| An Astonishing Show of Forgiveness | ||
| Text and photo by Liu King-pong | ||
Mother forgives young killer.” That bold headline grabbed my attention as I was browsing through the Miami Herald on June 11, 2014. After reading the whole story, I could not help but praise the mother’s broadmindedness and noble forgiveness. The paper reported that Ady Guzman-DeJesus embraced 16-year-old Jordyn Howe in a Miami courtroom on June 10, 2014, two years after he accidentally shot her 13-year-old daughter, Jina, to death on their school bus. “Justice is done,” Guzman-DeJesus told reporters outside the courtroom. “I miss her, and I really do forgive him.” When the judge asked Howe if he wanted to say anything to the mother, he said that he felt sorry for her loss and apologized for what he had done. That morning in November 2012, the teenage boy was taking his stepfather’s handgun, which had been hidden in a closet, to school to show it off to his classmates. In the back of the bus, he allowed a friend to handle the partially loaded gun. A few minutes later, according to witnesses, Jina began to play with it and aim it around as if she were pretending to shoot. Howe took the gun back, pointed it at the floor and pulled the trigger, but the gun did not discharge. He then lifted the gun and pointed it at Jina, pulled the trigger again, and shot her in the neck. Jina was pronounced dead soon after she was rushed to Miami Children’s Hospital. Howe immediately confessed to shooting his friend. He pled guilty to manslaughter with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a minor and carrying a concealed weapon.
However, under a plea agreement blessed by Jina’s mother, he was adjudicated as a juvenile and required to complete vocational training at Park Youth Academy for a year. Until he is 21, he will undergo psychological counseling and random drug testing. In addition, he is required to maintain a full-time job or education, and speak in schools at least 12 times a year—alongside the victim’s mother—about the dangers of guns. Guzman-DeJesus, who has three other younger children, said Jina would have wanted her to be kind towards Howe. “We can make a change to help other children,” she said. “He was Jina’s friend, too, and I know she wouldn’t want the worst.” This gesture of forgiveness undoubtedly moved many people in the courtroom and readers of the newspaper, including myself. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer stated that in her 20 years of watching human tragedy unfold in the courtroom, she could never have imagined a victim’s mother embracing her child’s killer. “To err is human, to forgive divine,” as the well-known adage goes. But to forgive other people’s misconduct is easier said than done, especially when people we love are fatally injured. A bloody knife attack on a Taipei metro train that left four people dead and 21 injured on May 21, 2014, provides us with another chance to ponder the meaning of forgiveness. Wielding two knives, Cheng Chieh, 21, injured more than 20 passengers in a seemingly random attack just before the afternoon rush hour. He was stopped and detained by police and passengers on the platform after the train had pulled into the Jiangzicui station in Taipei. Cheng, a college student, claimed he had had enough of the pressures in his life and did not want to live anymore. However, he was not brave enough to commit suicide. He thought that if he killed a great number of people, he would receive the death penalty. As a result of the stabbing spree, there were calls for Cheng’s parents to take responsibility and apologize for the tragedy. Seven days later, succumbing to public pressure, Cheng’s weeping parents knelt in front of reporters and a crowd that had gathered at the Jiangzicui metro station to beg for forgiveness from the families of the victims. The bereaved relatives, however, refused to accept the apology. We fully understand their reaction—they had suffered so much from the excruciating pain of losing their beloved ones. And yet, we should not forget that Cheng’s parents are victims as well. If we cannot forgive Cheng, perhaps we can at least leave his parents alone. Surely Guzman-DeJesus’s mental trauma was alleviated when she chose to forgive rather than seek revenge on Howe. |
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