What I Wish Michael Vick Would Say

As much as it pains me, I will be cheering against the Steelers this football season.   There was a time when, impressed by the awareness & education Vick’s criminal story brought to the world, I felt that in spite of the unimaginably sadistic things he did to desperate, innocent dogs, he had served a purpose in this world.   I felt he’d brought a message that ultimately worked in favor of animal rights by making public the previously underestimated horrors of dogfighting.

And then I saw the Wall Street Journal interview.

Now I’m back to feeling that he has no right to be a role model any more.   Because he’s not sorry.   He feels no remorse.   As he states in his interview, the only thing he regrets is being in prison.   One wonders if he even remembers torturing & killing dogs with his own hands.

There are so many shallow individuals that think the 18 months he did signify that his debt is paid.   They don’t want to be troubled with the weight of what he did; they just want to dismiss it.   It’s much easier than actually thinking about it, & being horrified.   How can you not be horrified by even just imagining what it was like to be torn up & bleeding, all the while desperately trying to please your owner, & then to be taken by the ankles & slammed repeatedly into the concrete by said owner, your bones breaking, choking on your own blood while the world spins & darkens, joints pulling out of sockets, knowing that the hands gripping your ankles & swinging you are the hands of the one you loved, obeyed, fought for, whose praise you crave even still?   No, much easier to just forget about it.   It was just a dog.   Guilt free entertainment is more important.

I know people make mistakes.   Ignorance can cause terrible cruelty – even children do horribly sadistic things to bugs, lizards, weaker creatures – but they can still grow out of it; learn kindness, become whole people.   I think that Vick & his comrades were like big, grown children – retarded & ghetto & overprivileged, & prison helped widen his world view a bit. But apparently not enough.

So what would it take for me to forgive (re-forgive) Michael Vick?

1. I wish he would admit what he did.   I have yet to see a statement from him which states “I murdered” or “I tortured” or “I mutilated.”   He won’t even state what he did.   Saying he “let” these “things happen” isn’t admitting that he did it. He’s the boyfriend who says “I’m sorry that you’re mad” instead of “I’m sorry that I hit you.”   No thought process about the actual crime has occurred.   I want Michael Vick to own what he did on a personal level, not just for publicity.

2. I wish he would say he is sorry for what those dogs suffered.   It would mean that he bothered to think about it.

3. I wish he would admit that what he did was horrible & that people are entitled to be horrified.   I wish he would stop saying that people need to get over it.   We can’t.   He won’t let us.

I want Michael Vick to say that he is sorry.

Ridley cops: show Austin how it’s done

A few days ago, Ridley police answered an assault call & ended up tasering a pit bull, which, at the time of being tasered, was in the act of charging at them.   Why am I applauding cops for tasering a dog?

If you’ve followed the disturbing story of Cisco in Austin, where an officer went to the wrong house, surprised the homeowner & his dog, & then shot the dog, or if you’ve read the other countless stories of police indiscriminately killing homeowners’ dogs in their own homes, you would too.   In the discussion under Incidents of Cops Shooting Dogs, Jennie said, “Our dogs aren’t allowed in the yard without supervision because I don’t trust an officer of the law ever. Not with my kids, not with my friends, not with my dogs.”   Since Cisco, reading about the frequency with which officers of the law murder family pets & call it collateral damage has had me living in fear.   I can’t call 911 for anything because I have dogs.   I often worry about being away from home because someone else might call 911 for something in my area, & cops might need to climb into my yard or something.   I fear for my dogs.

The Ridley incident is the first I’ve read that involves police officers treating a dog as we have all assumed protectors of the peace would – with reasonable, non-lethal force.   They also treated the owner, who not only sicced his dog on someone & assaulted her but also refused to cooperate once police arrived, with proper respect & reasonable force.   I’d like to compare what happened in Ridley to what happened in Austin: