Governor Kelly wants to make sure the Carr brothers of Wichita Massacre fame get the Covid vaccine before you.
You remember the Carr brothers; Dodge City’s dubious export from back in 2000 that terrorized Wichita over a handful of days that December, culminating in the rape, sexual abuse, robbery and execution-style murder of four young adults on a Wichita soccer field and the miraculous survival of a young woman who later identified them.
El Dorado death row inmates Reginald and Jonathan Carr, according to Governor Laura Kelly’s vaccine distribution directives, will have the chance to get the Covid-19 vaccine before most of the people who pay the taxes that have funded the court and prison systems that have babysat the duo for two decades. Kelly opted to include prisoners along with other “congregate” facilities as a priority for distribution and announced it at a press conference just before Christmas.
So, all you 25-80 year-old members of the Kansas tax paying, law abiding public – if you were planning to rush right out and get the vaccine as soon as you possibly could, you might as well get comfortable. Bring a lunch and try to think of it like you’re camping out for Eagles tickets.
Those inmates ahead of you in line for vaccine don’t just amount to a long wait, but also a colorful one. Each has a story that guided him through the overburdened and expensive Kansas court system and into the overburdened and expensive Kansas penal system you’re paying for. A few cases in point:
There’s 37 year-old Cornelius Oliver in prison at Hutchinson. The 1999 Wichita South High School graduate was out of school just over a year in 2000 when he killed three frieds while they played video games at a Wichita apartment, then killed is girlfriend as she cowered on the floor of her bedroom clutching a pillow. Cornelius hopes to “meet a mature, goal-oriented woman to share stimulating conversation, mutually encouraging words, and ideas on personal growth with,” according to his online prison pen pal profile.
He gets the shot ahead of you.
Then there’s Kyle Flack, the scumbag who killed three adults and a toddler near Ottawa back in 2013 after an attempted murder conviction in 2005. He shot all his victims in the back. The death row inmate once wrote he’d like to “dye in a suitcase.”
He gets the vaccine before you, too.
So does Scott Cheever, the Greenwood County meth cook who killed Sheriff Matt Samuels in 2005 and shot four other deputies. Don’t forget Gary Kleypas, who raped and murdered a 78 year-old woman in Missouri before killing a 20 year-old female student at Pittsburg State University. Or Justin Thurber, who tortured, raped and murdered a 19 year-old dance team member from Cowley Community College in Arkansas City. They’ll all be ahead of you in line for the vaccine based on Governor Kelly’s pledge to “follow the science.”
Of course the science has pretty clearly shown age is the primary vector of the virus. If you’re young you’re at little risk. But of 2,879 COVID deaths reported in Kansas, 2,466 (85.7%) have been people age 65 and older with 1,108 of those (38.5%) age 85 and older. It’s clear the Kansas elderly – no matter where they are or what profession they’re in – should be first in line followed by medical workers, emergency personnel, prison guards, etc.
But in the tragic comedy that is the Laura Kelly administration, structures and models, bogus statistics and blanket mandates trump science. Your needs? Well, they can wait. Get yourself some comfortable shoes and get in line.