That probably sums it up. He was a man-boy in need of parents. It’s sad to hear he was getting himself together and then this happens.
Hard for me to get choked up over his behavior in the truck. It must have scared the hell out of his fiance and it will be a horrible legacy to his children.
While I can get behind your gist of “every celeb doesn’t deserve a glorious sendoff” (and to me, that applies to anyone, regardless of past misdeeds), I also think you are being pretty jerkish, Captain, sir. Never made a mistake? Never commanded a soldier that “came around”? Not a fan of second chances? Not willing to be able to consider the possibility that his death, while not stopping the world, leaves behind fatherless children and a promise of a marriage unfulfilled?
Nobody knows or will know the circumstances surrounding why he and his fiancee and mother of his three kids were arguing to such a degree, and to arbitrarily jump to conclusions that he was in the wrong is silly. It doesn’t even matter. He’s dead.
I served in the military for five years as an enlisted man…my Dad is a retired USAR major general…EVERYONE in my family has served that’s male except my brother…I’m not so certain I’d want you leading me, prejudging as you are.
If you look more closely at his rap sheet, most of his crimes aren’t really that egregious, for one, aside from the gun violation. Pot possession? OK. The providing minors with alcohol was one of his “friends” using his provided credit card in a hotel room under his name (he wasn’t there), his last charge in 2007 stemmed from a drunk Steeler fan making up an assault charge against him, which proved to be false, but the boy who cried wolf and everything… If you put that into context with his very poor Louisiana upbringing, his compassion in bringing over 20 of his friends and family up here on his dime (3rd round pick, no great shakes) after Katrina…it puts things into perspective a little.
Henry was somewhat easily led into trouble by hangers-on and didn’t really seem to do anything about it until he started having children and realizing as his livelihood was being taken away by his actions…but the light did veentually come on.
Its not a big deal, but being a loyal follower of the team gives me a bit more perspective, and let me be clear…I HATED Henry being on this team initially, I didn’t want him back when Mike Brown chose to do so…but he really did seem to turn himself into a respectable member of society, and really, while not a celebratory virtue, for him, it was something that mattered and that he was overcoming. The tragedy is that he didn’t get to finish.
You are the coolest Steeler fan I’ve encountered on the internet. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone!
The first part of your post I agree with. The second part…why would you assume she was fleeing for her life or scared? There were no marks on her. Maybe she was just angry and wanted to drive off. There’s myriad reasons why she did what she did. We aren’t privy to them, so why assume? How many other marriages have people done stupid shit in the name of emotion? How many have ended in tragedy?
Anyway…RIP Henry.
The people following the truck reported a man trying to smash in the back window. They were having an argument and she left. Given his behavior, I can see why she drove off.
That’s not entirely accurate. I heard the 9-11 call. The lady calling said he was banging on the back window, and wasn’t sure what was going on, and that it was crazy. He was trying to get her to stop the truck.
The quote was "He’s beating on the back of this truck window… I don’t know if he’s trying to break in or something. It just looks crazy. It’s a girl driving it."
In the column under the word “DUH” , I don’t think there is any doubt he wanted her to stop the truck. However, when someone jumps in the back and beats on the window that is not the behavior of someone who is calm and collected. She was trying to put distance between them and it appears it was for a good reason.
Congratulations. Your dad was a MG. Good for you. I was an enlisted man too for 6 years. I don’t particularly care about your family or its history as it is not relevant to this discussion. What do you do for a living? Is that relevant to this discussion? It sounds like I wouldn’t want you working for me in any significant capacity as you don’t seem to want to hold people accountable for their actions so I couldn’t trust you to manage any of my troops for fear of them running amok.
To answer your question though, General’s Son, I do believe in giving people second chances. I don’t believe in giving people 4th, 5th, 6th chances, especially when they are pampered celebrities or sports stars who are used to be given extra special treatment and given extra-extra chances to “get it right”.
Look at how many run-ins with the law hes had in the last 5 years or so. Whether he was arrested, charged and convicted each time isn’t important here, though he was plenty of times. If he was REALLY trying to turn his life around he wouldn’t have put himself in positions to be tangling with the law. For some reason you are making all kinds of excuses for him and I don’t see why. He was a thug, and like I did infact say earlier, it’s too bad his kids had him for a dad because now he’s dead.
I don’t watch football unless I’m at my dad’s house or at a bar, and I sure as hell don’t follow it enough to be familiar with individual players’ names beyond the most famous of them, but I do think there is an unfortunate undercurrent of “thuggery” running through pro football. It seems like it used to be that way for basketball but is less so now; football seems to really be the sport that attracts the thug guys who are still living the thug lifestyle despite making untold millions of dollars.
I don’t know the fine details of this incident. I don’t think anyone can know. But I do know that every time I see some football player die or get arrested in shady circumstances, I’m less and less surprised.
Quite apart from surrounding himself with people who’s influence wasn’t the best, Henry was noted for having a temper that got him in trouble. While he may have gotten himself away from the bad influences, it’s fairly obvious that he hadn’t soved the temper issue. Anytime a person is driving a vehicle, and someone has jumped into/onto that vehicle and is banging on it to try and get the driver to stop, that is not just a poor decision; that’s an example of violent behavior that should not be tolerated. Directed by a man in the direction of a woman who has a relationship with that man makes it all the more egregious, in my estimation.
I’ve changed my mind. I’m glad he’s dead. One more piece of trash nigger thug removed from society! Yay! His kids will thank him for doing them the favor of dying so young so they didn’t have to be around his solely negative influence for any significant amount of time in their lives.
Burn in the fires of hell, you petty thug. I hope not even God has mercy on your soul. You made some mistakes that you have to keep paying for throughout eternity. Not even God wants to redeem you because you’re clearly irredeemable.
FWIW, I apologize to you, Cubsfan, for bringing the military angle and family into this discussion, as it was irrelevant.
For what it’s worth, yesterday was the first time I heard of this guy - I had no knowledge of his past, and just happened to see the story because ESPN was on at the gym.
At first I thought it was just someone doing something dumb. Then they mentioned that following a “domestic dispute” his fiancee was driving away and he jumped in the back of the truck. It was clear to me that this was actually a guy attacking a woman, who did something dumb in the course of it. I don’t think you can argue that his behavior was anything but aggressive and intimidating, whether he laid a finger on her or not.
Perhaps he was in the process of turning his life around, but it certainly seems in this instance he was acting violently and illegally. I still think it’s a shame and I feel awful for his family and for her (she probably feels really guilty as well as grieving). I don’t feel very bad for him, however.
Wow. So, if his girlfriend accelerated up to a high speed (just speculating) and weaved around to try to dump him from the back of the pickup, is that self-defense or manslaughter?
How do we know that? What if she was so upset that she threatened to kill herself in the truck and he leapt in the bed of it as it was taking off to try to stop her?
Who knows. Homicide unit is investigating it. A neighbor was trimming trees nearby and claimed to have overheard him saying something to her akin to “Stop this truck right now or I will jump out and kill myself”, so maybe he jumped.
FoieGrasIsEvil and Cubsfan, dial it back a notch. We don’t need this kind of sniping.
Ellen Cherry
Game Room Moderator
Cool. I’m man enough to admit I was wrong. Stay safe out there, Cubsfan, wherever you are in the world.
Nah, it’s cool. We straight.
I’m glad. Being a recipient of multiple second chances as a teenager myself, I tend to fall on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt…to a fault.
Plus I really like the Bengals, felt really bad for Henry’s kids, and…yeah.
Or there could’ve been a bomb in the truck, and he wanted to stop her before she went over 50 miles per hour! Or, or, or maybe he knew there was a hit ordered on that truck and he didn’t want her to be the victim of an assassination attempt!
What he did was simply not rational, and I cannot conceive of any but the most contrived of scenarios where his behavior would be seen as anything but threatening, alarming, or dangerous. He could’ve called the police if he was worried for her, or got into his own vehicle and tailed her if he was acting out of concern. But jumping into the bed of a moving pick-up? That is Movie-Heroic or Real-Life-Crazy and he’s real life dead.
Plus, if I’m in the bed of a pick-up with someone who may be acting a bit irrationally, I’m lying my ass flat in the bed until she calms the fuck down. No amount of swerving is going to throw me from that truck unless I’m doing something profoundly stupid.
He of course was on IR for a recently broken arm. To put himself in that situation while handicapped was… let me be charitable… unwise.
Do I have enough information to vote for a conviction as a member of a jury? Absolutely not. But as **ArchiveGuy **pointed out, if you look at the facts, there is one very likely interpretation. And the point of my post was to indicate that people glossing this as him being violent aren’t necessarily relying on his background and history, since I had the same reaction without knowing any of that.
This is being silly. No one is suggesting that he is better dead, or that he deserved to die, or that he’s a worthless piece of trash. But they are suggesting that refusing to see that he was most likely involved in one more incident highlighting what was a volitile personality which involved him in a number of prior poor choices is simply burying your head in the sand. Just because we would like to believe that he had his life sorted out does not mean that he had, indeed, actually solved those things about his nature that were truly causing him the majority of his issues.