Sunday, August 10, 2008

His Explanation

This happened decades ago in or around Clifton Park in northern, that is to say "upstate," New York. I used to read the Albany Times Union regularly. It was a big story then, but it occurred so long ago that routine internet searches don't pop up anything on it.

I think her name was Dawn Cruikshank. She had a step-father, or perhaps it was her own father; whatever, who sexually abused her. Maybe there was a younger sister involved too. So this guy pulls his car into the garage of the house one day, and she's waiting for him with a shotgun or something and she blows his head off.

She got twenty years and I've occasionally wondered "where/how is she now?"

Another big story involved the infamous Schenectady police. Some officers picked up a woman for drunk-and-disorderly. One of the salient details was that her blouse or jacket was torn open in the scuffle and the police did not give her any assistance in covering herself up.

While she was waiting in a jail cell, one of the policemen forced her to perform oral sex on him.

She did not swallow the semen. She saved it and spit it out into a folded paper drinking cup. It was that evidence that led to the prosecution and imprisonment of that officer for sexual assault.

Again, I sometimes wonder where she is now; same for that officer. Over thirty years have now gone by.

Another story: About two weeks after a nasty snowstorm, passing drivers notice a car that had driven off the Northway. Melting snow allowed it to be exposed. The bodies of an elderly man and woman, husband and wife, were found in it.

Back to now or thereabouts:



Lin Hao, nine years old, leading the Chinese Olympic team into the stadium during opening ceremonies, accompanied by the somewhat taller Yao Ming. Hao was in school when the recent Sichuan earthquake destroyed everything around him.

After crawling out of the wreckage he went back in and retrieved one of his schoolmates. After that, he went in and got out another. When asked why he performed these acts of heroism, he said that it was part of his responsibility. He was the hall monitor, he explained.

3 comments:

wstachour said...

Lin Hao is my new hero!

GingerJar said...

Oh, and on the guy you had to transport to the office in a wheelchair...we are not even allowed to pick up somebody from OUR OWN PARKING LOT on a gurney. We are required to call 911 because EMS has equipment right there, where we would have to load the person on a gurney, roll them in the door and then get equipment. Somehow the powers that be think EMS is faster. Obviously they have never had to phone an ambulance...for anything.

Anonymous said...

Dawn Cruikshank --funny to see her name pop up after all these years. She was an acquanitance of mine. She was a student at Emma Willard School. Her parents had recently divorced; her father was a well-known developer in the area. He came over to visit Dawn and her sister in the family garage, bringing a pizza with him. She shot him, allegedly to end sexual abuse of herself and her sister. She was initially tried as an adult and got an extensive sentence, but on appeal it was determined that she should be tried as a juvenile. After that, hearings and the sentencing were closed; I don't think she could have been held past her 21st birthday. Amidst the legal proceedings, she also came down with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Of course, killing your father is bad, but I cannot help hoping that she has survived and found some peace.