JUSTICE FOR JUSTINE
by Desmond Kelly
A beautiful young Australian girl goes to America to marry the man she loved, made herself completely at home in Minnasota, was loved by her neighbours &, in fact, most of the Americans who, together with her husband-to be, thought the world of Justine. She was in the process of getting everything ready for her forthcoming wedding, when what could term “the ultimate tragedy” occured.
Her partner was still at work, when it seems that Justine heard what sounded like a woman-neighbour in trouble & according to what she told her boy-friend in an urgent phone call she made to him, was that it sounded that this woman-neighbour was being raped. Nothing was known at the time, who the adversary was, so her partner told her to ring the police immediately on 911 & let them handle the matter, which Justine did. She immediately rang them.
It must have been a busy evening in that particular area & the police probably did not realize how important Justine’s call was, and, such, did not attend to the call at once, although they probably told her that they were “on the way”, unfortunately, we’ll never know. Approximately 10 minutes later Justine watched two police cars pass by her home, in response to her call, should have just stayed “put”, letting the police do their job, but, it was here that FATE stepped in, so to speak. “Fate that sealed Justine’s fate”.
Justine came out, still dressed in her night-clothes and followed the rear police vehicle into the laneway when she thought that they had passed the particular house they were supposed to check, followed the police vehicle, waving frantically, I suppose, to get their attention, when the tragedy happened. A young “coloured” cop promptly shot her, from the police vehicle and this beautiful Aussie bride to be died, as a result.
The “case” is still on-going, and I do not intend taking any sides in this most tragic “Australian Story”, but, again, from personal experience, as a Security-Officer, in Australia, many years ago, there was more than one occasion when I was called out during odd hours, to check Ware-houses that I was responsible for. On one early am, I was called up to check one of these buildings. The place had been broken into, I got there as soon as possible, to find police vehicles already there with very young cops actually waiting for me to come over and accompany them into the warehouse. I asked them why they had not busted the lock & gone in themselves to check, & was amazed by the answer. “This crew are just out of Police School & so we decided to wait for you”. I WAS armed, but so were THEY.
This was what happened (I thnk), at Mnnasota. If Justine had not come outside, probably waving her arms around to get the cops’ attention, I would not be writing this sad story right now. Also, had the cops in those police cars been fully experienced in this sort of thing, a firearm would never have been discharged and Justine would be still with us. The particular evening was quite possibly a “busy” one, the “cars” were picked in a hurry and, it has now been now established that the cop who shot Justine was a very young ROOKIE cop.
“.He saw this woman running towards the vehicle he was in, panic-struck, he pulled his firearm out and shot her. There were undisputed “faults” on both sides. Justine should never have stepped outside her home & , for cases of “domestic-turmoil” of any sort whatsoever, “rookie-cops”should never attend the scene. Senior, experienced cops should be sent, while the rookies should “pound the pavements, until they get some police experience & not 10 minutes out of Police-School. Safe to say that this young Policeman will be totally remorseful about the incident and will probably never ever forget his first “victim”.
To finish this extremely emotional story, on behalf of eLanka, all Lankans, Autralians, Americans & everyone else WHO CARES, our sincere condolences to everyone concerned in this case. I am sure that “Justice for Justine” will follow, in any case.
