So I woke up today to find this flood of online stuff just everywhere – so much I couldn’t really keep up with it fast enough, and I haven’t even made my way over to Facebook today yet – mostly stuff resulting from the KCSO’s most recent announcement regarding their stance on the investigation of teenager Henry Granju’s death and the preliminary autopsy results, which set off another firestorm pretty much around the globe, and rightfully so.
Also this morning, which I didn’t read until after I woke up today, Henry’s mama – who has tried extremely hard throughout this entire ordeal to be as patient, polite and respectful towards law enforcement as possible – expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s most recent statement on the case:
I am disappointed that… the Knox County Sheriff’s Office chose to release a statement in response to media coverage of Henry’s death in which they stated that the “preliminary investigation shows no evidence of homicide as a result of an assault.”
As a mother who has lost a child, it is certainly tempting to get into a point by point refutation of KCSO’s statement; I won’t do this however, because I do not wish to sully or interfere with their ongoing investigation. Suffice it to say, however, that the “preliminary investigation” to which they refer has been extremely disappointing at this point despite my own active efforts in following leads, talking extensively with witnesses, and BEGGING authorities to follow leads I’ve provided. Let me also say that as I sit here next to my dead son’s medical records that refer to “assault,” “skull fracture,” closed head injury,” etc it’s hard for me to understand reasoning that assumes at this point that the assault he DID experience in the 24 hours preceding his ER admission has no relevance to their investigation.
I have been trying pretty hard as well, though not always wholly succeeding, to hold my temper in deference to the family – especially in dealing with the species of troll that is an entire species unto itself and tends to feed mainly off newspaper and TV station websites. Trolls are trolls and always have been, but that particular breed of troll is always astounding in their sheer fortitude and need to expound on every single thing and towards everybody no matter what the subject, and almost always negatively or insulting. It’s absolutely amazing sometimes what people will say from behind the protection of their anonymous usernames and their keyboard. (I can assure you there is nothing on this blog nor anything I’ve ever written anywhere else on the Internet that I have any qualms about saying to whoever’s face, and nickname aside, I’m pretty non-anonymous after 15+ years of relatively high-profile activity in online music sects as well as elsewhere.)
In any case, yeah, all that happened today, and frankly – and especially since Katie publicly expressed her disappointment with KCSO’s statement – I’m not going to bother trying much to hold my tongue in check about it anymore.
People (mostly trolls) are coming to Katie’s blog and asking does everybody expect law enforcement to just “drop everything” to investigate this?
Drop everything? How does waiting almost five weeks to make any major moves on this investigation constitute “dropping everything”?
Can someone explain to me how five weeks (going now on six weeks) constitutes expectations of “dropping everything” or asking for “immediate answers”?
And the only other thing I really have to say today is pretty much what I said this morning before I went to sleep, in a discussion in response to a mutual friend’s similar statement.
Granted, I’m no expert. But I don’t get where you get to just walk around free for over a month when you beat someone nearly to death with a tire iron – AND there are witnesses.
Henry’s drug overdose is totally a moot point. How is that tire iron beating NOT a criminal act?
How in the world is beating someone brutally and violently and nearly to death, and to the point where it causes a jaw fracture, a skull fracture, a closed head injury and other damage NOT a criminal act? And how is it not reason enough to pick someone(s) up off the street, when you already have their names?
The fact that Henry eventually did die notwithstanding – I am really, really having trouble wrapping my brain around why his three assailants weren’t picked up WEEKS ago and charged with attempted murder, assault, WHATEVER. At the very least. Something.
They’ve had their names for weeks. They’ve had witnesses’ names for weeks. The people who beat Henry with a tire iron are still walking around. Why is what they did not criminal enough to pick them up on reason of beating someone with a tire iron alone?
For that matter, it’s been going on six weeks since the assault. They could be in Timbuktu by now, this much later.
I’ve seen people picked up and hauled in for far, far lesser offenses – if not almost immediately, within days - and I just don’t understand.
If there were NO witnesses it might be a little different.
But this makes no sense to me. Henry’s drug overdose is totally beside the point. Violent criminal activity took place and there were witnesses, yet these people are still walking around going on five, almost six weeks later. And weeks after their names, and the names of witnesses, were given to KCSO.
By the family, no less. Perhaps KCSO needs to budget some of their 2010 salary budget to pay Henry’s family for doing an important part of the investigation for them.
Bottom line – a kid was beaten savagely with a tire iron.
The fact that he also overdosed on drugs is a moot point.
How is that savage beating NOT a criminal act?
And how is it not worthy of arresting someone(s) for committing it – whether someone’s dead or not?
All along, the family has been unbelievably patient. They never expected “immediate” answers or for KCSO to “drop everything” to investigate.
But five weeks later – going on six weeks – that is NOT “immediate”. Nor is it “dropping everything”.
Whatever the autopsy results show – and even if the medical examiner declares Henry’s death is not a result of the beating – as long as those people walk free for that brutal, savage and violent beating – the world is being told that it’s okay to come to Knox County and beat someone bloody until they’re nearly dead.
The young man’s drug overdose is beside the point here.
Until and unless someone(s) is/are held responsible and accountable for this beating, it must be okay to beat someone with a tire iron in Knox County. Or hey, if you do it – you’ll have several weeks to get away somewhere else, and therefore maybe get away with it.
That is the point. And it’s sickening.
I never really worried too much about my family, future in-laws, in Knoxville’s overall safety much, to be honest. Having lived down here in Crime Central as long as I have, Nashville and especially Knoxville always have seemed so much better in this regard. But this situation really, really gives me pause to be a whole lot more concerned about my people up there than I ever have. My family, my people, my many friends who are Knoxville and Knox County residents and tax-paying citizens.
In any case, that’s all I’ve got for right now. My head feels like it’s going to explode from all this stuff.
I just do NOT understand how and why that beating with a tire iron is not a criminal act.
Or not criminal act enough for someone to actually DO something about it.
I just don’t understand.
Aunt B. says some of my same and similar thoughts today much more eloquently than I ever do right here.
The inimitable Les Jones blogged about Henry’s case today here.
Michael Silence of the Knoxville News-Sentinel and Katie’s associate Shane Ryne have compiled fine lists of all the other blogs writing about Henry’s story and his case here. At last count I saw, Shane had compiled the list from 87 blogs, many with multiple entries.
Michael Silence also announced today that he will be writing about the avalanche and outpouring of support worldwide in blogs and social media networks regarding Henry’s story in his Sunday column for the KNS.
On another note, I know I mentioned the other day that I thought it was pretty downright not smart of KCSO sitting on this case for over a month as they did when they had a distraught mother on their hands who was not only well-known in Knoxville media overall, but a former employee/online producer (and not all that long ago for either) of the Knoxville News Sentinel and TV news station WBIR. I failed to mention at the time that Henry’s father is the director of a Knox County agency.
To their credit and as far as I’m aware, I don’t think either of them tried to use any of that to any advantage, and they have certainly been more patient with law enforcement through this ordeal than I probably would have been. But I do know a little bit about how violent crime investigations go and that information about the “alleged victim’s” (yes, I’m using that term loosely) parentage should have been turned up in any decent preliminary investigation almost right from the start – as well as the fact that it’s just plain common sense that someone down at KCSO most likely knew that info anyway, or someone who did know would likely have made someone aware of such a thing at some point. Come on, Knoxville is NOT that big of a town.
I guess that just goes to show you that obviously no preferential treatment is afforded anyone no matter who they are – nor am I saying there should be. But it does seem pretty ridiculous when you look at it (an acquaintance was not quite as kind, calling it “downright stupid”). If I’m Knox County law enforcement and I have a kid beaten nearly to death on my hands in the hospital with a severe head injury, and I find out not only is the kid’s mother a former KNS employee and WBIR producer, but that the kid’s dad is director of a county agency? Uh, yeah, I think I’m not going to be too lazy with that case, if it were me.
I’m sorry. I have dear, dear friends – especially two who are like little brothers to me, even though they are far from little anymore – who are police officers. I worked down at the record store many years ago with one of the finest Memphis PD officers I have ever known, who worked down there to make some part-time money. I know of other law enforcement officials who have been kind to people I know when their colleagues weren’t. I am not anti-law enforcement.
But much as Aunt B. said – things have become very strange in the case of Henry Granju. Something is obviously terribly wrong.
If I go beat somebody nearly to death with a tire iron tomorrow, and someone sees me do it and knows my name? I don’t expect to have more than a day or two – if even a whole day – to be free and out walking on the streets.
That makes sense.
What’s happened with Henry’s case doesn’t. Not at all.
I can’t do much. I am very sad that I can’t get to Knoxville for the memorial service on Saturday, but I’ll be there in spirit.
I can’t be there for hands-on support and can’t help cook meals and carry the other Granju and Hickman kids around to where they need to go, and get pianos tuned and arrange for musicians for Saturday, and all the other absolutely wonderful things so many others I know have been doing all along throughout this ordeal and doing now this week. All of these people are just absolute angels.
I can’t donate much money in Henry’s memory for the memorial scholarship fund, but I’ve sent what I could. And probably will continue to for a long time to come, and send much more when I am able to. I frankly cannot think of a more appropriate fund for PC and I to set aside any philanthropic funds we are able to for, for the rest of our lives – and the fact that it is in honor and in memory of Henry, even better. “There but for the grace of God” for us and all that, as PC was Henry at that age – we were just fortunate that he lived through it, and that his parents were able to afford treatment – which is what the Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund is for, for families that can’t afford to put their teenagers through drug and alcohol treatment. We also have another family member who’s been through the same terrible struggles. For us personally, it’s an entirely appropriate charity and we will support it indefinitely.
So I can’t do much. But I can blog, and use various other social media to keep Henry’s story out there, so hopefully other families won’t have to suffer this same tragedy. And to keep it out there until this case is fully, thoroughly, and finally brought to justice.
So that’s what I’ll do, because it’s all I can do.
It’s been five weeks. Going on six weeks. No one’s ever asked for anything “immediately” or to “drop everything”.
And even if they had, “immediately” and “now” has long since passed, these five – almost six – weeks later.
When the people responsible for savagely beating this young man with a tire iron until he was nearly dead – and who now has died – are off the streets, then maybe I’ll really sleep again instead of waking up every five or ten minutes.
How that brutal and violent beating was not a criminal act worthy of hauling someone’s butt into jail – as soon as their names and the names of witnesses were known – is something I am just not ever going to understand.
