It's never a fair trade-off

I live in Groves and work out at the Exygon gym in Nederland. So almost every day I go through the intersection of Twin City Highway and Nederland Avenue. That’s where Bryan Turner of Nederland was killed last year, on April 8.

He was only 18. He had just picked up a pizza in the same shopping center where the gym is at. He was going home, through that intersection, when he was murdered.

The only merciful thing about it is that he probably never knew what hit him.

What hit him was a speeding car containing two dirtbags who had been robbing people with box cutters in the parking lots of convenience stores. After the third such robbery, and the second on Twin City Highway, deputies started pursuing them.

The punks fled on Twin City Highway, going nearly 100 mph, at one point heading northbound in the southbound lane. At the intersection of Nederland Avenue, they ran a red light and smashed into Turner’s Scion broadside. I heard that the Scion was nearly squished flat.

Humberto Cuevas Jr. and Romualdo Fuentes pleaded guilty this week. Each has to serve at least 20 years in prison. And since they are 21 and 22 respectively, that means that they won’t breathe free air until they are middle-aged. Both could be deported after that.

It’s a fair sentence, but in one sense it means nothing. It’s isn’t a fair trade-off — punishment for them in exchange for an innocent person losing his life.

Those two could spend the rest of their lives in prison at hard labor on bread and water. It wouldn’t come close to making up for what they did.

I will say it again: Brian Turner was only 18. He had just graduated from Nederland High School. He had a universe of adventure ahead of him.

He had just picked up a pizza. All he wanted to do was go home and eat it — and live the rest of his life.

He never made it. It’s not right.