Fatal drunk driving accident in Wilmington sends message

Yesterday morning, in the hallway outside Long Beach Superior Court Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani's courtroom, the most heart-wrenching scene unfolded before my eyes. Just moments before, inside the courtroom, mother Maria Molina tearfully spoke of how much she misses her son, Lionel Molina, who was killed a year and a half ago by a drunk driver in Wilmington when he was 17.

As is always the case, these speeches are hard to hear. It's a constant reminder to me that there are no winners in the criminal justice system. But what happened outside of court drove that point home.

Molina and her family were waiting for the prosecutor in the hallway when she was approached by Marlon Roldan's mother. The two mothers, bonded only by the tragedy, seemingly spoke for the first time. Roldan's mother reached out to Molina, put her hand on her arm, and spoke urgently in Spanish to her. I don't know anything she said, but I didn't have to understand Spanish to know her message was emotional and difficult for Molina to hear. As Molina turned to her son and buried her face in his chest, Roldan's mother continued stroking her arm, speaking through her own cracked voice. Was she offering condolences? Explanations? I don't know. But in a whine, Molina could only respond, "Por que? Por que?"

As I felt my own eyes well up and heart ache for this mother's pain, I told myself there is a reason I come to witness such events. Following my story today on the sentencing hearing, one commenter summed it up succintly:

For more information, contact Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.)