Lynch at Large

The death of Erin Hamley, a retarded man with cerebral palsy who was mistakenly shot by a state trooper on a northwest Arkansas highway, is one of those “pound of flesh” kind of cases. Retired trooper Larry Norman had better believe in “the quality of mercy” after the rather lenient sentence handed down.

Now we know that Norman was listening to a commercial radio station and did not hear all the communication around Hamley’s roadside questioning. Norman disobeyed a direct order to handle traffic control and rolled on to the scene where Hamley was laying on the pavement. Norman broke procedure by walking around the front of his car, shotgun in hand. This forced the other officers out in the open and it increased the danger of what was a situation being professionally resolved without incident, much less loss of human life.

Norman acted on the worst possible human instinct, a gut feeling. It was not a snap decision. He deliberately disobeyed both an order to handle traffic and proper procedure for this questioning.

Erin Hamley had a mom who loved him and plenty of friends. His life is worth more than the shameful end to which he was subjected. Larry Norman made a grievous mistake that could have been easily avoided. He got off easy.

(Broadcast July 3, 2007)