After 15 years of police work, 10 of which were in the Forensics field, I’m still amazed at the brutality of some crimes.

I didn’t see or hear this one even though it happened about 100 feet from my office. I am behind a cypher-locked door, and two other doors one floor up.

I also didn’t see any part of it save for the crime scene tape across the opening to the stairwell and elevator bay. And the officer standing guard there.

I didn’t bother asking anyone what was going on. Since I wasn’t directly involved in the case, the officers weren’t likely to talk too much about it. It’s a rule. But I knew. I was out in front of the building and heard the throngs of press people talking about it. Read about it in the Virginian-Pilot and watched it on the news.

I also knew because the paramedics rolled up quickly but didn’t come out the same way. The ambulance stayed parked at the top of the ramp for an extended period of time. There was no need to rush to the hospital.

Then I saw the crime scene clean up company drive up. Dressed in their protective clothing wheeling cart after cart of equipment and containers into the basement. It must have been ugly.

All of that didn’t shock me. Similar scenarios have played out in my career all over the city. In one of the worst years in my memory, I was involved in 7 scenes like this. In the course of 5 days. It was intense.

What shocked me? The statements below made by a family member. A family member whose father is dead and brother is locked up, again for murder. My emphasis added.

He and my brother couldn’t come to – I just don’t know how to put it,” said Angelia Clack, Franklin Lancaster’s daughter and Michael Lancaster’s sister. “It was just a misunderstanding between father and son.” “One word led to another,” she said.

“Families are like that.” -=SOURCE=-

No… Families are not like that. This is extreme. This is the most extreme of extreme. Your family may be like that, and it may be “ok” for you. But it’s not ok for me. Or for most people I suspect.

If we as a culture, can write off a grisley murder with “families are like that…” then we really need to sit back and examine ourselves.

I’m sorry you lost a father. I’m especially sorry you lost a father to the potentially murderous actions of his son and your brother (the courts will have the ultimate say in this aspect). Ever murder investigation I have been involved in sits in my mind to this day. I can’t just write them off. I would be worried about my own psyche if I could just blow them off.

I hope this family member was misquoted. But I doubt it.