A Couple of Stories of Local Interest

While perusing the newspaper today I noticed a couple of local Orange County stories that merited comment. First there was this picture and caption:

Teen's killing protested
FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR: Hayley Rose, 14, of Huntington Beach joins others Tuesday to protest the shooting of Ashley MacDonald by Huntington Beach police. Authorities said that 18-year-old MacDonald approached two officers with a knife before they shot her Friday morning. The Orange County Sheriff's Department is investigating the shooting.

The printed version of the photo also included this question: "Did Ashley MacDonald have to die?"

The woman in question, Ms. MacDonald, had minutes before attacked her mother with the knife inflicting a serious wound, and then stormed out of the house with the knife in hand. When confronted at a local park by responding officers, she was instructed to drop the knife but instead advanced toward the officers in what they felt was a threatening manner. The officers shot her and she was killed.

To answer The Register's question as to whether she had to die, the answer is clearly no. She didn't have to attack her mother and then threaten police officers. But she did and unfortunately she paid the price for her actions. The attempts underway to blame the officers is very misguided.

Some people seem to think that officers are trained to shoot weapons out of people's hands and other such nonsense because they've seen it on TV. It doesn't work that way in real life. If you don't want to get shot by the cops, don't threaten them with deadly weapons.

The second story is also sad, but in a different way.

It took Tom Dale 27 years of painstaking work to realize his dream of building an Irish work boat in his Fullerton back yard, then set sail on the majestic waters of the Pacific.

It took a split second to realize his worst nightmare.

On Dale's first day of sailing toward the Astray's new home in Morro Bay, the boat crashed onto a sandbar around 11:30 p.m. Aug. 21 two miles south of the Channel Islands Harbor near Ventura.

The boat foundered in the sand and was pummeled by waves up to 8 feet high that eventually destroyed it.

I remember seeing Mr. Dale on the news when a crane lifted the boat from his back yard and it was trucked to the water. You could see this was a dream come true for him.

I really feel for him. The boat was insured for $60,000, but how do you pay a guy back for 27 years of work to build his dream?