Help a Family in Need
Andrea Collins-Smith died from Inflammatory Breast Cancer on July 5, 2008. Her struggle lasted a little over a year and was documented by Mrs. Collins-Smith on her blog, Punk Rock Mommy. She was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of breast cancer the day after she received her Bachelor’s degree from Temple University. She fought long and hard, but because of the nature of this cancer by the time she was diagnosed she was already stage IV. It then became a fight to stay alive for just a few months longer- extend her life as long as possible. In the end, the cancer metastasized to her throat and she was lost to those tumors.
Kelly Smith, Andrea’s widower, is finding himself in a financial bind. He spent most of the last year at home helping Andrea with taking care of the children and their home. Though they have a lot of support within their own community in Philadelphia, Kelly needs a little more. He recently found out that Andrea didn’t work long enough throughout her 38 years to qualify for dependent children benefits. She and Kelly believed that after her death the children would receive money through Social Security and they were counting on that. Raising 6 children is hard enough, but raising them alone and in these circumstances is too much.
In this post Kelly asks for a little help if we can do it. I know that the blogosphere is able to come together to help those in need- I’ve seen it happen many times. I have no doubt that the blogging community will be able to come together again to help this strong and loving man care for his children in the absence of his soul mate.
If you’d like to help this family there’s a PayPal donation button on the front page of the blog.
Cops Taser Injured Boy
This is absolutely ridiculous.
A 16 year-old boy who fell from an overpass was tasered 19 times by police who were called to the scene.
Passing motorists called Ozark police out of concern for the teen as he walked along the busy overpass. When the police arrived, the young man was lying on the shoulder of the highway directly underneath the 30 foot high overpass with a broken back and foot.
Doctors believe 16-year-old Mace Hutchinson broke his back and heel after falling, as his injuries are consistent with such a fall. The boy’s family does not understand why police would have tasered the the teen 19 times after he was so seriously injured.
The Police Captain explain their outlandish behavior by saying that Mace was mumbling incoherently about “shoot cops, kill cops” and refused to comply with police officers when they arrived on the scene.
So, a boy falls from an overpass onto a freeway, is quite obviously injured – possibly going into shock – and the Ozark Police Department figures he must be a dangerous animal? Are these idiots not trained enough to be able to tell when someone is injured? Why 19 times? Did they not think that their tasers might have made this boy’s situation worse?
There are stories about tasering that make me wonder who really is at fault. Sometimes I think “Well, what did you really do to deserve it?” But not this time. This time the police went straight into brutality mode by causing an injured child even more pain. Exactly how dangerous is a person who is incapacitated by a broken back? How afraid were they of a child laying broken on the road?
Pitiful. Absolutely disgusting. I would say these officers need to be retired from their jobs, but then more idiots will come in their place. Better training is what they need. Not everyone lying in the road with life threatening injuries is going to suddenly get up and beat them down. That’s Hollywood stuff, doesn’t really happen in real life. Someone should tell those cops that.
Sadly, their misuse of tasers delayed the immediate surgery on the boy’s back. Because of the shocks, his white count was too high and he developed a fever- because of which the surgeons could not safely operate on the boy. The extent of his permanent injuries remain to be seen.
