"I got to go...I can't be here"

Details are emerging as to Kanasa City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher's last moments and they are excruciatingly painful:

From the Kansas City Star:

Seconds after fatally shooting his longtime girlfriend, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher leaned over her in their master bathroom, said he was sorry and kissed her on the forehead.

His mother, who heard gunfire as she stood in the kitchen, rushed to her son's bedroom and watched his remorseful goodbye.

Belcher apologized to his mother, kissed his 3-month-old daughter and fled his rented home in the 5400 block of Crysler Avenue in his Bentley.

The report goes on to state that Belcher drove the five miles to the team's headquarters, where he met Pioli in the parking lot. Belcher exited his vehicle with a gun pointed at his head and told Pioli that he had killed his girlfriend. Belcher, who signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Maine, thanked Pioli for all he had done for him and asked that he and owner Clark Hunt look after his daughter.

Pioli and Crennel attempted to dissuade Belcher from committing suicide, but as police closed in, Belcher reportedly said "I got to go...I can't be here" before kneeling down behind a vehicle, making the sign of the cross and firing a single bullet into his head.

So much is being talked about on this story, so much that I believe misses the point.  Some blame the lack of gun control.  Others the NFL's violence. 

But let's cut to the chase.

What we're truly lacking today is sin control. 

I firmly believe that once this story is fully played out, we'll see that Belcher was cascading from one bad decision to the next and the next and the next, each one disrespecting moral boundaries that have been established for good reasons, until he felt cornered and helpless and desperate and... dead.  

It is tragic.  Particularly for the 3 month old infant left behind now to face the world's challenges without a set of parents.

If only those moral boundaries were taken more seriously.

Comments

[HLPeters]

...fled his rented home in the 5400 block of Crysler Avenue in his Bentley.
Why does someone pay rent and drive a car like this? This man must have been in deep agony.