Some stories make you shout with anger.  Some stories make you cry in pain.  Some stories make you shudder with disbelief.  The story of Edwin
Rivera — he has Cerebral Palsy and is unable to speak — makes you feel all three.

Edwin Rivera, a severely disabled 22-year-old, was supposed to be escorted home from his special-needs school.
Instead, authorities said Friday, a matron eager to get to an appointment knowingly stranded him on a bus where he spent an icy New Year’s night alone. He was found, curled up and rocking, after more than 17 hours parked in a Brooklyn bus yard.

The matron, Linda Hockaday, was charged with reckless endangerment and fired.

Rivera’s parents reported him missing after he didn’t return from his school Wednesday evening.
Their 6-foot-2 son, who has cerebral palsy and is unable to communicate verbally, still had his seatbelt on when he was found, police said. His body temperature had dropped about three degrees during a night when the outside temperature ranged from 15 to 30 degrees, according to the criminal complaint.

Hockaday didn’t want to be late for church — so she abandoned Edwin on the bus.

CHURCH!

Did Hockaday pray to her God for forgiveness in leaving behind her charge in the frigid night?

Did Hockaday sing, lifting her throat to the heavens, and ask to be saved?

Did Hockaday think about the craven cruelty she created in her selfish wake?

Firing isn’t good enough for Hockaday.  Her punishment must fit the crime.  Let her sit in a bus, in cold weather, hopeless and alone and unable to communicate with the outside world.  Let her stew, incarcerated, in Edwin Rivera’s shoes.

6 Comments

  1. Horrible.
    No wonder I believe “religion” is capable of killing people.

  2. It was just an unbelievable story, Katha. The family was shocked and horrified. The bus operator was actually remorseful for the error. The fact that the woman would leave someone so divine in the cold to celebrate in her church instead says more to be about her brainwashing and the loss of her moral core than it does about his needless suffering.

  3. That is about the most horrible thing you can do to a person and the most HYPOCRITICAL. She should loose her job, be thrown out of her church and abandoned on a nice COLD island somewhere.

  4. Hi Nicola —
    The sad thing is the woman’s attorney is excusing her bad behavior by blaming the bus driver:

    Her lawyer suggested the blame shouldn’t fall only on Hockaday.
    “If, in fact, what they say is true — and it’s a big if — there’s a driver on that bus who, I would think, would be a kind of double-checking system,” Kurtz said.

    I would love to see her church disown her — but they will likely feel more grandiose in the event of forgiving for her sin against mankind. Only God is perfect, you know.

  6. It is incredibly vile, Gordon. I love that word. 17 hours strapped in a chair in freezing weather. You know there were events going on within him that he could not hold in and had to let out. We treat animals better.

Comments are closed.