Since I’ve been so eager as to promote Aiesha Steward-Baker’s guilt in the context of her ending up on the casualty end of a quasi-gang fight in the Seattle bus tunnel, I feel I have to be responsible and follow up with some valid rebuttals to the relevance of Steward-Baker’s track record that have emerged in the media.
I’ve come across a couple of pundits positing, ‘that Steward-Baker assaulted people to their bodily harm for her gain is of no relevance to her getting beaten in the bus tunnel, those children need to be stopped, and we need armed guards in the bus tunnel.’
The Seattle Times seems to provide the greatest collection of points from the pop perspective I’ve found.
Bus-tunnel victim's lawyer defends client after news of previous arrests
Starting at the end of the Seattle Times Article …
[quote author= Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter] In response to the tunnel attack, Seattle police added patrols at the transit tunnel's five entrances and the King County Sheriff's Office stationed armed deputies at each of the platforms inside the tunnel. Additionally, the King County Transit Police said security guards will be expected to intervene to protect transit riders in the future.[/quote]
Who can argue with the policy? The remedy to the incident seems appropriate. I have to admit having been on the receiving end of a fight I did not provoke under similar circumstances makes me think weapons on display in the bus tunnel situation I was facing would have kept everybody more superficially pleasant to fake the peace in the first place rather than ever allowing the antagonism to begin.
As such I can’t immediately take much issue with the overall policy shift to arm the guards. About all I can directly take exception to is the shout down on the irrelevance of Steward-Baker’s assault record despite her antagonistic participation in the bus tunnel rumble. But before I get to that, another cogent point.
[quote author= Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter]"Some people have decided that she is less worthy of police protection than other people," [Attorney James] Bible said. "But she is not less worthy. She has value and we believe that anybody who reaches out to law enforcement in their moment of need is worthy and should receive help."[/quote]
I think that exudes core humanity. I like to dream those are the rules we’re all playing by. But where the reasoning runs awry for me is in the pushing of the case that it’s irrelevant Steward-Baker is known to attack people without provocation and that has nothing to do with what happened in the bus tunnel and what needs to be done about it.
[quote author= Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter]Reacting to revelations that Steward-Baker has been arrested twice in just over a year, Bible defended his client, saying her earlier transgressions have no connection with the highly publicized attack on her in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. [/quote]
Getting right to the heart of the humanity of it all, Steward-Baker’s defense attorney lets us know.
[quote author= Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times staff reporter] Bible said his job right now is to "protect" the teen, help her heal and be part of a community that allows her to remain a child.
"We want to make sure this child is in a place where she feels whole and protected as a human being," he said.
Bible said Steward-Baker had been working hard to alter her behavior and has been in counseling for several months.
"There is much more to her than meets the eye and it is hurtful to her to have people call her a thug when she has been working so hard to improve," he said.[/quote]
This is where it all falls apart for me. This seems like a ponerized lecture on proper humanitarian conduct or like dystopic paramoralizing to me. Right I agree, counsel the girl, but with the circumstances compelling the need for therapy originating from a ‘might is right’ code of ethics that the institutions actively promote validating such bus tunnel rumbles, the sincere pursuit of rehabilitation seems inauthentic.
Effectively what I’m reading in the media is a ‘shame on any “just desert”, “karmic payback” thinking that Steward-Baker’s not a victim, and hence shame on thinking featuring such a photogenic victim on major media broadcast outlets is anything less than an earnest attempt to protect the public. So I suppose ultimately, shame on me for focusing on her culpability and pondering how her conduct and those of her rumble buddies seems a perfect synopsis of what the mind controllers have ordered. But all in all as much as is known for the moment, it all seems a good example of playing both sides against the middle to me.
