Dear Governor Patrick,<\/p>\n
It is with urgency and humble impatience that I write you this letter. <\/span>My dear friend, Arnold King, has been unanimously supported by the Massachusetts Parole Board for commutation. <\/span>This commutation support has been sitting on your desk for some time now. <\/span>Arnie needs you to take action now. <\/span><\/p>\n Arnie has gone above and beyond what a prisoner should need to do to have his\/her sentence commuted. <\/span>Arnie made a terrible mistake over 35 years ago. <\/span>He has done his time and given himself over to serve his larger community. <\/span><\/p>\n Arnie has worked with hundreds of young people. <\/span>Arnie has gotten himself an education. <\/span>Arnie runs an event at my church every 4th<\/sup> Friday of the month. <\/span>He is able to organize and inspire for justice even while sitting behind the prison walls. <\/span>Imagine, please just imagine what this man could do with his energies and talents if he was living with us outside of the walls. <\/span><\/p>\n I have had the privilege of knowing Arnie King for the past 3 \u00c2\u00bd years. <\/span>I serve the Community Church of Boston as the pastor and Arnie is a long time friend of my congregation. <\/span>We will be among the many, many supports that Arnie has when he gets out. <\/span>I know that Boston University has offered him access to even further education and that he also has numerous job opportunities awaiting him. <\/span>A man, currently in prison, is being supported by so many people during this economic hardship because we believe in him. <\/span><\/p>\n As a faith leader I believe in the possibility of forgiveness and transformation. <\/span>I also understand that Arnie has had a choice. <\/span>He could have chosen not to get involved in his community. <\/span>He could have chosen not to care about young people in the streets. <\/span>He could have chosen not to look after new young men entering the prison. <\/span>He could have chosen not to organize for justice. <\/span>However, Arnold King chose differently and has shown that he will continue to choose to stand on the side of conflict resolution, community safety, and justice. <\/span>We cannot bring back the life Arnie took, however we can give him a greater opportunity to benefit the lives of even more people.<\/p>\n In faith and justice,<\/p>\n Jason Lydon<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Governor Patrick, It is with urgency and humble impatience that I write you this letter. My dear friend, Arnold King, has been unanimously supported by the Massachusetts Parole Board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.communitychurchofboston.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}