Death in a Small Town

West of Baton Rouge, across the river and north on La 1 is the little farming community of Morganza, La. Morganza is a very, very sad place right now.

On Friday, a small boy, just four years old, was playing in his yard. His mother gardened. Next door, the boy's neighbor and her fiance were cleaning out their dog kennels. The weather was mild. Certainly, people all over were out enjoying the day--Good Friday, here, is a family day and an outside day. And, it was a nice day to be out...soon, the south Louisiana heat would be oppressive and the only comfortable place will be inside, in the safety of the air conditioning. But not today.

Why the dogs chose to go through the barbed wire fence, as their kennels were cleaned, we won't know. By all accounts, the dogs were loved and well-cared for...pets, since puppies. The woman, who owned them, raised them since they were small. They were her pets. Her fiance, helping her clean the kennels, was a K9 officer for the Sheriff's Department. He knew dogs. No one thought anything of letting the dogs in to the yard while their kennels were cleaned.

The dogs went through the fence. To where the small boy was.

There will never be answers as to why what happened, happened. Not answers that we'll ever accept or understand. We understand that the man--the sheriff's deputy who knew dogs, who let the dogs out of the kennel and in to their yard--did his best to save the boy. Knowing dogs as he does, as he uses them in his job, he probably recognized the futility of his efforts. He tried anyway. He wasn't successful.

Morganza is sad. A little town has lost a little person. Probably every person in Morganza has lost some of themselves. No one involved in this incident is, or was, or probably ever will be, a bad person. Looking at it, no one even made a poor decision--certainly not anything that was out of the norm or different. You can't even hate and make yourself feel better.

Say a prayer for that family. Their loss is of the most incredible, terrible kind.

Say a prayer for that deputy. Everytime he closes his eyes, for the rest of his days, he'll wonder how what he did caused this. He'll hate himself for it and sometimes that hate will be nearly unbearable.

Say a prayer for Morganza. In a little town, everyone hurts together.