Where is justice?
Twice now, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin has left families in North Georgia feeling as though justice passed them by.
The first time was several months ago when Franklin said he would not prosecute a man who shot and killed a lost Alzheimer’s victim in the middle of the night on Thanksgiving Eve. Franklin made that decision even though the shooter’s girlfriend implored him to wait for police because the man at the door just looked old and confused.
This time, Franklin just didn’t take action. This time he stalled on the Nov. 11, 2013, shooting of a 17-year-old boy looking for scrap metal at what he thought was an abandoned house. The house wasn’t vacant, and the reclusive owner with a history of brandishing guns said he fired at the boy and another young man after he told them to leave and they ran toward him.
Franklin stalled so long that the shooter, 69-year-old Fred Steven Youngblood, died in a local hospital Tuesday night according to an obituary notice.
Franklin in recent months had said he wouldn’t make a decision on prosecuting the case until he had toxicology reports on the victim. But this week, he said he had the evidence but still hadn’t decided whether to prosecute.