Samuel's death has cast a shadow of mourning over the Los Dolores festivities. A young man with his whole life ahead of him and surrounded by people who loved him, who died after being run over by a vehicle that shouldn't have been there. That was circulating through a ...
Samuel's death has cast a shadow of mourning over the Los Dolores festivities. A young man with his whole life ahead of him and surrounded by people who loved him, who died after being run over by a vehicle that shouldn't have been there. That was circulating through a lane closed to traffic due to the pilgrimage.
However, nothing justifies society trying to take justice into its own hands. And although the young people, friends and family of Samuel, who reacted violently at the scene, attacking the driver and his vehicle, cannot be judged either, everyone should be clear that this is not the way. Among other things, because in that car they were hitting, even breaking windows, were two girls aged 4 and 7, who probably experienced the most terrifying night of their short lives.
Of course, it was even more so for Samuel and his family, without a doubt, because his death is irreversible. And that is why anyone can put themselves in the shoes of those who were with him, and released the anger and helplessness of the moment. But with the days, with distance and without the implication of suffering it in first person, it is difficult to see how many people justify the attempted lynching. Even, the messages from some readers arriving at the lavozdelanzarote.com forum were even unpublishable, because they were a clear incitement to violence, even stating that they should have taken the life of the driver who ran over Samuel.
Listening to his friends or reading the testimony of his brother or his girlfriend, who also left their messages in the La Voz forum, makes your hair stand on end and makes you understand their pain and anger. And it is that if overcoming the death of a loved one is something very hard, it is even more so when it occurs so suddenly and tragically, opening the doors for one to think again and again that that car should not have been there. That the driver had to see them. That he had to go slower. That he has snatched their Samuel from them.
Faced with death, everyone needs to find someone to blame. It can even be God himself, for lack of anything else. It is a way of channeling the pain. And in the case of Samuel's loved ones, the culprit is very clear. However, the family has a way to demand the responsibilities it deems appropriate against that driver: Justice. They can fight for him to be convicted of reckless homicide and to serve prison if they manage to determine that he committed reckless imprudence. And it is that it is in the field of the courts where this must be resolved.
In any case, it is evident that a cross weighs on the shoulders of that driver for life. Of course it is not that of losing a son, a brother, a boyfriend, a friend. But it is that of having cut short the life of a young man with his whole life ahead of him, and having done so in front of his daughters aged 4 and 7, who also had to see how a group of young people insulted and attacked their father, then attacking the car in which they were in.
And one can understand that they did it in the middle of that context, but what one cannot do is lose sight of the fact that it is wrong. That violence only begets violence, that one bad action cannot be answered with another bad action, even if it is less serious, and that no one can go out to act as a vigilante. Because otherwise, we are encouraging this type of attitude to spread. In cases as terrifying as this one, but perhaps also in others in which it makes even less sense.
A few days ago, and before the publication of a news item in La Voz de Lanzarote about a judicial investigation against agents of the Local Police of San Bartolomé, whom a young man accused of having assaulted him, forums were unleashed along the same lines. And it is that for many, the fact that the complainant had been arrested after fleeing at a police checkpoint, creating a danger on the road, and testing positive for a breathalyzer test and without a license, justified some beating and something else. And that is what you cannot fall into.
Without going into whether the young man's complaint is real or invented, what society must demand is that he pay what he has to pay for the alleged crimes he committed, and that law enforcement agents also respect the rules of democratic coexistence, in a country in which it is the system that must protect us. And if it doesn't, if our blood boils with injustice, the response must be different. It should focus on channeling that force with protests until the laws, the judicial system or whatever is necessary change so that society continues to advance, and not regress.
