Crime and forgiveness
Many townspeople, though, felt the kids were in the wrong, too. "People are people," said builder Dan Schlabach, eating breakfast at Boyd & Wurthmann, a restaurant where Amish and "English" men gather at dawn. "The kids aren't out of control, but they want to be more independent." Chief Deputy Fritz says the perception that police go easy on Amish or Mennonite violators isn't true. In this case, the 11 other youths--eight were teens and three were in their early 20s--were charged with vehicular vandalism and were sentenced to community service and weekend jail time, which was deserved punishment in the eyes of many here.
In addition, the youths wrote an apology published in local papers. ". . . With a sorrowful heart, we take full responsibility [for] what led into the shooting death of our friend Steven Lee Keim. We apologize and ask for forgiveness from the Reuben Keim family, the suspect, and any other vehicles that were hit, and also to the whole community. May other people benefit from our bitter experience." But prosecutor Stephen Knowling says the issue at this point isn't their actions: "Steve Keim is dead not because kids threw tomatoes at cars. He is dead because the defendant fired a shotgun."
Still, an Amish bishop and a minister met with the youths to "to impress on these kids that what they did was wrong . . . and to explain that they could be forgiven, but there will be consequences," said the minister, who asked that his name not be printed. The shooting, he said, was unfortunate, but Amish leaders hope all the soul-searching will prevent anything like this from happening again. "If we let God work in this," the minister said, "he can let something good result from this."
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