KENTON, Ohio (AP) — A judge decided two high school athletes can complete the football season this fall before they serve 60-day jail sentences for a car crash caused by a decoy deer placed in a country road. Two teens were injured.
“I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m going to. I see positive things about participating in football,” Judge Gary McKinley said Tuesday.
Dailyn Campbell, a 16-year-old quarterback for Kenton High, and 17-year-old teammate Jesse Howard . . . stole the decoy from a man’s home, created a base to help it stand upright because it had only two legs, and then drove up and down the road, watching as drivers swerved to avoid it. . . .
Robert Roby Jr. crashed his car into a pole and broke his neck, collarbone, arm and leg. His passenger, Dustin Zachariah, suffered brain damage, Bailey said.
So two meathead football players cause a car accident recklessly and 100% foreseeably — arguably so foreseeably that this is worse than drunk driving. Fortunately for them, Judge Gridiron (pretty much these two lunkheads 20 yrs later) thinks so highly of football that he makes extra-special-sure their much-deserved sentence doesn’t interfere with The Most Important Thing In Life.
This fiasco isn’t gendered on its face, but c’mon: does anyone think a sentence would be suspended like this for a girl’s gymnastics meet, an academic event, a single mom’s child care convenience, or a working adult’s job needs? No, this judge give special privileges only to high school football stars.
Here’s an argument this judge might’ve found persuasive: this was an egregious crime because it’s harder to play football for the teenage boy with brain damage and the other teenage boy with the broken neck, collarbone, arm and leg.
– Scott Moss
Wow. In what kind of a fucked up society are judges allowed to make rulings that start with “I shouldn’t be doing this”?