It should never have been this way

Sometimes in this life on earth, things like this happen. They shouldn't, they really shouldn't, but they do.

Tyrique Hudson was, by all accounts, a fine young man who graduated college in his home state of North Carolina and came to Annapolis, Maryland, to work for Northrop Grumman. In just a couple of years, he had done very well with them and was getting ready for his second promotion.

He took an apartment in Glen Burnie, lived alone quietly, but it was his misfortune to rent the apartment above the apartment of one of those people whose lives seem to unravel all over the rest of society.

The deranged downstairs neighbor took to thinking that Tyrique was above him, monitoring his every movement and video taping him.

We laymen take this to mean that the man was paranoid or schizophrenic or some other term Freud made up in his office.

In February, the madman threatened Tyrique in the halls of the apartment building.

Tyrique sought help from the "justice system" and applied for an order of protection.

The judge assigned to hear his petition is one Devy Patterson Russell, a judge who had been removed from the bench in Baltimore City over allegations of judicial misconduct.

In her probity and wisdom, Her Honor felt that one threatening encounter with a non compos mentis individual wasn't nearly enough to warrant some help from the "justice system," and she sent Tyrique and his tormentor away with the admonition to be more neighborly.

So a couple of weeks ago, Tyrique was shot to death by the lunatic.

Tyrique Hudson

A young life full of promise that had only recently begun to flower was cut short over the depraved heart of this brutal man, this nothing, this bellicose drifter.

"His mother sent him here from North Carolina and we did not protect him, and I feel responsible. We all feel responsible and we've got to do better," said Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman.

And people call for the suspension of Judge Russell, who, it turns out, is also facing charges of filing a false report while still in the courthouse in Baltimore.

No one from the apartment complex came forward to help him find another apartment, the judicial system failed him, and of course, this piece of flotsam who gunned him down was able to walk around armed in our society, because who knows?  We all need to be able to defend ourselves, right?

Tell Tyrique Hudson's family we are sorry. Society was not ready to let his greatness come to fruition.