When situations like St. Louis Police Commissioner Vincent J. Bommarito springing his allegedly inebriated nephew from jail arise, this City all too often sees itself as Mayberry rather than a metropolis.
In Mayberry, the town drunk was so understood and beloved that the paragon of virtue, Sheriff Andy Griffith, routinely gave Otis the keys to the jail to sleep off his hangover. Our Andy, the venerable, respected and much loved restaurateur, was apparently just fulfilling a familial obligation in looking out for their Otis.
But in a metropolis, consisting of many and myriad, there is this lingering suspicion that there is one set of rules for the rich, powerful and connected, and another set of rules for the proverbial “rest of us.” Thus, in the metropolis, justice wears a blindfold. To not see or favor any one above another.
And to not let the heartfelt Mayberry in us compromise the beauty and vision of equal justice in the metropolis.
Eric E. Vickers
Via email