It is so incredibly hard to accept the death of Brandon because I think were all unable to shake the bitterness from a death that SHOULDNT have happened. Knowing that it was completely out of his control is even worse... He didnt stand a chance. Unfortunately there have been people giving mourners grief about how oh he was drunk so... So... What exactly?? Ive been to the Ozarks so many times (and actually a fair amount of that time was spent with Brandon) and have endured the choppiness of the main channel, and I feel like even a completely sober person could have easily suffered the same fate under those same conditions! Brandon and all of his family and friends definitely deserve justice from the incompetency that cost him his life at no fault of his own. However, I dont think true justice lies with merely getting rid of the patrol officer who was on the boat that day. The state of Missouri wanted to merge the highway and water patrols to save money, and along with being cost effective they carelessly didnt administer proper training to any of the members who now work in the opposite field or split their time between the two. This means that basically ALL the highway-turned-water patrol guys are just as insufficiently trained as Piercy was, and they are still out there and likely to make similar mistakes that could continue causing tragedies on the water. Sure the officer wasnt competently trained, but the sad thing is is that he didnt even realize he wasnt properly trained for the water. The state of Missouri needs to actually invest the time and money into properly training highway patrol men to work water patrol, AND the water patrol men need to undergo training to work highway patrol before continuing to let them work in fields other than where they originally specialized. Until then, the door remains open for more potentially harmful mistakes to be made. True justice for Brandon will come not from eliminating incompetent officers, but from eliminating the incompetency among officers itself! I think that the best way to heal from the loss is to make something good from it - ensure that another community never has to suffer the immense loss that we did with Brandon as a result of negligence to properly train the officers for the other side of their work.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 21:22:53 +0000
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