Nationwide: future lawyer says don’t tell anyone not to ride with a drunk driver or you will buy a ticket to your own funeral

To the Editor:

My name is Danielle Cary and I am writing to you today after coming across your website and discovering a very unsettling statement regarding Kevin Daniel Green. I fully understand your Constitutional right to publish the facts of Kevin’s fatal accident. I also understand your right to publish your personal opinion. What I fail to understand is how you can so insensitively publish a statement like the one you published about Kevin: “Ride with a drunk driver and buy a ticket to your own funeral.”
To make a statement like this one objectifies the individual and makes Kevin’s death seem inconsequential and empty.
Now, as a 3rd year law student, I understand the importance of decisions and the consequences following poor decisions. However, I do not understand why you feel the need to hurt the people who love and miss him dearly with these insensitive statements.
I pray that his young sisters do not come across this heartless publication and I hope that you understand the way that your ignorance hurts those who love the victims. Please ask yourself if the shock factor of your insensitive words is worth the pain it causes those who are already mourning the loss of someone they can never replace.
I apologize if this email comes across as hostile, but understand that this is the emotion that your publications evoke from the friends and family of your subjects. I ask that you please remove your publication regarding Kevin Daniel Green, our “Otis.” With all talk of rights aside, the fact of the matter is that his family will be so crushed if they come across this.

Sincerely,

Danielle Cary

J.D. Candidate, 2014

Chicago-Kent College of Law

(Editor’s Note: If you believe that the statement “Ride with a drunk driver, buy a ticket to your own funeral” is designed to cause pain to the family of anyone who has lost a family member to the decisions of an impaired driver, then that is your privilege.  For the record, the statement is blunt and straight-forward, and only a future lawyer could misunderstand the statement or the results of failing to take it to heart.)