3 grandparents killed in shooting in front of g'son at ballfield in Tenn

As a single father who went thru some tough custody battles this really just rips my guts out.

from AP via the Houston Chronicle

3 dead in shooting at ballfield in Tenn

A long-running child custody dispute erupted in gunfire after a 10-year-old boy's baseball game, leaving three of his grandparents dead and his father wounded, officials said Tuesday.

The shooting began Monday night as players and families were making their way to the parking lot. When it stopped, one witness said he looked out and saw the boy standing among the bloody bodies of his family.

"Maybe he was in shock, I don't know. He was walking around and it seemed he didn't have an expression on his face," said Wayne Treadway, treasurer of the South Jefferson County Little League.

Austin Shands' paternal grandparents, Ellen E. "Sue" Shands, 62, and Jerry D. Shands, 63, both were killed. His father, Jerry B. "Brent" Shands, 39, was seriously wounded. And his maternal grandfather, Samuel L. Noe, 61, also was dead.

This can never be made right for that kid.

Ever.

who once said, "I don't condone wife beating.. but I understand what turns Mr Hand into Mr FIST.." Having been through some tough custody battles myself I completely understand how this can happen. My ex has been trying to kill me for years in various ways, jail me with a Alabama judge in her pocket for no real reason even tho I never missed any payments for the kids while they older one smokes dope in HER HOUSE..

Have me drive 1800 miles for visitation or I get none with the kids so glad that dad is picking them up in New Orleans when he lived in Boulder THE NEXT DAY as the FedEx court order hits my door despite my sending notices months in advance. (that one was so I would die on the road driving all the way with no sleep so as to not dissapoint the kids or not have them at all).

Me with no record and her with THREE DUIS, having BIT her live in boyfriend TWICE in one year. Arrested many times for assaulting same boyfriend, one kid had to tell the cops to take the cuffs off the boyfriend and put them on MOM as SHE was the one attacking (how screwed is that?)

Having one kid jump from the car while she's drunk and run to a fire station for help, she hits two other cars (and gets away with it), but gets charged with "Child Abandonment"..

All this and 200 grand spent by me and I still ended up with two screwed up kids KEPT in her abusive home until they are/were of age.

Then grandma liked to play her reindeer games, Stealing homework when the kid was with me, telling the teachers horrible things untrue about me, tons of fun stuff.

Once saw a guy stab his exwife on tv about 90 times. I looked at my sister and said, "yeah, I don't condone that, but I SURE as hell UNDERSTAND it.."

It's the court system, all about money, a cottage industry for lawyers and judges, etc - big bucks there when the kids are hostages of the Govt..

Poor kid. They're the ones that suffer the most.

I WANT MY ALBUMS BACK! He'd been through THREE "Lifetime guaranteed Mattresses" as well - he was HILAROUS, and as a matter of fact got his start AS A PREACHER KID!!

The sad part was, is that he was REALLY HAPPY at the end of his life, had a fine wife that loved him, was doing well as a comedian, then CRASHED in a car..

If you've ever heard his brother talk, at the death scene, Sam actually "talked" to whoever comes to take you to Heaven or where ever.. he was talking over his brother's shoulder to an angel, and in the course of the conversation decided that yeah, it was time for him to "go home", then died..

A wonderful, HONEST MAN. So rare these days..

I miss that guy, no one holds a candle to him :)

I wish my father had wanted me like that. He lived right around the corner from us and we barely saw him. He paid $75 a month to my mother for the five children that he left her with, while he was making $40,000 in the 70's and 80's. One thing I do know is that your kids will one day appreciate every effort that you made for them. I wish the courts would get out of the stone ages and understand that there are some really bad fathers, but there are some really bad mothers too.

Courts almost 95 percent of the time rule with the Mothers.

This bull about trying to do what is right for the kid, and one day the child will realize how you tried to do what was best for them is BS. My spouse was in a big custody battle for his five year old. After five years, he finally got custody of her and she has hated him for it ever since. His daughter is now in her mid-thirties (married with a child of her own) and still hates him for it. The woman who had custody of his daughter lived in a trailer with numerous boyfriends, fed her junk (at the age of ten the child weighted 150lbs. and was only five foot tall) and was generally half crazy. But the woman continually told his daughter how awful her father was. His daughter still tells him he was wrong and fights with him about it every chance she gets. Sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child.

When you kid skins his knee playing in the street, you wash it off and tell him "everything's going to be alright". If a lion escapes from the zoo the next night and eats you child, that doesn't mean you were lying to him. You were just comforting him. I guess people could say "just be good to your kid and don't stir up shit with your ex and you kids will probably one day know you meant well"--but that just sounds so weak when the point is to give someone the perspective to heal old hurts.

Because one of the greatest pains in my life is that my father didn't want me. As I raise my own children now and see my husband love his children, it just baffles my mind why my father didn't want me. I guess each situation will be different, but *hopefully* children come around to understand how wonderful it is to be loved and wanted.

and you're right, my father never bothered and I think that doomed me to fight extra hard to see and help raise my kids despite stacked odds, (a Judge in her pocket, Fake Christian Alabama phoney man hater, who mistook my long hair for me being a California "druggie" type, stereotypical view of a rampant right winger judge - even jailed me for having the nerve fighting for custody when my kid is smoking pot in the ex's home!)..

But my new wife was right, we fought hard and even mortgaged the house, I owe HER so much for making sure that we tried EVERYTHING, so I will never have to doubt that I should have tried more..

I doubt it they will ever understand the sacrifices, nor cara what I did for them, they were taught that adrenalin, screaming, hating, and lying are "nurturing" and now don't respond well to actual LOVE and COMPASSION. They've had the empathy and respect for anyone else Dunned right out of them..

I don't hold much hope for them, and even had to throw the oldest one out for bringing a bong into my home after we gave him an apartment, a car, free rent and a place to be loved and guided in HAWAII.. he threw it all away for pot. SO I told him to hit the road, if he wanted to live life as a druggie he could go live that lifestyle and see how much fun it is to sleep in cars, get your ass kicked by Samoans on the beaches, etc while he stayed stoned..

He's still not come around, and I doubt he ever will -- he's filling the void we all have inside, the one that should be filled by love and mutual respect and admiration with a drug to kill the psychological pain instead.

Some wake up from that, some don't, but it didn't come from me, I have a loving family and am a loving person, but when we're in danger of losing our home, and getting jailed with a 20 month old son because the older one wants to stay stoned, that's where I draw the line..

Tough love is painful, but the only way to go, and if he grows up I'll be there, but he's got a lot of proving to do to me, once that trust is broken sometimes it doesn't come back :)

I believe the court should have laws that force Visitation, and if the "mother" or "father" refuse to let the other parent see the kids then they go to jail for that -- the kid is made up of both parts and need to know themselves by knowing where their parents are morally..

and I used to tell my ex, "Hey, even if YOU think I'm a scumbag, don't you think the kids need to LEARN that and know what to avoid in others and themselves?"

In this legal system Judges seem to presume that men can't nurture or have no feelings, well, we know better don't we?

I am lucky. I have been married only once, to the same man for 31 years now. Our two kids are our two kids. No other parents or marriages. My sisters have also been married only once and only one is divorced but has a great relationship with her ex. So I may be just naive.

But I don't understand what attracts people to one another in the first place when they end up hating each other so much years later. Your ex sounds like a lunatic. Was she not a bit strange when you had kids with her? Do people really change that much? How can you love a person (or maybe just be attracted enough to her) so much to father a child or children by her and then hate her so much now?

My husband and I don't have a perfect marriage. We even separated once. But we got back together and made it work because we thought that was what was best for our kids. I really didn't want to be married anymore. But I sucked it up and learned to tolerate him and eventually fell back in love with him. He had changed, but deep down inside he was still the same man I had fallen in love with when I was 18. But if it hadn't been for our kids, I would have divorced him in a hot second.

So I just don't get it. Do people change or is love really blind? How do you get from love and making kids to hate and constant squabbling?

Please don't take this as criticism. I really honestly have never understood these custody battles. What brings two people together in the first place and why isn't that strong enough to create a more lasting bond?

got out of the field because the crazy things that divorcing spouses did to each other (with each all the while claiming to be the poor, innocent party) drove HIM crazy.

She's been threatened on more than one occasion.

I've been married and divorced once ... it was the second worst experience of my life (only topped by the severe and disabling injury of my oldest child).

Sometimes the events that lead to the end of a marriage are so traumatic to one or both partners (so traumatic as to cloud judgment and actions). Sometimes substance abuse creeps in (very few people enter into marriages with active addicts ... or even worse, they are deluded and believe "love" will change the situation).

I have come to believe that the financial burdens placed on all of the parties add immeasurable stress to already intense situations. Financial fears (and sometimes greed) tend to trigger some unattractive behaviors.

The way marriages and families are dissolved also leads to increased acrimony. Unfortunately, in our system the divorcing parties enter into an adversarial process. He hires his attorney and she hires hers. Both attorneys advocate in the best interest of his/her clients ... each hearing is won or lost by one party, the other party comes away feeling that they have "lost."

This process tends NOT to bring out the best in people.

"Do people change or is love really blind?" I think events change people.

"How do you get from love and making kids to hate and constant squabbling?" Feelings of betrayal (knowing that you can't trust the person, that you had a great deal of faith and trust in, to act in YOUR best interest anymore) can undo years of loving interactions.

Finally, some marriages were just not a good idea from the word "go."

I can definitely relate to the financial pressures. I also know the toll a tragedy can play on a marriage.

but have confused it with lust.

Falling inlove with someone is really wonderful but as I like to say, falling in life with someone is the best. :)

I know a gal that gets into these disasterous relationships with, oh what's the term...LOSERS.

Cranking out their spawns with disregard for the future. I don't know about any of you, call me crazy, but I prefer planning for a family rather than sleeping with a crackhead and not using protection.

"party folks", and I guess once I decided to NOT continue that lifestyle due to having a child, someone has to be responsible, then you end up with two different people.

Don't know how many times she would be passed out on the couch with the "pink mask" that scottish folks get when drunk, and my little boy saying, "Mommy, wake up! I want a night night kiss.."

And I'd have to say, "Mommy's really tired, she worked hard today.."

The Elephant in the living room. I finally forced her to admit she was an alcoholic, so she divorced me and tortured me ever since. She walked in and out of inpatient rehabs over the years, and her parents even took my kids away from her legally for two years after her third DUI, two in one week, driving the kids around drunk..

Then the grandparents played custody games with me, in Alabama with a judge in their pockets.. it was horrible, and despite all the money I dumped into shrinks for the kids it did no good, one of them now does nothing but smoke pot, and the other can't ever anything over a D in private school..

I've had to move on, with the women I should have married first, but am completely happy with my new wife of 5 years and my 20 month old son, who even looks like ME (there were some doubts about the last two sons being mine on top of it, I could have been paying with my soul and wallet for years now for kids that weren't even mine..)

People can grow away from each other, tho I stuck by my vows and would have stayed with her the rest of my life and fought her disease the whole time for and with her. She divorced Me, and tho I would have stood by my vows, I couldn't be happier today :)

:cry:

That poor kid.

and was killed in struggle with the father for gun.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/local_news/article/0,1406,KNS_347_5006597,00.html

Didn't he think what this would do to that boy?

Couldn't they have gotten their point across with a baseball bat?

Can you imagine?