Thugs and the Elderly
This Time Justice was Served
By Daniel Muniz

In 1994, Joseph Skipper, a life long middle-aged hoodlum in Detroit Michigan, committed a repulsive nauseating crime that ultimately ended up shocking a nation.

This low life of a thug broke into an elderly woman’s apartment. He savagely struck her in the face and then beat her senseless while stealing the mere sum of $53 from this very old lady who was hardly even able to put up any resistance. The sole purpose for this brutal assault and robbery that resulted in stealing such a small amount of cash was simple but all too common in today’s environment.

He beat this frail powerless woman for money to support his drug habit.

For anyone who has elderly parents or grandparents, hearing about such vicious attacks can send shivers down your spine, especially since there are plenty of addicts all over the country, many of which will do just about anything for drug money. Sadly, most Senior Citizens are next to defenseless against such attacks. And that is why these hoods love to victimize them and all too often, they intentionally seek them out since they view them as being easy targets that will put up almost no struggle.

It is sickening to know that this portion of the criminal element will continue to prey upon on perhaps some of the most vulnerable people in our society. And these thugs do it all for the pursuit of something as pointless and as selfish as drug money to support an addiction.

However for Joseph Skipper, his repugnant crime now carries a very special twist to it that would forever haunt him for the rest of his lifetime and perhaps endlessly gnaw at his soul.

Not only was it a vicious crime to assault a helpless Senior Citizen in her own home but he happened to be the thug who beat up and robbed the civil rights icon, Rosa Parks. Not too long after Parks received treatment at a hospital for this brutal attack, she moved to another apartment building. Undoubtedly, she was still traumatized by this horrific crime especially at her advanced age.

The local Detroit community as well as the general public was outraged about this incident especially when the press released pictures of Parks in a bruised and battered condition. Many people were seething in anger at the assailant who was eventually caught, tried, convicted, and then sentenced to prison.

Skipper now sits in the confines of a cell in the Alger Maximum Correctional Facility in Michigan's Upper Peninsula for an eight to 15 year sentence to think about what he did to this historic figure that so much of America revered. And perhaps he is one of the few hoodlums that ever had to seriously consider the impact and the ramifications of a crime that he inflicted upon one of his victims.

Although Skipper probably intended that his prey would probably be another face in the crowd that he would soon forget after getting his next high, the notoriety of his actions would cost him a far greater price because the penalty would be far worse than sitting in a jail cell and living next to taunting inmates. This time the crime would cost him his conscience and a perverse infamy that he would never be able to revel in as other criminals so often do.

While miring in his guilt, Skipper explains:

Years after the robbery, Parks died at the age of 92. As a result, Skipper would not be able to personally apologize to her face to face while asking for forgiveness for his shameless deed. Instead, her death robbed him of his opportunity to cleanse his conscience and to purge his soul of his guilt

And there are a number of people who don’t feel one bit sorry for him.

But if it weren’t for the fact that his victim was such a high profile public figure and a widely admired civil rights activist, this hoodlum would probably have never experienced any remorse at all for his actions and probably not feel any need to apologize to anyone. In fact, it is more than likely that Skipper would not have been able to even remember anything about brutalizing this elderly woman.

However, Joseph Skipper’s life of crime gave him something that he will not forget.

Although he may not remember his other victims, Skipper will have to relive his vicious assault for the rest of his life regardless of how many times he has publicly apologized even when he becomes a free man.

For once, a criminal did get punished for his crime and it wasn’t the prison cell or his loss of freedom that penalized him but his own conscience. Unfortunately, there are hardly any violent offenders that ever experience this kind of guilt and remorse for their actions. Too many hoodlums simply see jail as being one of many of their destinations and most don’t even think about what they did to their victims.

But this time, justice was done. Perhaps Skipper will one day be able to obtain a peace of mind once he has completely paid the price for his crime, especially if he seeks it from a higher source like the Almighty. However, it is too bad that too many other criminals never experience this kind of shame and remorse for their actions.

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