Not Here . . .

Setting the scene . . . it was an ordinary Tuesday. I was late for work as usual and on my way to work I noticed something strange - a taxi on the side of the road. Maybe to some of you seeing a taxi is normal but not here, no one takes a taxi to where I live. I go on about my day at work. A co-worker comes back from running errands a little after lunch and mentions there is an Amber Alert out for a 12 year old boy in our parish. I don't give it much thought - I assume it is a custody dispute or something like that because bad things don't happen, not here. An hour later I get a text saying the boy has been found dead and the police are looking for Brian Douglas Horn, a registered sex offender and the driver of a green Action Taxi car.

Frantic phone calls, emails, texts, and Internet searches take place. News comes in to my co-worker that her son's T-ball practice has been cancelled because it's near where they found the body and there is a crazy person on the loose. Things like this do not happen where I live, not here my mind keeps saying.

From reports I know just where they found the body, on the side of the road where I saw the taxi this morning - I cannot process that I passed a murderer who had just dumped a child on the side of the road like garbage as I drove to work. Not here is all I can think.

I spend that evening with my children discussing strangers. I tell Mason to yell, scream, run if any stranger approaches him. We just had this talk during his Public Servants week at school and he has already forgotten. I spend my days waving to passing strangers - roughnecks, rednecks, gentry all the same - how can I teach him to be fearful of strangers when I say "hello" and "good day" to everyone I see at the local store? Isn't that classic Southern small-town charm? How to impress on him to yell, to scream, to run and that its not rude when I've spent 5 years asking him to smile and say "Hi!" to strangers all day?

Over the last two days news has unfolded - the child, 12 year old, Justin, was spending the night with a friend over Spring Break on the same street my cousin just bought a house, the same street my family went to look at Christmas lights. He received text messages from a "girl" saying she was sending a taxi to pick him up so she could meet him for a late night date. The last time anyone saw him was 3 a.m. on Tuesday. He slipped out and got in the taxi ready to meet his friend and two hours later he was strangled to death floating in pool of water. The "girl" turned out to be Brian Horn and his date turned out to be his worst nightmare.

I wonder when he realized it was going wrong? I wonder how scared he was? I wonder when his excitement over what he thought could have possibly been his first kiss gave way to paralyzing fear? I wonder these things for this innocent boy, whom I have never met not will I now ever have the chance to.

To Brian Douglas Horn, I wonder what kind of animal you are? To spend days pretending to be a teenage girl to lure a boy into your taxi cab in the middle of the night. I wonder how STUPID you are to park your car on the side of the main road in plain view and then be dumb enough to lock your keys in your car while disposing of the child so that everyone can see you that morning in broad daylight. I wonder if you know that the land where you left him belongs to my family - and now my memories of frolicking about in white Easter dresses and bonnets as a child are now marred by your evil? I wonder what possesses you to do the things you do? If I have to personally write every inmate at Angola to tell them that you are a 3-time child abuser I will and I hope you get your due.

To the owner of Action Taxi, I've seen you on the news talking about how your "hands were tied" and that the city issued him a taxi permit and that you feared a discrimination lawsuit if you didn't hire him. I hope that helps you sleep at night. I am not a lawyer but I feel pretty confident that under protected classes of people "white male sex offenders with 14 prior arrests" are not listed and it would be good business practice not to hire them. But what I really hear you saying is that you care more about your pocketbook then about your patrons. I wonder how many drunk people have stumbled out of bars and thought they were making a safe choice by choosing your taxi service and have actually been driven home by rapists and murderers all because you might get sued? I hear you saying all your other drivers have clean records but I think we've seen it only takes one. I know this isn't your fault, he would have found a way regardless, but how many people have you put in danger because of your lax policies? I for one will never be seen in one of your taxis.

To us as parents, as humans - did you know some cities, like Shreveport, make no exemptions for "for hire" drivers that have been convicted of sex offenses? They can drive a taxi just like anyone else can? Did you know that current policy only mandates you have a clean criminal history for five years? Think next time you step in a taxi, a limo, a bus, etc. Think when you send your children on trips to know these kinds of things.

I got an email today that the parent of a 2nd grader at Mason's school is a registered sex offender (aggravated incest, aggravated oral molestation) and he's been allowed to all class activities. I haven't been able to find Louisiana law on this but search MSNBC for a March 29, 2010 article about how in Tennessee registered sex offenders who have children at school can come to all functions. So when you are at work and can't go on a field trip, he or she can. They can sit by your child on the bus, they can befriend them so that they are no longer dangerous strangers, but trusted adults. Found out what your state's policy is. Don't just search around your house for sex offenders, know your area. Be your child's advocate. Help me find out what the policy is here and if it's like the one in Tennessee then let's change it.

To Justin, I never knew you. I know people who loved you and cared about you. I hear you were quite funny and sweet and smart. Tonight was your memorial service at the park and I couldn't come, so this blog is your memorial from me. I pray that for your sake that not here will we ever have news crews three days in a row for something so tragic, that not here will counselors ever be called back to our schools to console grieving classmates, and that this will not happen to another one of our children not ever, not anywhere, and especially not here.