The Father's Day Tragedy

The immensity of it dwarfs even Shakespeare's epic tragedies and that's the reaction of someone as far removed from the chain of events as yours truly. I don't want to even imagine - nor do I think I even could - what it must be like for those with direct association to what happened at that apartment complex in southern Dallas County this Father's Day just past.

David Brown Jr., 27, shot and killed 23-year-old Jeremy Jontae McMillan as McMillan was driving his girlfriend and two small children into the apartment complex where he planned to have a Father's Day dinner. The last word I had was that Brown and McMillan did not know one another.

A short time later Brown, wearing only brown boxer shorts and a pair of sunglasses, then shot and killed Craig Shaw, a five-year veteran of the Lancaster Police Department before Brown himself was shot and killed by other Lancaster policemen.

And the instigator of all this violence was the son of a man I admire and respect as much as any human being I know and, to compound the tragedy, the head of law enforcement in our city, Dallas Police Chief David Brown.

I am so afraid the final chapter in this woeful tale has yet to be written and, when it is, it's only going to make me sadder.