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Injustice, as defined by Webster’s dictionary, is the violation or denial of justice, or an unjust act. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the trial of Tom Robinson is the perfect example of injustice. Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of rape by a white man, Mr. Bob Ewell. Through the course of the trial, it is revealed that it was physically impossible for Tom to have done any of the things that he was accused of, because his left arm was crippled. He was accused of raping and beating Mayella Ewell, which was entirely impossible with only one hand (Lee 180). The jury simply had to decide whether or not it was possible to hold down, rape, and beat a person all with one hand. Tom was convicted regardless, simply because he wasn’t a white man. Then later, while Tom was held in prison to wait for the appeal, he was shot, and the excuse given for it was that he was attempting to escape. More likely, his guards simply shot him to prevent the possibility of him being found innocent. Injustice has been and always will be a cruel reality to anyone that becomes victim to it, such as in the Santana High School shooting of 2001.
On March 5, 2001 at Santana High School, a shooting had taken place. There were thirteen wounded, and two fatalities. This unfortunate event took place because of cruel forms of injustice shown towards fifteen-year-old Charles Andrew Williams. He had been the victim of vicious bullying and torment, for seemingly no reason. One injustice caused another one, as he brought his father’s gun to school and shot fifteen people. He was eventually sentenced to fifty years of prison. There is a link between the events of Lee’s fictional novel and Santana’s bloody past: injustice was the cause of both events, and injustice influenced their outcomes. Tom Robinson was accused of a crime he could not possibly commit, was found to be guilty against all evidence, and ended up being shot. Charles Williams was subject to incessant cruel torment, and eventually led him to bring his father’s gun to school one morning and cause school wide pandemonium. Both caused by injustice; both an unjust act; both have unjust outcomes.
Before the morning of March 5, 2001, Charles “Andy” Williams was just a 9th grade student that was the victim of many acts of vicious bullying. These acts were most of the time entirely without reason, or rarely simply focused toward obscure things about him, such as his manner of dress or even his accent (Roth). These facts prove that the injustices directed at Williams were completely pointless, and could not possibly be explained rationally. Bullying generally doesn’t have a reason, but there are some acts that aren’t usually used, but Williams suffered multiple times, such as being sprayed with hair spray and then being lit with a lighter (Roth). There were several more vicious acts that Williams had endured, all of which were unexplainable. There had been about eighteen separate occasions of this cruel violence, and it’s only natural that Williams was eventually fed up with the torment he suffered. The acts of violence which Williams had been the helpless victim to eventually led him to solve the problem in his own way, by a gun.
Williams’s solution to his bullying problem wasn’t entirely a secret. The weekend before the shooting, he had told his friends about it. “‘The whole weekend he was talking about it,’ Josh Stevens said, ‘and me and my friends were like, ‘You’re not serious, are you?’ And he says, ‘I’m just joking.’ and then he asked us if we want to do it with him’” (Suspect). This illustrates that the event was not a spontaneous decision on his part; he had planned it out. Also, the manner in which he told his friends about it seems to point to the possibility that he maybe wanted to have a similar event to the Columbine. His resolve to end his problem led to him bringing a gun with him to school on March 5, 2001.
Williams showed up to school March 5, 2001 wielding his father’s .22-caliber handgun. The entire incident was over in about six minutes. One student testified afterwards that Williams came out and started firing, but it was so quiet that it didn’t seem to be a gun until he noticed his friend lying on the ground bleeding profusely (Two). Williams eventually surrendered to officers timidly. Sadly, however, the outcome of this tragic event did not come quite quickly enough. There were fifteen victims of Williams’s rampage; two of which were casualties. Both deaths were fellow students, and two of the victims were adults. These facts illustrate how Williams seemed to have lost control over himself; at first, he simply wanted to get back at his tormentors, but it turned into a shooting spree. When he surrendered, the officers asked him if there were any other shooters, and he responded that it was just him. He was taken away calmly and quietly, and eventually wound up in court to face his actions.
In court, he pleaded guilty to his varying charges, including two counts of murder, and many of attempted murder. His sentence was decided to be fifty years to life in prison, and he remains there to this day. However, the case is still not entirely over, as people still argue over the length of the sentence. Many people are entirely willing to hand out a longer sentence to Williams, declaring that society has a right to be protected from the form of inhuman brutality he had inflicted on those fifteen victims and their families (Moran). It is clear enough, when simply reading the articles, that the injustice that Williams had inflicted would normally deserve a more severe sentence. However, he is still a minor, and was therefore treated as such. As a result of the trial, he was tried in the adult courts, as a minor, and was given a lenient adult sentence. Williams will remain in jail until he is at least eighty years old, at which time he would be fortunate to possibly receive parole.
In conclusion, injustice is the force behind the unfortunate events of the Santana High School Shooting. Injustice started the whole mess, and injustice was shown to the many innocent victims of Williams’s rampage. He had been the victim of many cruel, near torturous acts, and these acts brought about a desire to ‘get even’ with his tormentors by bringing a gun to school and creating another event similar to the Columbine. Williams was tried in an adult court, as he should have been, but several nuances of the law were overlooked in the trial, and led to his sentence of fifty years to life. The sentence has Williams locked up until at least the year 2068, when he will be eighty, and would have a slight chance at parole, all because of the cruel and unjust torments Williams was victim to. Injustice also revealed itself in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It was displayed before, during, and after Tom Robinson’s trial. He was accused of an impossible crime, convicted of his guilt against all evidence, and shot after his conviction to take away any chance of him getting his freedom at an appeal; all unjust outcomes, simply because it was a white man’s word against that of a black man. Injustice is senseless, unexplainable, and often unforgivable. In today’s world, in our own country even, there is injustice wherever you go. In the schools, there is bullying. In several countries around the globe, there are totalitarian governments that are viciously cruel to people without reason. Even in the work world, there are injustices in everyday things, such as employing a new person based on race, religion, or sex. There is no way to escape injustice, but that is no reason to assist its spread. Injustice has plagued our past, and is currently set to scar out future.