The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

This is a true story and let me start by saying I remember when this happened. I also have some vague memory of reading a followup story about how the person who was burned had shown or sent a message of forgiveness to the person who did the burning. Then I saw this book on a table at work and knew it had to go in my Pride reading bag.

Oakland

Sasha

Richard

The 57 Bus

A lighter

A skirt

Mothers

A father

Bystanders

Many lives changed


When this happened both Sasha and Richard were teenagers

Sasha identifies as agender but upon looking at them to Richard saw "a boy in a skirt" and he made a poor choice. He was with friends and they were laughing at Sasha who was asleep on the bus on their way home from school. Acting recklessly Richard set Sasha's skirt on fire. He said he didn't think it would burn so fully so instantly and that it would smolder and wake Sasha up. But what happened was that Sash'a legs were horribly burned. It would have been so much worse had a quick thinking passenger acted and got the fire out.

In the aftermath of the fire is a story of recovery, criminal justice, compassion, forgiveness, and the capacity of humans to change.


Slater does a brilliant job of telling the story in such a way that you can feel for both teenagers and see the trouble with punitive justice without any restorative piece, especially when it comes to juvenile offenders.

Nothing makes what Richard did ok, and he has owned that and even tried to tell Sasha and their family, though it took 14 months for the message to reach Sasha and their parents because Richard's lawyer held on to letters he wrote. But being 16 and having no history of being a violent kid should he have been tried as an adult? Some stupid statements he made to the police when he was arrested, using words he didn't fully grasp the meaning of, because he didn't have an adult with him during questioning, means the DA was able to try him under CA law as an adult and there wasn't much that could be done to stop it. The discussion I feel like Slater was trying to open was about not if a kid should get off because they are a kid but how they should be treated in the criminal justice system.

But the most powerful part of this whole story is the graceful forgiveness Sasha and their parents were able to show to Richard and his mom and how that helped Richard on the road to being truly rehabilitated and avoiding recidivism.

(Finished June 24, 2019)