Quincy resident who used his car to twice ram a Vietnamese man and push him into a ditch while yelling at him to go back to China only gets 18 months because he's old and remorseful
Sullivan started driving and hit G.N. [the victim], forcing G.N. onto the hood of Sullivan's car. Sullivan drove about 200 feet down the street with G.N. on the hood of his car, keeping pace with traffic. G.N. was holding on to the hood and windshield wipers while screaming for help. Sullivan then slammed on his breaks, stopping abruptly, and G.N. fell off the hood. G.N. slapped the hood of Sullivan's vehicle in apparent anger while trying to regain his balance. Sullivan admitted that he then accelerated and drove his vehicle into G.N. a second time, causing him to fall face first into a 10-foot-deep construction ditch. A construction worker on the scene heard Sullivan say, "go back to China!" as Sullivan slammed his car door shut. Sullivan drove away and was arrested two miles from where he had hit G.N. the second time.
An important civil right is freedom from a persistent threat of violence. Asian people in Quincy don’t have this now. They have to be careful around White people in cars because who knows which White driver is willing to take the eighteen months in order to satisfy their anger?
The way to do that is not to convince adults to not be racist (because we don’t actually know how to do that), but to convince people that it’s not worth it to
act on their racism. Do you think employers actually give a shit about blatantly discriminating based on race or gender? Some maybe, but a whole lot don’t. They all care about their company taking a huge financial hit, though, so they at least have to be secretly racist.
The case of a 78-year-old guy trying to kill someone is kind of tough, but the prosecutors made the wrong call by going for a lenient sentence. Someone still able to drive a car has the ability to decide how they want to spend their remaining years. My dad, for example, is nearly that age, and he does know what it means to deliberately hit someone with a car. So does the president. (Though if the president did this, thanks to the SCOTUS, he would be immune to prosecution.) Given that, having to spend his final years away from society as a result of trying to kill someone with a car would be fair, even if they were his last years.
Conversely, imagine you hate some politician and believe they’re going to ruin the country and that they’re going to win high office. That politician is crossing the street in front of you. You’re 78. You know you’re only going to take eighteen months if you hit the gas. Do you?
Some people would for 1.5 years in prison; some would still do it even if it cost five. But more people would do it for 1.5.
OK, I should stop thinking about this. I’ll just conclude with: Prosecutors should have tried harder for safety reasons.