Two Days Before He's to Die, Stroman Talks to CBS News About Victim's Fight to Save Him

pencil

"... I mean, I've come from a person with hate embedded into him into a person with a lot of love and understanding for all races."So the therapy for hate is enforced reflection and killing 2 people.Kumbaya sound track in the background.

Phelps

I think that if you get shot in the face by a racist lunatic then you should get a few minutes of airtime to talk about your religious views that piss of racist lunatics.

Claire

"We have to stand at some point and say enough is enough. We have to break the cycle of this hate and violence." The best sentence in the whole piece - and it came from a guy who was shot in the face by the person he's trying to save! Are none of you vindictive little twats at all moved by that? If he has the capacity to forgive, maybe I can too.

anon

Stroman murdered 2 and tried to murder a 3rd and those of us who do not oppose his death sentence are "vindictive"?

I wonder if you are also pro-choice/abortion.At least Stroman is guilty of something.

Anon

I have no compassion for Stroman.He chose to kill 2 and tried to kill a 3rd.One surviving victim's forgiveness is a common response to survival but it is not necessarily in society's best interest; let the 2 in the grave decide whether their fate is good enough for Stroman or not.

Oh, wait...They can't speak. They are dead.The law speaks for them.You don't get to kill innocent people with goals and dreams and hopes and fears AND then get to chill in a jail for the rest of your life.

Stroman can enjoy the future he chose for the 2 human beings underground, decaying long before they wanted to.

Where is the compassion for the dead?I don't rejoice in Stroman's death, but he cannot be allowed to continue with his life after he chose to end others'. There are limits to what can be tolerated and he--not once!--chose to disregard those limits.

Cujo

I've heard every argument on the death penalty and the one I never have gotten an answer on is how the convict would feel if it what he did was done to him or his family and how he'd want them punished based on his beliefs at the time. I think it's an answer I'm sure everyone would like to hear before pronouncing sentence. I have no doubt Stroman has changed since committing the act, 9 years on death row will do that.

Anon

I think you've got Stroman's answer. He doesn't want the same fate he gave to others. Imagine that.He doesn't want done to him what he did to others.He doesn't want to die.Neither did his victims.But since he's here saying what everyone wants to hear and the victims aren't, well, we feel good about ourselves for denying them justice.

Chris Danger

I dont know if I should be shocked or actually half expect the mutant mouthbreathers in this part of the country to have a shred of common decency in this situation. Ive said it before and i'll say it again: Mr. Bhuiyan is showing more mercy, compassion and Christ-like love than many think he should, and to me thats something that we all should attain to do in our lives. If Mr. Stomans life is saved or not, Rais Bhuiyan has done more to show us how to actually be civil and forgiving in our darkest times..and for that I have absolute respect.

Justin Julian

It's amazing just how much love and understanding for all races the impending big sleep can instill in you. Unfortunately for Stroman, it's also amazing just what a message putting down racist murderers sends to others who would kill innocent people because of the color of their skin. We don't put up with that nonsense in Texas, Stroman. Should have killed them in California or somewhere in the northeast where they're okay with folks like you continuing to use our air.

scottindallas

have any stats suggesting that the VERY EXPENSIVE death penalty is an effective deterrent? I've never seen one iota of data to support your premise. However, for your very debatable deterrent, we could lock up the perp for life and 5 of his peers. Lock up 6 for life for the cost of one execution. That's not conservative, that's a disturbing desire for drama. Your argument seems to have some Tennessee William's overtones. You're not covering for something are you, Mr Macho?

Josephrschmoe

Who cares if there's a deterrent? The death penalty is about justice and nothing else.

scottindallas

No matter what the expense? That's real conservative. I can see you and Ethel Merman singing a duet now, "...everyone looooves a shoowwwww!"

Jay

Scott, it is intuitive that a executed murderer never murders again. The death penalty is a deterrent to that extent. there have been many paroled murderers who murdered again. Here are a few:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16...http://missingexploited.com/20...Charles Manson, once sentenced to death, is now eligible for parole hearing in California. Some of the Texas Seven were serving life when they escaped, and murdered Aubry Hawkins. Cost is not the only consideration.

scottindallas

incarceration for life isn't exactly getting off light. Your proposal is very expensive, and, in case you haven't noticed, we don't have the gov't revenue to be orchestrating these grand productions.

John_McKee

Sanctity of life and all that, right?

mantikos

No, the victim is just trying to give his religous views free airtime...ha such BS...if that was REALLY what ALL of them believed then we wouldn't have terrorism damn near EVERYWHERE they are now would we?I am not hating, I am just looking at statistics!

John_McKee

It's sad that your bigotry has clouded your ability to see the humanity of all people and the injustice of people acting as if they care for the sanctity of life yet denying it out of their own petty bloodlust.

scottindallas

you mean the US imperial project? Where we insist on corrupt leaders that do our bidding? Ever read the Declaration of Independence?

mantikos

Couldn’t agree more…

RTGolden

Didn't seem to do much good. 14yrs in the military, shoveling shit all over the ME, and we're no closer to progress there than we were when I started. Strike that, we're making progress now, not due to misguided military expansionism, but due to increased global connectivity, and military precision in support of people trying to improve their own lot in life. Twitter has accomplished in several short months what warfare hasn't been able to accomplish throughout history.Regardless of religion, education trumps fundamentalism any day. A fundamentalist, whether christian, muslim, hindu, or zoroastrian, is violent because he knows no other way. Ignorance is its own prison, knowledge is the rehabilitative factor, enlightenment is the result.

mantikos

I would rather take aim at the idiots causing pain and trouble all across the globe and costing more lives than the equally egregious WBC

RTGolden

Have you bothered to check any further back in time? Perhaps to the 70's and 80's, when the majority of terrorist attacks were perpetrated by white europeans (IRA, Baader Meinhoff, Red Brigades) Or further back, when just about anybody opposed to our own gov't was considered terrorist (and some were). How about going even further back, say 235 years ago, when some uppity white protestants in a backwater shithole of a colony were considered terrorists? Yes, statistics can be a bitch, you see, because perception is all about who controls the reins of public opinion, and way back in 1776, the British Crown considered our Founding Fathers to be terrorists. Or we could just stay right here in modern times and point to the Westboro Baptist Church, good christian folks terrorizing the families of fallen servicemen and women at a dark hour. Having served myself, if you gave me a choice, between eradicating Islamic fundamentalism or WBC, I'd load up on ammo and take aim at Westboro KS.

mantikos

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/...

http://www.state.gov/documents...

'Statistics compiled by the United States government's Counterterrorism Center present a complicated picture: of known and specified terrorist incidents from the beginning of 2004 through the first quarter of 2005, slightly more than half of the fatalities were attributed to Islamic extremists.''The vast majority of the "unknown/unspecified" terrorism fatalities did however happen in Islamic regions such as Iraq and Afghanistan, or in regions where Islam is otherwise involved in conflicts such as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, southern Thailand.'

lorlee

perhaps you would care to put a link to actual statistics, not something you just made up.

mantikos

sure...plain simple statistics = bigotry

Justin Julian

That's nonsense. The guy clearly doesn't believe in the death penalty and believes in forgiveness. Yes, there are moderate Muslims in the US who believe both those things.

Too bad he's wasting his time trying to protect this guy, because this is Texas and that dude is going to take the long nap later this week.

John_McKee

As compared to what? Christianity? One of the most violent religions the world has ever known?