If evil walks among us, ever alert for the slightest door to a soul left ajar, Mauricio Torres is the best example I can imagine.
The 45-year-old father from Bella Vista showed no emotion as Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren sentenced him to die by lethal injection next November for brutally abusing then finally murdering his 6-year-old son, Mauricio Isaiah Torres.
But Heaven forbid such a creature depart this world before exhausting all appeals and costing taxpayers millions to serve his needs until justice, itself, finally is served.
Isaiah Torres, as best known, died in a Bella Vista hospital of a bacterial infection March 30, 2015. Isaiah certainly had no appeals to stave off such a terrible fate. Instead, he got to agonize in sustained and excruciating pain from what dad did to him as some perverted form of sick and twisted punishment.
Jurors were shown photographs of Isaiah's body covered in old and fresh bruises. The victim's 9-year-old sister said she witnessed instances where their father abused her brother, including sodomizing Isaiah with a stick on a camping trip. Torres said his wife, Cathy, became angry and shoved the boy down on the stick. Cathy Torres also was charged with capital murder and first-degree battery. Her trial is scheduled for May.
The news account of Torres' trial said prosecutors presented five witnesses who testified during the sentencing phase that Torres either physically or sexually abused them as children.
I don't know how you feel about all the evil, perversion, abuse, deception and brutality we see flourishing around us in society today. As for me, I've grown dog-tired weary of hearing all the irrelevant rationales and lame "bad childhood, low-esteem" excuses for bad and evil choices.
Each of us is responsible for bearing the full consequences of our choices and actions, period. And I say Torres and other evil ones like him have earned the full measure of all the legal punishments we have available.
Past time for reform
When I entered journalism in the 1970s, our nation was debating the most seemingly humane ways to deal with the mentally ill who'd been de-institutionalized onto the streets. That plan has proven to be one of those grand social experiments that seemed noble at the time, but it's generated more problems than it solved in most communities.
I've written plenty of stories about those with mental problems winding up in cells without medication or proper care. Their jailers in effect become their caregivers. That's a re-cipe for disaster. Equally regrettable is how this problem has festered and worsened over more than four decades since the doors to caregiving residential facilities were flung wide open.
I'm not saying all these places were anywhere close to acceptable. I recall the nightmarish Willowbrook in New York. But most were staffed with trained caregivers who understood what was necessary to provide what mentally ill residents needed, including proper and timely medications.
That said, I read last week that three government groups in Arkansas are seeking public funds to create humane programs that divert our state's mentally ill from jail cells. It's that same refrain repeated over and over for so many years!
A story by reporter John Moritz said the County Judges Association of Arkansas, the Arkansas Sheriffs' Association and the Quorum Court Association of Arkansas announced they'd each adopted resolutions calling on the state to fund mental health-care proposals developed by a state-hired group.
The proposals include training for law enforcement officers so they might recognize mentally ill offenders. Next, we should build three crisis centers where those offenders could be diverted for treatment, as well as provide behavior health services in community jails.
These groups are asking our state to provide "adequate funding" for the proposed new programs. Ah, funding! There's the familiar rub! No figure has yet been announced.
Newton County Sheriff Keith Slape, president of the sheriffs' group, explained: "With mental health, there are folks in our county jails that do not need to be there. They may not need to be on the streets, but they do not need to be incapacitated in the jail."
Polk County Judge Brandon Ellison, on the board of the Association of Arkansas Counties, said providing a statewide jail-diversion program for the mentally ill doesn't go far enough. Arkansas clearly needs to implement and create solid reforms that are truly beneficial to mentally afflicted patients and the communities.
Ellison told Moritz, "We believe three [crisis centers] is clearly not enough for the state, but we hope it will spotlight what can happen in the future if we are successful."
It's long past time for us to create safe and effective alternatives beyond our jail cells.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].
Editorial on 11/20/2016