Please also note that plenty of "bad people" can decide to turn their lives around. Just yesterday I was listening to the NPR profile of former drug dealer Steven Mallory, who was interviewed in the mid-90s when he first went straight. Today he is a middle-class family man.
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/19/52472...-for-man-who-imagined-turning-his-life-around
I heard that, It was such a great piece, but the difference there is Mr. Mallory made an active decision as a teenager to get out of the biz, and he did. He took that job at a garbage dump and never missed a paycheck from that day on. Hernandez is a much different story, as Brave Sir Robin says
Hernandez is not unlike a lot of young men. Their athletic talents are what make them strong and tough on the streets; their gang activities are what make them hard as nails for their sports. But for every story about a kid who pulled himself out of the gangs and took advantage of the opportunity sports provided, there are a dozen more forgotten stories about those who either can't, or refuse to, shake the old ties. The only thing a little different about Hernandez's story is that he actually made it big at the pro level before it all caught up with him. Most don't make it through high school sports, and definitely not college. Still, there are a whole lot of thugs playing in the NBA and NFL. Guys, like Hernandez, who still are influenced by a posse they won't separate from.
Hernandez didn't leave that life. He drug it along with him.
Even though he was acquitted of the latest murders, I'm sure there are people affiliated with their people in that prison. The only thing that gives me pause in this case are the "items piled against the door." Only someone inside the cell could have done that. Of course, that assumes it was as it appeared. It could have been he was reaching out with his legs to shove things at the door to try to get attention and help. He's a tall dude, and cells aren't very big.
The whole jail suicide thing is just so suspect to me. Even if it happens that it's unquestionably suicide.
We had one here this week, of a seriously mentally ill 20-year-old mass-shooter. He had confessed on police questioning, but not yet entered a plea while they were evaluating whether he was competent to stand trial. He was being held in the smaller county's jail where the crime occurred, then was moved to a facility in the neighboring larger county because he had been talking to other inmates about the crime, making them potential witnesses.
In order for him to hang himself, someone had to take their eye off him for a pretty long time. A man with known mental illness that manifests in violence. IDK what's to be done about keeping a closer eye on things and also not run afoul of privacy concerns, but it's damn easy to either commit suicide, or for jails to claim that's what happened, and no one the wiser. The Sandra Bland thing still preys on my mind.