By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Perhaps we’ve said all that needs to be said about the kind of human being that is Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca. I will try my darnedest not to douse gasoline onto public anger against him since it will not do any good at this point.
Nuezca, 46, destroyed three lives on Sunday. The two obvious victims were Sonya Gregorio, 52, and her son Frank Anthony Gregorio, 25. The cop first shot Sonya, who looked old enough to be his mother despite the slight age difference.
If he could snuff out a gray-haired woman like that so easily, then Frank was an even easier kill. With that said, the Gregorios are gone. May the delivery of justice be swift and severe.
We may yet save the third victim: I’m talking about Nuezca’s daughter, who witnessed the cold-blooded killing a few feet away. After Sunday’s killings, the girl might have lost her father’s physical presence. I dare say, with the kind of person her dad is, that it is for the best that she is weaned away from him.
She looked up to him and was proud of him – it’s evident in the video. That she accompanied her policeman father to the Gregorios’ residence to watch him straighten out some unruly, noisy neighbors speaks volumes of how much she holds him in high regard.
The unquestioned trust that a child places on his or her parents is a precious thing. In return, Nuezca taught his daughter Sunday that human life is really of no huge consequence; just squeeze the trigger to get rid of the nuisance. A lesson forever imprinted in the young girl’s mind unless meaningful intervention is done.
I don’t know how desensitized the young girl is from violence. The only one who can answer that is her mother. I ardently hope that the mom, if she is still blessed to have her parents around, would decide to send her daughter to their care for the time being. Forget about counseling from individuals she doesn’t even know. Intervention must come from within, given how tall a figure her father is in her life.
Let the grandparents – the gray-haired people within the family, like Sonya – assure the little one that empathy still matters, that Sunday’s events don’t have to define the kind of person that she will grow up to be, and that everything will be okay eventually.
It may very well be a challenging, tragic, slow reset for the child. But at least there’s a chance to undo all the psychological damage that has been done. For now, let’s all give her exactly that – a chance.
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