- FIRE CURES BIGOTS
- Aug 26, 2002
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by Y Kant Ozma Post
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Comments on any article in Jacksonville's Florida Times Union are atrocious.
http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-11-23/story/teen-accused-jacksonville-vehicular-homicide-angry-depressed
quote:Chelsea Lambert talked Tuesday night with her brother Zachary about making plans for Thanksgiving dinner.
Less than 12 hours later, the 16-year-old called her from the hospital charged with vehicular homicide in a police chase that ended in a crash and a 22-year-old Jacksonville man dead.
Zachary Lambert is under police guard at Shands Jacksonville where he is recovering from a broken leg.
Read more Jacksonville-area crime news
He was driving a Toyota Tundra pickup at “a high rate of speed” at Beach Boulevard and San Pablo Road about 3 a.m. Wednesday, with police in pursuit, when he ran a red light and slammed into a car, according to the Florida Highway Patrol
The driver of that car, Christopher L. Thompson, was killed.
Lambert’s sister said she and her brother were on the phone the night before hoping to make holiday dinner arrangements when the conversation soured about 10:30 p.m.
“He was angry,” Chelsea Lambert, 19, said. “I’m very upset ... I tried to do everything I could for him.”
The siblings were products of the foster care system most of their lives, she said. Although she declined to discuss their parents, she said she was put into foster care at age 9 and her brother at 4.
“He’s been through a lot of therapy. He’s on a lot of medication,” Chelsea Lambert said. “I believe he has taken this foster care thing very hard. He was very unhappy. He was very depressed. I think he was trying to kill himself.”
As Thompson’s family and friends are mourning his death, the questions are mounting about the circumstances of the chase, how the teen got the pickup truck in the first place and where he has been since he was last seen at a group home on East 63rd Street over a month ago.
It started with a report of an erratic driver about 3 a.m. A Jacksonville police officer saw the white Toyota Tundra as it headed east on Beach at Huffman Boulevard, said Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Leeper. The chase sped on for about four miles before the collision with Thompson’s Hyundai sedan.
The Sheriff’s Office referred questions to the Highway Patrol, which is handling the case. In addition to vehicular homicide, Lambert is charged with fleeing a police officer and driving without a license.
Thompson was a 2007 graduate of Wolfson High School who studied business management at Florida State University and worked at Mayo Clinic. His family gathered at their Shore Acres Drive home in East Arlington in the aftermath of the accident. Friend Charles Chandler said the immediate family was inconsolable.
“He was an outgoing and fun person. He got along with everybody,” Chandler said. “I’ve known him since he was little. He was like a little brother.”
Chandler, 27, said his younger brother was a roommate with Thompson at a home off San Pablo. He thinks Thompson was driving home after a night shift at Mayo on San Pablo.
Lambert also has several other arrests, including Sept. 9 on a charge of aggravated assault after he visited his sister at her Westside home. The arrest report states he pulled a knife on her during an argument, saying “I’m going to kill you!” as he waved it in her face. The sister’s boyfriend told him to back off and he fled.
Chelsea Lambert said during that incident, her 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were scared as the teen threatened violence with the knife.
Zachary Lambert had stayed at the state-licensed Panama Youth Services group care facility for boys ages 12 to 17 on East 63rd Street when he was granted the visit to his sister. Willie Green, the facility’s executive director, said he last saw Lambert there about a month and a half ago. Lambert was first sent to the group home in February or March, Green said.
Green was uncertain as to the circumstances that led to Lambert’s departure from the pre-foster care complex. But Green said he was aware Lambert was arrested on criminal charges and had been ordered to a recent stint at the Jacksonville juvenile detention facility downtown.
Chelsea Lambert said her brother had been at a care provider’s home in Jacksonville Beach and that’s where he got the pickup truck. She said she didn’t know if he was given permission to use the truck, but it’s likely that he was trying to get back to that home off Marsh Landing Parkway.
William Ptak lives in a house across the street from the group care facility. He said he remembered Lambert as a friendly boy.
“What a nice little kid,” Ptak said. “He would come over and say hello to me. He would say hello to my dogs. I had so much hope for him.”
The conversations Ptak had with Lambert led Ptak to believe the boy would break out of a cycle of trouble.
“I’m just surprised,” Ptak said. “I don’t know anything about his personal life. But he seemed to have his priorities straight.”
Leeper said the Highway Patrol investigation is still looking into how Lambert got the pickup truck, and they don’t know how fast he was going when the accident occurred.
Pretty sad. The crowd's reaction:
quote:The kid that did this needs a life sentence for this murder.
quote:I'm finding it difficult to have any sympathy or any excuses for this 16 year old. Let the punishment fit the crime. No youthful offender status should be considered in this case.
quote:X2 agree with both above. I wonder if the truck was stolen? Pretty nice ride for a 16 year old.
quote:The driver of the truck should be pushed off a bridge in front of an oncoming tractor trailer. An eye for an eye is the only way we are going to bring society back around to where they respect our laws and the the rights of those around them.
quote:We all agree that the 16 year old should get the maximum punishment possible, but in reality we all know he won't spend much, if any time past his 21st birthday in jail or a halfway "house"
quote:Meet your new girlfriend for life - Bubba Ben Dover.
Yeah, send him to the chair, or to prison for life, that will send a message to all of those troubled neglected and abused emotionally handicapped teenage kids who make fully informed rational decisions about things that they do on impulse.
This sounds like a fit of authoritarian aggression.
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