"Peggy can't keep doing this," she told me as I visited with her in Plews' apartment. "What really worries me is that she's going into so much debt."
Plews says she believes Seawright's condition is deteriorating. She worries her friend soon will have to be hospitalized for her ailments.
Stephen Lemons
Kini Seawright, in Peggy Plews' apartment with a photo of her late son, Dana.
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Arizona is a hateful place. I can already imagine the abusive comments this story will draw. I hesitated to write about it for this reason.
Though it's unimportant, Seawright is upfront about her past, admitting she once did time in Arizona's prisons for larceny.
I investigated Seawright's criminal past, which wasn't much of one. In 1999, she and her boyfriend were arrested for stealing seven containers of infant formula from a Basha's, then reselling it to another store.
Total loss to Basha's: $125 and change. For this, Seawright ended up doing a little over three years in the pen.
What makes Seawright special is that when she was released, she stayed away from drugs and got to work. Until her son was killed, she was doing okay.
Her son's demise is a story all its own, one I lack the space to detail here. Seawright's lawsuit alleges that corrections officers were absent on purpose as Dana was assaulted, then were slow to get him medical attention. By the time he reached a hospital, he was a vegetable.
The callous among you will sneer. But Dana was incarcerated on drug violations. He did not deserve a death sentence, which the West Side Crips imposed, according to one version, because of Dana's interactions with a Mexican inmate.
See, the prisons are segregated by race and controlled by race-based gangs. The Arizona Department of Corrections tolerates this, as do many prison authorities in America and beyond.
Still, watching the tears roll down Seawright's face as she bemoans her son's fate might make even a Tea Partier weep.
I urge those with compassion to assist Seawright by visiting Plews' blog (http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com) and donating.
Seawright is but one person. There are thousands of stories of pain and need, all created by our current political leadership.
I would like to see a karmic vengeance for that leadership. Non-violent, of course.
But I may have to wait a while, 'til those who sit in high places expire of old age or natural causes.
For then, as Elvis Costello once crooned in a song about former Prime Minister of England Margaret Thatcher, I'll stand on their graves and tramp the dirt down.
A piker's revenge, perhaps, but I'll take it.
