Promo Stuff Goes Here
A
gang of national news media and celebrity do-gooders converged
on Huntsville last month to shine their lights on the Texas prison
system.
The grave concern of the
American press, however, was not with the rise in inmate assaults
on staff, not the dangerous understaffing in Texas prisons brought
on by shamefully low pay, not the growing frustration and anger
of the men and women in gray uniforms who help keep our streets
safe from criminals.
What was fretting the media
and the self-styled ambassadors of morality who had gathered
at The Walls was the scheduled execution of a robber-rapist-murderer
named Gary Graham.
By now, the world knows (and
many have started to forget) that Graham was put to death by
lethal injection despite his struggling and the persistent bleating
of a flock of name-brand entertainers including Bianca Jagger,
the Rev. Jesse Jackson and that guy from MASH.
The demonstrators left Texas
without fulfilling their goals of saving Graham and/or damaging
the presidential campaign of Gov. George W. Bush.
The media pack exhausted
every angle of this one criminal’s saga and skipped town
without inquiring into the health of the 78-year-old chaplain
who was severely slashed by one of Graham’s cellhouse buddies
days earlier.
To add drama to the death
house festivities, a detachment of Black Panthers assembled at
one end of the Huntsville midway while a group of Ku Klux Klansmen
huddled at the other.
From our vantage point, the
only folks who comported themselves with dignity during the event
were the Texas peace officers — DPS and correctional officers
— who kept order and calmly carried out their solemn duty
to uphold the law.
Their silent message spoke
louder than all the standups and soundbites in front of The Walls:
If you expect to get away
with murder, don’t come to Texas.
