DEFEND, DENY, DEPOSE: Death is too Easy, Luigi Mangione Let Brian Thompson Elude the Accountability of Being Brian Thompson
My sister was sentenced to death by Brian Thompson types, he should've paid with a life of misery.
Let me just start by saying, I am a pacifist, and Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League grad arrested for the shooting of Brian Thompson, is a loser that has thrown his life away into the dustbin of history, but I can see how you get there. Take a walk back with me:
It was 2005, I was 15 years old, and it was the time of broken windows policing, the Oxycontin pipeline, “Just say no!” slogans and the Sackler Family’s reign on the pharmaceutical industry.
I had an ankle bracelet on for stealing mail, not any good mail, mind you. When we were arrested my Co-Defendant’s mom walked to the cop car window and said, “Both of you are stupid! Who steals mail in the middle of the month?!” Indeed, who does?
Tragic News
At some point my mom got hold of us from Canada the devastating and terrible news that my sister, Sam, was losing the battle against kidney failure. We contacted the Department of Juvenile Justice to seek permission to fly south to see her before she passed away. It didn’t work out the way we’d hoped, and my father, I think for fear of losing me, didn’t let me go. She passed away before I would’ve made it anyways, at least that’s how he justified it, but I know the truth. I wish I could’ve been there with my mother but, Dad was doing what he thought he should do. The next logical question is how? Why? She was 26 years old when she passed. Hardly old age.
Samantha Rowe
My sister was very petite, to say the least. She had endometriosis when she was in her teens and diagnosed with Lupus later that ravaged her, but she was fierce unlike anything you ever seen. One time our oldest brother John John was being accused of murder, and while the live news was reporting on it she confronted them on the air to defend her brother. He was guilty but that didn’t matter, he was her brother, and all hundred and ten pounds was there if you crossed that line.
Last time we visited her was 2002, money to travel wasn’t something my father and I were plenty with growing up. She was in Dialysis 3 times a week then. She needed a new kidney to live. This would be the point where I would say, “Please become an organ donor and save a life,” but that wasn’t the factor here.
“So, she needed a new kidney to survive? And it wasn't a shortage of kidneys? Why didn’t she survive?!?! What are you saying Jordan?”
I’m getting there!
After years of pain, heredity, and exposure, she was in Florida, where the word “Pill Mill” came from, she developed a habit, at a time when you could walk into any doctor and get hydrocodone thrown at you, but that doesn’t explain how it led to our loss, “I’d say her death, but it was our loss, not me, the world's loss.” She was the fucking coolest, always knew what to say, would never back down from no one. Had the best taste in music, in movies, she was the best. It was the world’s loss.
So, how’d we lose her? She became addicted to pain medicine, opiates, in the time of “Just Say No”, the DARE Program for God's sake. At the same time that Rush Limbaugh’s addiction was exposed, year’s after condemning addicts to “life in prison.”
The Run-In
My sister's most recent boyfriend, I think his name was Adam, when we visited in ‘02 he had just recently broken into their own home and stolen all their electronics and sold them for crack, he wasn’t a genius. Someone had stolen a blank narcotic prescription slip, you know, the green pad, and they had forged their own prescription for pain medicine, each of those slips can only have one prescription written on them, and because Adam wanted his benzo’s, he added fucking Xanax at the bottom without her knowing it and sent her in to get it filled, not just a scumbag, a dumb one too. When she returned to pick up the prescription—the pharmacist by the way was known for filling fraudulent prescriptions—he had already contacted authorities and they were waiting, the “Goon squad” Sam hilariously referred to them as. It was kind of entrapment, because the pharmacist rang up the prescription and she didn’t have enough money to pay for it, she said she “didn’t have it” and turned to leave, and he said—this corrupt pharmacist with a fake license—said “We’ll cover whatever you’re short,” and gave her the prescription, because—at least back then—you had to actually be caught with the prescription in hand for a solid case to stick and they got it.
She was charged with what we call busting scripts, legally it’s called obtaining a controlled substance using fraud, deception, subterfuge, misrepresentation, or forgery, for this she is put on probation. At this time, she had already been on the Donor’s list for a new kidney a few years. Every doctor involved said that she would not survive without a new kidney, she was on dialysis for kidney failure, but because she received a 3rd degree felony in the state of Florida, they took her off the kidney donors list!
Bureaucratic Murder
It’s relative to sentencing someone to death for becoming an addict. A victimless crime in the truest sense of the word. No one was jipped out of money, no one hurt, it was simply breaking a rule. A rule that exists to control.
To remove myself from this for a moment, I can just barely understand the reasoning behind this decision you know, it’s horrible and wrong, but I can form the thoughts. I can hear the smarmy, sneaky, excuses, she’s killing herself, so why does it matter?! Do you know how much this costs? What about someone else who needs it? I can just hear the bureaucratic bullshit excuses. This is where I begin to understand the killing of the United Healthcare CEO. He is absolutely the type of person who would make a decision like this! If I could figure who is to blame for this, I’d never shut up about it. It would consume everything I write or talk about forever! The business of health insurance or healthcare has been stained by the blood of a trillion souls! Then they go home and tuck their children into their safe bed, and hopefully, walk to the dining room and drink themselves into coma, but you can’t kill them. When you do things like that you’re turning an evil man into a martyr. Into a hero, and Brian Thompson is no fucking hero. You’re letting them off too easy, the universe works things like this out. I’m sure of it!
Because our mother is a Canadian, we were supposed to be able to get dual citizenship which would give her the benefit that is “oh so demonized here” of Socialized Healthcare but that, it turns out, is another facade of bureaucratic idiots who can’t see the forest for the trees. Listen to this, in order to benefit from this dual-citizenship—back then at least—you had to prove to the Canadian-side that one of your parents is a citizen, in order to do that you must use your birth certificate, problem is Canada refuses to check with America, and America refuses to check with Canada so there is no way to prove this. Disgustingly stupid rules. Incompetence and cowardice, these people have spines of jelly fish.
I lost my healthcare recently. I had blood clots in my leg a couple years ago and I was prescribed to a blood thinner, Eliquis, and because they didn’t want to pay for the tests to find out what caused the blood clots, they told me to keep taking the Eliquis, which I was fine with, it’s a relatively safe drug so I just continued taking it, until I lost my healthcare and found out it’s a fucking $600 prescription. So, I had to just stop taking it. Luckily whatever caused it has passed on now, but it would’ve been cheaper to run the tests. But I digress…
The world lost a beautiful person, someone—unknown to me—is responsible for the decision to let her die. I’ve tried to find another case similar to it, but I can’t find any. The closest I get is an organ donor ethics site that addresses whether or not it’s ethical for a prisoner, serving time, to be put on a donor list, spoiler alert: It is.
Instead of killing the sorry soul, who makes the decisions every day to let people just die to protect his bottom-line, a much better punishment would be for him to face loss, from a weak bureaucratic decision, like this, let him lose a daughter, sister, or mother, over a problem that can be solved. Then, allow him to defend, deny, and depose that. Tell us how it feels from the receiving end. Tell him, it’s your turn, now what would you decide?
One more thing, look at this beautiful little girl, full of joy and life, cut way too soon. She didn’t get much older than this! If you can justify a policy for throwing her away, then we are not the same! And this Thompson guy should get a fucking medal, because that’s the type of work that took her away from us. And the world was a darker place.
Thank you for reading!
Editor-in-ChiefRIP Samantha Marie Rowe! And RIP Brett Johnson of United Healthcare
Thank you. Brave writing. I love you
I love you as big as the world!❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥