Blood In The Streets

The TSA antics recounted in my previous post are bad enough. This story is worse. You just can't make this stuff up. It's a tragedy and a farce all rolled into one.

A grieving mother told a South Carolina court she was slapped with several bills, including one to clean the street after her son was killed by a drunken driver last year.

Loretta Robinson spoke on June 19 of the emotional and financial toll her son Justin Walker's death had on her as the driver Anna Gonzales, who is an illegal immigrant, pleaded guilty in the case.

"I had to pay to have the vehicle towed," she said according to WYFF. "I had to pay for the vehicle removed and to clean up the street from Justin's blood on the ground."

The illegal immigrant part will no doubt raise a few hackles, but IMO the bigger story here is the callousness, insensitivity, and general all-round cluelessness of the government.

Can you imagine, God Forbid, losing a loved one (especially a child) through no fault of their own, and then getting billed by the government for washing the blood off the street?

To add insult to injury, the bills were addressed to her son - her deceased son.

"First of all, having to open the mail and look at the charge to the deceased, Justin Darryl Walker -- the deceased! It's just a hard thing to deal with in the context of your child," she said...

How much -- or little -- common sense does it take to cross-reference the accident report and the bills so as not to send notices to a dead person? (On the other hand, the people in charge of voter registration seem incapable of preventing dead people from voting, so apparently this is much more difficult than it seems.)

And why on earth is someone who is not at fault being billed for the cleanup in the first place?

Not only would I refuse to pay, I'd raise so much hell that heads would roll.

Starting with the drunk driver that caused this tragedy...

(H/T Little Annie's Orphans for the link.)