brief encounter

about a year ago, 15 year old pihema cameron and a friend decided to round off a day of smoking dak and drinking by spraying his mark on the fence of 50 year old bruce
emery, who had been tagged before, grabbed a knife and ran outside to confront the youths.
either emery stabbed cameron or cameron confronted him and fell on the knife-the end result was the same; pihema cameron died.
emery went home, cleaned the knife and went to bed.
he was arrested a couple of days later and was charged with manslaughter.
this afternoon, he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

this has been a contentious case. there is, of course, concern over the death of a "child" (15 is probably stretching that description), but there is also a lot of support for emery. tagging is a problem and had emery called the police, it was likley that they wouldn't have bothered taking the call.

did pihema cameron deserve to die? well, no, but it is disturbing that a number of my fellow citizens believe that he got what he disturbed.

there has also been the traditional cry of "where were the parents?"

then there is emery. he has lost his business and his freedom, his family have had to move as they have been getting death threats.

bad decisions all round