Something happened in my town this week. Something so horrible that most of our residents simply cannot wrap our minds around.

First of all, I live in a city, a city of approximately 52,000 residents. We are actually very modern, but in many ways we are still very much a small town with the warmth and closeness you find in a small town. We are not Mayberry but until this past Wednesday night we were very close.

About 9 o’clock Wednesday night a man, a very drunk man — his blood alcohol was 1.8, twice the legal limit for California, got on his Harley and roared off down the street.

About 9 o’clock Wednesday night a father was walking in a cross-walk with his 9 year old daugther. There are four stop signs at this intersection. It wasn’t yet that dark.

The drunk motorcyclist rammed into the father and his daughter.  The father fought to remain conscious, with one broken leg and the other severed, to hear his daughter was all right. She died 9 hours later. He lost the leg. A Gulf War vet who is an off duty paramedic witnessed the crash and stayed with the father and daughter until paramedics came. Then he went to the drunk who crashed his motorcycle and was screaming for something for the pain. He was so drunk he had no idea what he had done.

This was his 6th known DUI. He was in jail for the others and for domestic violence. Clearly he could have cared less the harm he could - - and did cause — with his drinking. He has been brought up on murder charges, sadly only 2nd degree because they do not think they can find intent — but he can get life. The D.A. is taking this one himself — he lives in my town and has children who grew up here.

Everyone I have seen and talked to is reeling from what happened. The needless loss of a young life, the anguish of a father who is still not out of the woods and if he lives he may lose the other leg, but what more can someone lose after the senseless murder of an innocent child?  It’s all we are thinking about, all we are talking about. The drunk is under police guard…I think not so much because he would try to walk away, but because at some point the citizens of my town will come out of our collective despair and the anger will truly rise.

Something happened in my town this week and we lost our innocence.