April 19, 2010, - 3:07 pm
In Defense of Jamar Pinkney, Sr.: A Detroit Father’s Story
Last week, in a Detroit courtroom, Jamar Pinkney, Sr. was found guilty of executing his fifteen-year-old son, Jamar Pinkney, Jr. The 38-year-old father was sentenced to 37-82 years in prison and will be 75 years old at his earliest possible release from prison. His story is one of the many tragic stories of life on the wilding streets of Detroit.
And I’m the only person I know of (other than his attorney) to defend him. But I think he got a raw deal. Sadly, the Detroit mainstream media all editorialized against him in their coverage of the story.
You see, Pinkney’s son, Jamar Jr. raped his three-year-old sister. And while I don’t condone executions for rape, we know that those who rape kids will do it over and over, again and again. There is no cure, and all the counseling in the world doesn’t cure child molesters of their sickness. A fifteen-year-old boy is old enough to know that raping anyone–especially a three year old child who happens to be your sister–is wrong. In most jurisdictions, a 15-year-old is tried as an adult for such crimes. And at age 15, this kid’s warped, perverted behavior was likely a preview of his lifelong conduct, had he lived beyond that day. Via his execution, how many girls’ lives of pain, humiliation and lifelong mental problems from child-rape were spared? Quite a few, I’ll bet.
But, instead, the mainstream media soft-pedaled the rape, describing it as “molestation”–a sanitized word for it. The Detroit Free Press quoted the sentencing judge as saying the father denied his son the chance at rehabilitation and repentance. Do you really think a 15-year-old rapist of his 3-year-old sister will ever truly be rehabilitated? Dream on.
How many parents wish they could execute the rapists who have killed the mental lives of their kids after raping them? We don’t condone that kind of violence, but when it happens in the movies and in real-life, we generally applaud those people for cleaning up the earth of some of the excessive scum that made it dirty. I wish these child rapists would all serve life terms in prison. But we know that’s not what happens. They get out, and they rape little kids again.
I feel for Jamar Pinkney, Sr. He was one of the few fathers in Detroit (and Highland Park–a destitute, wholly surrounded suburb of Detroit) who was actually around and actively in his kids’ life. And when he learned that his teen son raped his daughter, he apparently snapped and immediately took his son out and shot him, execution style. I don’t think he was sane at the moment. And it’s clear he feels terrible for what he did. This was a father who cared about his kids. He went off the handle as many would in a very traumatic tragedy. It’s a horror and rage any parent of a raped child feels because they know their child is irreparably scarred forever, some of the life in them permanently killed. Now, he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.
There are plenty of other fathers a/k/a sperm donors in Detroit who deserve life in prison far more than Jamar Pinkney, men who are far more of a threat to society. Some are hardened criminals who don’t kill as the result of the rage over a raped daughter. Others are those who spread their seed at random to various babymamas. And their absenteeism results in their kids becoming killers, drug dealers, pimps, and thugs. And, unlike Pinkney, Sr., they’ll never do a day in jail for the monstrosities they’ve borne on this city. Pinkney, sadly, is a babydaddy, too. The raped girl was his daughter by another mother. And that’s why Pinkney, Jr.’s mother and grandmother don’t mention (in the video above) the daughter her son raped and dismiss the heinous act as “lust.” Rape is far more than lust. And now the raped young girl will be yet another damaged Detroit victim of violence who also won’t grow up with a father.
Like I said, I don’t favor this kind of vigilante justice or personal death penalty, executing someone for a sex crime. it is uncivilized. But sometimes vigilante justice ends up working out for the best. And frankly, I think Jamar, Sr.–in the heat of a loving father’s anger that his toddler daughter was raped–did a lot of potential future victims of Jamar Pinkney, Jr. a favor. He saved their lives.
Tags: child molester, Detroit, father, Jamar Pinkney, molester, murder, prison, rape, Rapist, son
Damn,thanks Debbie for this perspective on that shooting.
ebayer on April 19, 2010 at 3:20 pm