It’s time for tragedy to end

It’s been nearly five years since a man, Steven Allen Abrams,

barreled his Cadillac onto a Costa Mesa preschool playground, killing

two children and injuring several others, including a school

employee.

And that day -- May 3, 1999 -- remains one of the most horrific in

Newport-Mesa history. It is the day that 4-year-old Sierra Soto and

3-year-old Brandon Wiener lost their lives in an event so tragic it

not only defies, but denies, description.

Abrams now sits locked away in prison for life. The preschool,

Southcoast Early Learning Childhood Center, is long closed. But a sad

legacy of this terrible crime remains in the negligence case filed by

the families of Sierra and Brandon, who now say they want to take

their suit to the state Supreme Court.

Twice now, their lawsuit against Sheryl Hawkinson, who owned the

preschool at the time, and the Lighthouse Coastal Community Church,

where it was located, has failed. Both the superior and the appellate

courts have ruled against the parents, because Abrams deliberately

murdered the children.

As we have in the past, we must take gentle issue with this suit.

We don’t presume to know what emptiness, sorrow and longing Sierra

and Brandon’s loved ones have felt as the days turned into months and

then to years. We would never claim to know what it feels like to

wonder “what if” as birthdays pass uncelebrated. But still, we also

cannot understand how this suit salves the wound or how hearing

Hawkinson judged culpable in the crime would relieve the pain,

however great it is.

We appreciate and honor that the parents want to bring attention

to the issue of safety at preschools. We praise their efforts to do

so through Sierra’s Light, the nonprofit group started after the

tragedy that donates money to schools and other institutions to make

their campuses safer. We wish there were more organizations like the

Brandon Cody Wiener Scholarship Fund, which sponsors a camp for

children who are grieving the loss of a loved one. They are both

great gifts to the community, both lasting tributes to the memories

of Sierra and Brandon.

We do not see similar purpose to continuing the lawsuit, beyond

padding the wallets of attorneys involved. Hawkinson, who suffered a

heart attack during Brandon and Sierra’s memorial service, is simply

another victim of the awful events. She should be forced to relive

them no more than anyone else there that day, no more than anyone

else whose life was altered that afternoon.

Instead of heading to Sacramento for a hearing before the state

Supreme Court, those involved should walk up the steps of the Capitol

and bring their dedication to the cause of safer schools to the

legislators who can make our schools safer. Work with a John Campbell

or a Ken Maddox in the Assembly or urge state Sen. Ross Johnson, who

leaves office this fall, to make a Sierra and Brandon law the proper

culmination to his years of service.

It is time this lawsuit be let go. But it is not yet time to let

go this good cause.