All The Wrong Choices

"I don't imagine myself doing this. I don't understand. Anyone in their right mind, with the opportunities that I'm facing right now, would never do something like this and throw their life away." Brian Miller

Amnesia can be a very helpful plea after having committed anti-social acts. As useful as pleading innocence of the charges, despite evidence that clearly situates the offender at the scene of the crime, and witnesses that can testify accurately in identifying the malefactor. In some very special circumstances where the offender has impressed others with his willingness to surrender his life of crime to becoming a responsible member of society, there can be much sympathy.

It seems evident that 27-year-old Brian Miller, who despite his youth has amassed a criminal record, managed to impress those in authority at the CBC reality television show Redemption Inc. with the seeming sincerity of his willingness to turn his life around, given a break by society, being offered alternatives to the easy pickings he had previously chosen as his way of life.

To place matters in some perspective, Mr. Miller is the father of three very young children. He left the indelible impression that he had determined it was time for him to put crime behind him and to embark on a life of assuming responsibility for himself, his partner, and their three young children, four, two and three months of age. He was set, in fact, to assume a well-paid job on Monday.

Instead, he was charged with two counts of break and enter, one count of vehicle theft, two counts of theft under $5,000, four counts of attempted theft and dangerous operation of a vehicle. He had not favourably impressed those whom he sought to rob, particularly the young women who gave chase. He was released from police custody on Monday, on a $3,000 bond.

Mr. Miller got his big break when he appeared on the first season showing of a new television program that invites ex-convicts to compete to win the opportunity to initiate a business of their own with a $100,000 start-up investment from the show's host, Kevin O'Leary, of Dragon's Den fame. He happened to be runner-up on the show, which still gained him a job offer.

This man chose to stop attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in favour of resuming his drinking habit. "Obviously, if you're an addict, you can't be doing that", offered Mr. Miller, self-chidingly. Mr. O'Leary still considers the young man to be an "outstanding individual". The show's associate producer was also very understanding.

Brian Miller began drinking and using drugs from age 13. He had become addicted not only to alcohol but also cocaine and other hard drugs. But he had managed, according to his biographical details, to stay out of trouble the last few years, and had pulled himself out of his drug addiction. The Redemption Inc. opportunity opened new doors for his future.

Yet, he was unable to restrain himself, and chose to turn back to the life he had divorced himself from. He broke into a car in Stittsville around 4:40 a.m. to steal found items, then chose another vehicle in a driveway to search for valuables. In the third driveway he took a garage door opener from a car to enter a garage where he stole again.

The fourth target was the house of a woman who, alerted by a child that someone was driving away with her car, borrowed her husband's and gave chase. When she was successful in blocking him and forcing him to drive into a snowbank where the stolen car was immobilized, he ran from the scene. And then proceeded to break into three additional cars on another street.

He was arrested by a patrol officer as he was in the act of rummaging about in the seventh vehicle he had broken into that very busy night, looking for more treasures he could abscond with. Not his fault, actually. He doesn't recall anything, nothing at all, that occurred that evening. What he does remember is celebrating St.Patrick's Day at a bar.

He'd had eight beers before he had gone out, another eight at the bar, and then again several more outside the bar. Then, as ill fortune had it, he woke up in a jail cell at Ottawa's Elgin Street police station.

Life is just so bloody difficult.