Rock, Paper, Scissors

The thirteen-year-old daughter of Alicia Guerrero met a boy on Facebook and entered into a relationship that Ms. Guerrero did not try to block because she thought her disparaging remarks would drive her daughter closer to an unacceptable relationship.

Paper covers rock.

The boy turned out to be a 21-year-old man who also proved himself abusive. The daughter ran off with Erick Maya, but begged her mother not to press charges when the girl was finally located and returned home. Yielding to a child, Ms. Guerrero did not have the man arrested, but instead sought a court order of protection against him.

Scissors cuts paper.

There might have been a time when a father would confront the young man in question, perhaps in company with various other adult relatives, and use words or fists to convince said young man that he was wise to stay away. Sadly, there was no father to stand up for the girl. Only her substitute father, the anonymous government with its power to use legal words to sway minds and change behaviors.

Rock dulls scissors.

The courts, being overburdened, did not go after Erick Maya in the same way a biological father would go after any man annoying his daughter. The pieces of paper that came out of the various hearings never quite made their way to Mr. Maya because he was too hard to find. Like when he was in another courtroom, on trial for beating up a different girlfriend. And again, when he was being held in jail pending a deportation hearing. He was released because the County of Cook declared it would no longer cooperate with Federal authorities seeking to deport illegal aliens by holding them in confinement.

Paper covers rock.

Ms. Guerrero moved out of the city and into a suburb, to escape Erick Maya and protect her daughter by putting a wall of distance around her. Society is mobile. Erick Maya found the daughter and tried to resume the relationship under his belief that it was not over until he said it was over. One morning, he walked up to Ms. Guerrero's car as she and her daughter were getting ready to leave for school, and shot the daughter dead.

Erick Maya will soon face trial on a charge of murder. There were many opportunities to stop him, to put him away, but the paper that was supposed to be a shield was too easily penetrated by a couple of bullets.