Plaxico Burress And The Nexus Of Politics And Crime

By NOAH

I don’t know how many DWT readers follow professional sports but I am a DWT blogger who does, if only from the safety of my armchair. I’m not one to paint a logo on any part of my face or body.

As I write this, the breaking news in New York is that former New York Giants wide receiver, Plaxico Burress has agreed to change his plea to guilty on a gun charge and expects to be sentenced to 2 years in the New York State prison system. His crime: Carrying an unregistered loaded gun into a nightclub. This, of course, is a very common occurrence here in New York and elsewhere but Burress got caught when the gun, tucked in his pants, accidentally discharged and put a bullet in his leg. Luckily, no one else was injured. The penalty for this crime in New York is 3.5 to 15 years in jail. Burress will be sentenced on September 22nd and is expected to serve a minimum of 20 months of a 2 year sentence.

So why this post? Well, many have gotten off with less and there is some background, background of the kind that judges often take into consideration when giving the guilty less of a sentence for the same crime. Guess what. Here in New York City, an election is on the near horizon. Mayor Mike Bloomberg is already spending his billions on incessant “ain’t he a wonderful superhero of a mayor” advertising and has been adamant that Burress get the max. Same with our senile DA Robert Morganthau who appears to have woken up merely to endlessly weigh in on the Buress case in a parting shot just before he retires this year at age 90!

More background: I do not know Plaxico Burress but my take, and I am not alone here, is that he is a very dysfunctional guy but not a bad guy. Those who do know him have made statements that only serve to confirm my gut feeling. This is no OJ and this is no Michael Vick. I work in the music business and I know dysfunctional people when I see them. I can spot them a mile away. I have dealt with very talented artists who are ruled by childhood issues and their insecurities. Some have great trouble even going outside. The only place where they can seem to function is on a stage. Buress strikes me as pretty much the same, a person without bearings unless he is on a football field. People pay to see him play.

Plaxico even registered his gun. Unfortunately, he only registered it in his home state and thought that was all he had to do. I repeat. Unlike so many people who carry guns on an evening out about town, he registered his gun. Yes, he broke the law. Yes. Ignorance isn’t much of an excuse. There was, however, no intent to commit a crime. Burress does not adhere to the “thuglife.” His own wife is an attorney. Why, you ask, was he carrying a gun? A few nights before, a teammate was held up at gunpoint in his own driveway. Real thugs follow rich people like Buress home. A pro football player may be 6 foot 6 of solid muscle but, if someone is pointing a Glock at them, they usually know how to act.

So, the questions I will ponder on this today are: 1) What if Burress was not a well-known, high profile professional athlete, an African-American one at that? 2) What if Bloomberg didn’t feel the pressure to appear “tough on crime” in an election year? 3) Yes, the sentence could have been worse, but what constructive purpose in the life of Plaxico Burress or our lives will sentencing a dysfunctional man-child to 2 years in the state pen serve? Will he come out a better person?

Plaxico Burress made a very bad mistake. We are lucky that no one else was hurt in that nightclub. He didn’t comprehend the laws of gun registration. I understand that different states have different laws regarding sentencing, too, but Michael Vick beat dogs to death. Michael Vick drowned dogs. Michael Vick hung dogs Michael Vick electrocuted dogs. Plaxico Burress registered his gun, thought he had it covered. And, Michael Vick and Plaxico Burress got the same sentence. At what point did the vagaries of an election year outweigh the vagaries in Plaxico’s mind? Are our laws fair and balanced? You decide.