THE anniversary is imminent of an example why the corruption in the NH Family Court system must be opposed and exposed: Thomas Ball, the 58 year old divorced father of three died outside a courthouse in downtown Keene after igniting himself in a gory self-immolation. Engulfed in flame, he screamed as he stumbled from the courthouse steps, fell to his hands and knees, and eventually fell silent. Ball’s final words were delivered in the next day’s mail. A friend in New Hampshire got a card with the tender inscription, “I miss you already.’’ The Keene Sentinel received a biting screed against the legal system, in which Ball recounted the ongoing 10-year court battle over his divorce, child support payments, and visitation rights with his children. “A man walks up to the main door of the Keene N.H. County Courthouse, douses himself with gasoline and lights a match,’’ Ball’s letter begins. “And everyone wants to know why.’’ Such a desperate act would be shocking anywhere, but in the middle of a quaint New England college town, at the end of what Ball had once called “the prettiest Main Street in America,’’ it seems unthinkable. His death and final writings have resonated within the father’s rights movement, of which he was an active member, and revealed a stubborn man consumed by his court battles and, over time, sinking further into darkness. Ball, 58, intended his fiery death on June 15 - planned and researched at least 10 days in advance - to be the ultimate profane gesture, according to his writings, interviews, and court and police documents. He was taking aim squarely at the courts he blamed for keeping him apart from his kids and for what he saw as the system’s corrupt and ruthless emasculation of divorced dads. “Face it boys, we are no longer fathers,’’ Ball wrote. “We are piggy banks.’’ Several divorced dads who knew Ball said that while they cannot condone what he did, they understand where his frustration came from. “Tom’s story, other than its end, is pretty common,’’ said Ned Holstein, chairman of Fathers and Families, a court reform group Ball belonged to. In his last letter, published online by the Sentinel, Ball gave the history of the Molotov cocktail and exhorted divorced fathers to burn down courthouses and police stations.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 01:12:18 +0000
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