Let me preface what I am about to say with this: What happened to Danny Dahlquist is absolutely terrible. I extend my most sincere condolences to his family, friends, and classmates in a time when they must all be in indescribable shock and mourning.

Bill Dennis seems to think that only the rich kids get to screw around and do dumb stuff at college. I can personally attest to the inaccuracy of this statement. When we engaged in what was, looking back, absolutely retarded and reckless behavior at my university, all walks of life were present and accounted for. I don’t know anyone that didn’t do something absolutely moronic at some point while they were in college. I can imagine three of my friends doing the exact same thing the Bradley students did to Danny.

These three young men must feel like the most horrible, disgusting animals on the face of the earth. The remorse in their soul is something I can’t even begin to imagine.This being said, I don’t feel that charging them with capital murder is appropriate, or even second degree. Manslaughter is a far more appropriate charge for the circumstances.

Their lives are already ruined. They will certainly be expelled from Bradley, and will probably serve some jail time. While they will have the opportunity to gain certain certifications while incarcerated, they will NEVER be admitted to any major university again, public or private. I can say this with relative certainty, as a good friend of mine, who was a genius and had never been in trouble in his life, served five years for a few felonies. He did get some sort of certification for IT work while in prison, but long ago set aside any hopes of a college degree.

I’ve heard a few people draw comparisons between this incident and the young man that dropped the concrete block off of the I-74 overpass. This is completely unfair, and race has NOTHING to do with it. It has to do with malice and intent. I can see myself (as I’m sure many of you can), standing outside the bedroom door with a Roman candle, giggling like a little girl. I might have second thoughts, because I know how hot those things get, and any contact with a mattress or carpeting could be disastrous. I also understand that not everyone has the large sphere of seemingly trivial knowledge that I do. When the boy dropped the concrete from the overpass, he saw the car coming, and there was no possible result other than catastrophe. While there was a chance of disaster at the house on Laura Ave., it was not inevitable, and certainly not the objective, as it was with the concrete.

While I, along with the rest of the community, am completely outraged and disgusted by the crime, cooler heads need to prevail. In this case, I think a little leniency, a manslaughter charge, and 5-10 with time off for good behavior are the right steps to take. I know many of you will disagree vehemently, and I welcome your comments.

I know that what I’ve said here might be misconstrued, so if you have a question of what I intend to say, PLEASE ask. As I said before, I in NO WAY want to mitigate the terrible tragedy of a young man losing his life in this way. I do feel that there are circumstances surrounding the incident that need to be taken into account before these three young men are strung from a tree limb by a torch-carrying mob.