Too Bad She Didn’t Hit A Black Man

Twenty seven years old Tucson, Arizona motorist Melissa Arrington was convicted of two counts of aggravated driving under the influence and negligent homicide in the death of forty five years old Paul L’Ecuyer. The exotic dancer and bartender was driving home about 8:40 PM on December 1st, 2006 when she swerved off the road and struck Mr. L’Ecuyer while he was riding his bike in the bicycle lane. Ms. Arrington struck Mr. L’Ecuyer so hard that he was thrown over the truck and landed into the bed of Ms. Arrington’s Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. After hitting the bicyclist Ms. Arrington drove another two hundred fifty yards before coming to a stop. That’s the length of two and a half football fields. Mr. L’Ecuyer died in the back of the pickup. Ms. Arrington’s blood alcohol content was nearly twice the level of Arizona’s legal limit in a blood test taken two hours after the accident. When the incident occurred, Ms. Arrington was driving with a suspended license from a previous drunk driving conviction.

A week after Mr. L’Ecuyer’s death, Ms. Arrington was staying in the Pima County jail waiting for her trial. Ms. Arrington and a male friend were recorded sharing a few laughs over the entire incident. The man in the recording said that Ms. Arrington “should get a medal and a fucking parade for taking out a tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman, and a gay guy all in one shot.” While Ms. Arrington laughed, the man then said that he knew it was a terrible thing to say. Ms. Arrington responded, “No it’s not.”

Ms. Arrington could have received as little as four years behind bars for the conviction. But once he heard the recorded conversation Superior Court Judge Michael Cruikshank gave Ms. Arrington ten years and six months and called Ms. Arrington’s attitude “breathtaking in its inhumanity.” Ms. Arrington is also recorded talking about the witness who had seen her swerve off the road, saying “If she had so much of an issue, maybe she should have called 9-1-1 sooner, huh?” Mr. Cruikshank said in his ruling that Arrington has yet to take responsibility for her actions in L’Ecuyer’s death. The judge went on to say that instead of laughing Ms. Arrington should have been rendered silent by such shocking and disgusting sentiments.

Assistant Pima County Public Defender Michael Rosenbluth told the judge that his client had never been “cold, callous or flippant” about Mr. L’Ecuyer’s death and has always felt remorseful for her actions. Mr. Rosenbluth said the jail calls aren’t her true sentiments. But the recorded conversation paints a totally different picture. How can anyone say with any credibility that the comments aren’t callous or that Ms. Arrington is remorseful after we see her veil of repentance comes off when she thinks no one is listening?

What is most interesting to me is the fact that no one is criticizing the fact that a private conversation was recorded. After Duane “Dog” Chapman was busted for being identified as a racist when his rant about black people in general and about his son’s girlfriend in particular was made public so many people came to his defense with one of three arguments. The first argument was that it was a private conversation that didn’t need to be made public so therefore whatever people heard was invalid. The second argument was that what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors so therefore whatever the public heard was not meant for the public to hear and should be dismissed. The third argument was that all he said was the word nigger and that really didn’t mean he was racist. White people referring to black people as niggers is nothing people should be concerned about these days.

Mr. Chapman was able to get his black preacher to come to his defense despite the fact that Mr. Chapman thought his preacher was one of those “fucking niggers.” Mr. Chapman did admit that “We don’t mean you fucking scum nigger without a soul.” His preacher was just one of the run of the mill niggers. I guess what Ms. Arrington should have done was gone out and get some homosexual, environmentalist, bicycling friend of French ancestry to argue on Ms. Arrington’s behalf that he or she was not offended by anything she heard during that conversation. It seems to work when white people are busted for speaking so negatively and using racially charged slurs. Too bad for Ms. Arrington that there is no French, gay, environmentalist, bicyclist along the lines of Reverend Al Sharpton that could absolve Ms. Arrington of her prejudices on behalf of all the French, gay, environmentalist, bicyclist community.

Ms. Arrington made a lot of mistakes that night on that road on December 1st of 2006. But in many respects, one of her biggest mistakes was the fact that Mr. L’Ecuyer wasn’t black along with being a gay, tree hugging, bicyclist. Had the recorded phone conversation included a remark about the victim being a nigger a lot of people would have just rolled their eyes and make one of three arguments on Ms. Arrington’s behalf. The first would have been to dismiss the private conversation. The second would be to dismiss what happens behind locked doors or in this case behind locked bars. And the third argument would be that nothing said in a conversation about black people meant anything because everybody knows that a racist rant, unlike other prejudice fueled rants, isn’t really how people feel.  People are just less likely to care about the victim whenever it turns out to be a black person.