Krok Pens Editorial On Coppell Mayor

**This editorial was submitted on Saturday Afternoon to the DMN**

I Want the Truth, is that too much to ask?

Three editorials in one day in the Dallas Morning News suggest that Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters, who brutally murdered her daughter and took her own life, was DEPRESSED.   One even calls her a “basically decent person”.  Isn’t it amazing?  None of us knows her personally, yet everywhere you turn, someone’s chalking it up to depression, as if the Mayor is simply a victim.  It’s as if the three columnists, in their ivory towers, refuse to admit that evil exists, especially when it’s a pretty white female.  Is it only evil when a black man guns down a person in South Dallas?  I wonder if they’d feel this way if it was a male Mayor who killed his wife in a domestic dispute.

What concerns me the most is a blatant disregard for the truth.  The past 48 hours have screamed to me: “Hurry up and honor the Mayor before all the news comes out!”.  They’re so quick and willing to gloss over what appears to be $6,000 in theft from the very city that now honors her.  They’re so quick to overlook at least 5 days during which the mayor plotted the unthinkable murder of her own child (the elder Peters got the gun on the 8^th of July).  And, they’re so quick to overlook Corinne’s inability to chose her path in life for herself.

Even some of Corinne’s friends said it was wrong for a murderer to be honored with her victim.  Our kids know the truth.  They’re a lot smarter than you may think.  A Coppell mom told me that her 12 year old was talking about it at Vacation Bible School.  The children know what’s going on.  I will not lie to my kids, nor should our community lie to its children.  From the handling of Chief Brown’s son to this case, we are glossing over the truth.  But at what cost? 

I am concerned it may have been pride that led to the mayor killing her daughter and herself, not depression -perhaps a combination of both.  In A DMN story, city officials say that Peters may have been using the city credit card to “keep up financial appearances in the face of personal money woes”.  Could it have been pride that would not allow her to live more modestly, like many of us have had to do when dealing with hardships?

Corinne’s mother may not have been able to deal with the fact that she could no longer afford to live in a $422,000 home.  Corinne’s mother apparently was unwilling to sell the house at a “fire sale” price of $300,000 and walk away with $75,000, moved into a modest apartment, fessed up to the City for her theft (most likely without one day in jail) and gone to her family and church family and told them she was lost and hurt and had no money to repay them.  Instead, we have thievery, false promises, murder, suicide and grief.

DMN articles say that many Coppell students go off to UT.  We also know that Coppell is an upscale community.   Perhaps Corinne was unable to deal with knowing that many of her friends were going off to school soon and that she wasn’t.  As we now know, Corinne wasn’t enrolled at UT or TCU.  She appeared to be deceiving folks.  She appeared to be concerned about how things looked on the outside.  All of us struggle with “status” issues:  how you dress, what you drive and where you go to school.   It’s up to us to show our kids the way.

How can we teach our children that status isn’t everything if we gloss over the realities of this situation, you know, THE TRUTH?  Why can’t we tell them that most of us have gone through very hard times (including me) and gotten closer to God in our suffering, gotten through these rough times with little in our pockets, but have come out better people who are now grateful for the tribulations ?  It showed us what’s most important in life:  Our relationship with God and our loved ones - not a Jaguar, a huge house or getting admitted to UT-Austin.  It humbled us.  It showed us that our kids still love us no matter what. 

Two years ago, my family moved out of our large house, sold our expensive minivan and became a one- car family.  We sold half of what we owned.  We moved into a house that I thought was “icky” and small.  We had to.  Two jobs later, we’re almost debt-free.  Our one car now has well over 100,000 miles on it.  Our kids don’t live an extravagant lifestyle and we don’t have a big house, but we’ve become better, more responsible parents.

If we pretend that the mayor was just a victim of depression and don’t warn our children about the dangers of putting our hope and identity in status, they too may grow up to think that the only way out is to end their lives.

I won’t let my son grow up thinking that way.  There’s always a way out.  There’s always help.  There are more important things in life.  That’s what we need to teach our kids: The Truth.

Chris Krok is a Talk Show Host Afternoons 4-7pm on Radio Active Talk Radio 570 KLIF

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