Everything Is Obvious_ _Once You Know the Answer - Duncan J. Watts [95]
CHAPTER 9
Fairness and Justice
August 4, 2001, was a Saturday, and Joseph Gray was having a fun day. Gray, a fifteen-year veteran of the New York City Police Department, had finished the late shift that morning, in the 72nd precinct in Brooklyn, and he and a bunch of his colleagues decided to stick around the station house to have a few beers. Shortly before noon, by which stage a few beers had turned into several beers, several of them decided to have lunch at the nearby Wild, Wild West topless bar. Officer Gray, apparently, was particularly pleased with the decision, as he stayed there all afternoon and into the evening, even after the rest of his friends had left. It was puzzling behavior, considering he had to report to work again later that night, but perhaps he was hoping to get there a few hours before his shift started and sleep it off. Regardless, by the time he poured himself into his burgundy Ford Windstar van, he had drunk somewhere between twelve and eighteen beers—enough to put his blood alcohol content at over twice the legal limit.
What happened next isn’t completely clear, but the record indicates that as Officer Gray drove north on Third Avenue, under the Gowanus Expressway overpass, he ran a red light. Definitely not good, but also perhaps not a big deal. On any other Saturday evening he might have sailed right on through and gotten safely to Staten Island, where he planned to pick up one of his drinking partners from earlier in the day before returning to the station. But on this particular night, he was not to be so lucky. Nor were twenty-four-year-old Maria Herrera; her sixteen-year-old sister, Dilcia Peña; and Herrera’s four-year old son, Andy, who were crossing the avenue at 46th Street at that moment. Officer Gray struck the three of them at full speed, killing them all and dragging the poor boy’s body for nearly half a block under his front fender before coming to a halt. As he emerged from his vehicle, witnesses claimed his eyes were glassy, his voice was slurred, and he kept asking, “Why did they cross?” over and over again. But the nightmare didn’t end there. Maria Herrera was also eight-and-a-half months pregnant. Her unborn baby, Ricardo, was delivered by cesarean section at Lutheran Medical Center, and the doctors there fought to save his life. But they failed. Twelve hours after his mother died, so did baby Ricardo, leaving his father, Victor Herrera, alone in the world.
Almost two years later, Joseph Gray was sentenced in State Supreme Court to the maximum penalty of five to fifteen years in prison on four counts of second-degree manslaughter. Gray pleaded with the judge for mercy, claiming that he’d never done “anything intentional in my entire life to hurt another human being,” and more than one hundred supporters wrote letters to the court attesting to his decency. But Justice Anne Feldman was unsympathetic, pointing out that driving a half-ton van along city streets while intoxicated was “equivalent to waving a loaded gun around a crowded room.” The four thousand members of the Herreras’ community, who signed a petition demanding the maximum sentence, clearly concurred with the judge. Many felt that Gray had gotten off easy. Certainly Victor Herrera did. “Joseph Gray, fifteen years is not enough for you,” he told the courtroom. “You will get out of prison one day. And when you do, you will still be able to see your family. I will have nothing. You killed everything I have.”1
Even reading about these events years after they took place, it’s impossible not to feel the grief and anger of the victims’ family. As Victor Herrera expressed it to one reporter, God had blessed him with the family he’d dreamed of; then one drunk and reckless man had taken it all away from him in an instant. It’s a horrible thought, and Herrera has every right to hate the man who destroyed his life. Nevertheless, as I read about the repercussions—the protests outside the police station, the condemnation