“I’m Sorry I Didn’t Get Killed”

In a few hours, the graduation ceremony will be held for the senior class of Truman High School of Bristol Township here in Bucks County, PA. Ordinarily, this would be a story of little consequence, sort of par for the course for most graduation ceremonies.

But as many people know by now, this story is exceptional because senior class president Tyrone Lewis will deliver his commencement speech via a video feed and not in person. This is because Lewis has been barred from his graduation by the school since his life has been threatened by a New Jersey gang.

Now that you have this bit of information, I’m going to point out that something highly unusual happened this week in the pages of the Bucks County Courier Times. Columnist Kate Fratti wrote about this on Wednesday, and I’ll let her provide the remaining background on this; her work on this was typically well done and, I would argue, brought a perspective to this that only a mother of a son could bring.

The unusual thing that took place was the fact that both Fratti and J.D. Mullane (the paper’s other columnist and resident journalistic hack) wrote about Lewis and his story, with Mullane making his unique contribution yesterday (I was going to avoid this entire story because I don’t know what else could have been said until J.D. “stepped in it” in his own special way).

Mullane’s take on this was typically perverse, as you can see...

Tyrone Lewis should have the grace to apologize for the inconvenience, negative national publicity and fear that his unique situation has brought to Truman.

He should thank the school administrators and the police for going to extraordinary means to let him participate.

This is what gentlemen do. We'll see if Lewis lives up to his rep.

I suppose, when the ceremony is over and (God willing) all goes fine, Lewis should announce the title of this post to the entire universe then, huh J.D.?

As Fratti pointed out, the potential reprisal Tyrone Lewis is facing is because his sister testified in the trial of the shooter who killed Anton Cofield, all of 23 years old.

Not unlike the clients of Jack Abramoff, Tyrone Lewis has done absolutely nothing wrong. If anything, he is the one making the sacrifice by not contesting the decision of the school. I don’t see that setting up some kind of video feed allowing Lewis to speak constitutes a hardship on the part of the high school (please allow your humble narrator to voice his opinion on this, albeit reluctantly because everyone else seems to be a “know it all” on this subject also).

Along with many other people I’m sure, it is my sincere hope that Tyrone Lewis is able to achieve and accomplish all that he is able to in his life and, one day, can look back on all of this as a rough patch in what will hopefully be (metaphorically speaking) nothing but green grass for him.

And meanwhile, local yokel columnists who blame him for imaginary offenses will be left to wallow in the mud where they belong.