Hostage case ends in tragedy for everyone involved

It was pretty much heartwrenching to watch the events that took place in a courtroom in Marion this morning.
No one won, no one gained anything, everyone lost.
The case involved a man named Tim Martin who admitted that he wasn't thinking clearly one day...dressed in military fatigues...broke into the plant from which he had been fired...and held his former bosses at gunpoint.
I've sat in on a lot of court cases, many with much more heinous offenses and horrible details...but this one hit especially hard.
I sat and listened to the two hostages as they talked about what happened to them that day.
On the surface, it might not have sounded that bad, but when I saw two grown men on the verge of tears, and could honestly see the fear and pain in their eyes..I could emphathize with what they went through.
One of the hostages described the situation as follows..."Constantly thinking...looking at those hollow point bullets... of oh dear God, my dear mother is never gonna see me again because my brains are gonna be splattered behind me on the wall."
That sentence hit me like a ton of bricks. That's the way they actually felt at the time. The other hostage said "I knew early on that we were going to die."

On top of the emotional pleas from the hostages, there was also emotion from the family and friends of Tim Martin, and Martin himself.
More than 50 people packed into the courtroom, all who felt that Tim made a mistake, that he was a good man who never had a criminal history, and who was deeply sorry for what he had done.
At one point Tim himself stood in front of the judge, apologized to the two hostages and broke down as he said "I've been a Christian for 28 years. I've served as deacon of my church, I've raised two wonderful children who I love more than life itself."

The judge sentenced Martin to what basically amounts to 7 years in jail. I watched as Martin's family members cried uncontrollably. Their husband, father, friend...would not be home this Christmas, or for any Christmas in the near future. I watched the hostages and wondered if they would still fear for their lives once the 7 years was over.

There is no right or wrong answer here. My heart honestly goes out to everyone involved. I feel like the hostages will never live in the same world that they did before all of this happened...they will never be able to forget. Martin, a man with no previous criminal history, will have to spend years in prison thinking about what happened on that day. His wife and children, who had no part in this, will have to reap the consequences.

Courtroom decisions never really end in happiness. As I said in the beginning, no one wins. It's a matter of justice and what the judge or jury feels... is right or wrong.

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