Thoughts;
The turning point is stuff about kids. The turning point is that dude cannot justify how he treat that young 15/16 year old. No one can justify how they took that lad AND his tiny kid. They're human. The lad with the 15 year old who he mistreated, that dude they convicted, from moment one, he can't lie to himself about it. Stupid. Really nasty.
And no one can stop the father or the family of the child who was taken from saying they will face the trial and the heat, to stick up for him, because he's got decades ahead of him.
It's like, the best thing that can happen might be that the remaining gangs try and learn some lessons. Violence / threats only ever sort a limited number of problems. Whereas, any violence or such that involves civilians and - especially - children is asking for trouble. I mean, if the CPS find out children are at risk, if the jury hear that. They are really going to try and hurt these people.
I was crying for Cameron long before they let it be known he had died. Because he had been brought up right by his dad and mum who were right with him throughout. He had lost decades of his prime best just by losing his arm. Thinking about my life. What those years might have meant. 18-22. Young lad learning his profession. 22-26 trying long term relationships, having children? 26-30 peak of his physical 30-34 now maturing 34-38 being the older lad and having all that experience under his belt whilst still having a young body.
Slashed away from him, in an instant. Over what? Nothing. Road rage is the definition of 'nothing happened.'
So sorry he couldn't stick it out but they'd taken his best, taken his arm, taken his feeling of just being an ordinary lad who could say what he thought, stand where he thought, in his normal world.
....And it happpened ??? why ??? It's a non incident. Skinny slightly better father teaches him not to be anywhere near this shit. Skinny's real dad never protected hi, instead filled him up with unrealistic boasting and threats and said that's the real shit.
That's the whole thing. No matter who they are, you can rely on humans to be human. They will fuck it up. Greed. Arrogance. Laziness. Weakness. They like to pretend otherwise, but it's absolutely 'weakness' that undoes these guys who purport to use the weakness of others. They are weak too. Greed. Ego. Laziness. Makes you wonder if they'd seen that, would they choose something else
Thankyou to Cameron and thankyou to his Parents. I mean. He's a tree surgeon, which is one of my fantasy professions. He was 18. And he had no doubt. That just wasn't something he could let go. Not even for his own life. But if they took away your arm, your profession, your feeling of this being a normal safe world where you could raise a family. They took that. At 18 years old. Because he said, calm down.
He should have survived. Because the reality is, that's the deal Cameron. There might be nothing as good ever again. The reality of standing up for yourself and others might mean nothing more than self-respect, and maybe you already had that and were seeing it attacked and assaulted.
We all understood in some way what he took on and why he did it. Many of us have had to share a smaller part of a similair burden in isolation or uncertainty. And when we do come through it, we can think of nothing better to say that, that's how I was raised. That was my father, my mother, who instilled this in me. What we do to uphold this system that protects "the weak" - against the insanity which the other sort of weak person fals into, when they start using and abusing people.