, you get jail time for a while, 20 years or so, then maybe parole. You bomb a federal building, I say we blow out your knees with a shotgun then drop a ton of gravel on you. The only problem I have with McVeigh's death is that it didn't hurt, and we let him talk too much. A media blackout on the whole thing would have been perfect...we kill him, and his 'movement' and beliefs/ideas don't get publicized. All in all, a good thing.

Steve

________
Australia: Nice to know that your great grandfather was the kind of bastard no one wanted to deal with.

oi!
watch the .sig =)
While i take no real offense i have to point out that most of the prisonsers shipped to australia were of the poltical kind, not murders etc , some were shipped for crimes as minor as stealing a loaf of bread...

<this has been another offtopic post brought to you by jaguar>

And of course the original, classic "Escape from New York".

Damn, it happened again

No image this time, but this story in the Sacramento Bee talks about a guy from Kazakhstan who fled religious prosecution, landed safely in Sacramento, got a job delivering pizzas and was killed in a botched robbery attempt.

A few months ago I thought about chucking it all and just delivering pizzas for a living. But it's a dangerous life...

Don't consider it Tony. I just left a job cooking the damn things and was good friends with some of the drivers. It never happend to our store (that I know of) but at my boss's other pizza place, the drivers were getting robbed all over the delivery area. Got to the point where they weren't allowed to carry more than $20 cash.

~Mike

Remember the guy a few months ago here in Philadelphia? He had been trying to get on with the pizza place to do deliveries for some time? Got robbed and killed over in N. Philadelphia...

I did delivery for a short time and didn't mind it, except for the fact that my car was a piece of shit. There were two shady apartment complexes in the area where several of our employees had been previously robbed. We quit delivering there...all was well.

This sort of thing is becoming more common, although it has started problems in Washington, DC. For example, Domino's will deliver to what they consider "bad" neighborhoods. You have to meet the driver at their car though. These "bad" neighborhoods tend to lean towards a particular skin color, which is what started it. (This was not the issue where I was delivering.)

I always worried about getting robbed, but didn't. We never carried more than $15 in change. I always kept my eyes open, particularly in apartment complexes, making sure I knew all the ways out and things like that.

*reads Syc's last paragraph...

wowwie.

Though I don't blame you. The place I worked at, we're convinced that this one house was a crackhouse. There were bars on the windows, a security door, the works. The thing of it is, the neighborhood isn't like the South Bronx or your local equivalent.

The thing I remember most about my pizza employment tribulation was the absolute MORON customers. Our delivery area encompassed the enclave of rednecks in the borough, and I had to take orders from these people. You have no idea how many times I'd hear orders for a "peh-per-oh-NEYE PETE-zer" and an "EYE-tal-ee-un HOE-gEYE" (phonetically respelled for easier communication of stupidity).

The horror...

~Mike

I was delivering pizzas in Arnold, a southern suburb of St. Louis. In the state of Missouri, the collective IQ of folks starts to drop as you drive south on I-55. The Meramec River leaving St. Louis County and taking you into Arnold is one such drop--redneck haven. (It is now rednecks vs. chicken-shit folks who have begun to not only fear living in St. Louis City, but St. Louis County as well.)

So anyway, these apartments (called Bayshore) were right across the Meramec from St. Louis County. They looked nice and all, but at night, it was a different story. I ran a few deliveries over there with a friend of mine (before we quit delivering there)...barefoot & pregnant women, scruffy guys with gun racks in their trucks...and I'm only half-kidding. You're trying to give the customer their pizza and they're arguing with their wife/gf/baby momma. You're just trying to get the hell out for fear of being part of it or a witness.

I wouldn't mind delivering pizzas now, if only I had a better car. About the worst thing I'd have to deal with here are a bunch of moron teenagers.