If you find yourself wanting to harm someone...

... this guy seems like a good candidate.

Man in need of a severe beating

Just in case the link disappears, here's the story:

A Fayette County tee-ball coach was arraigned on felony charges yesterday that he bribed a 7-year-old player to throw a baseball at a mentally disabled teammate's face to keep the boy out of a game.

State police said Mark Downs Jr., 27, of Dunbar, offered his star player $25 on June 27 to hit an 8-year-old autistic child with a baseball because he wanted to win the game.

"Just when you thought you had seen everything," said state Trooper Thomas B. Broadwater.

Downs' lawyer, Thomas Shaffer, said his client denies the charges.

"He has two children of his own," said Shaffer. "He could never do this."

Police said Downs asked player Keith Reese to hurt Harry Bowers, who is autistic. Reese threw a ball that hit Bowers in the left ear while they were warming up before a game. After Bowers didn't go down, Reese hit the child in the groin with the ball, police said.

When Bowers ran to tell the coach about the attack, Downs suggested that he sit out the game, police said.

When Jennifer Bowers, the boy's mother, confronted Reese about the deliberate throws, Reese told her the coach had asked him to hurt Bowers, police said. The boy was taken to an emergency room, where he was treated for swollen red marks on his ear and groin.

Bowers could not be reached for comment. State police said she signed up her son for tee ball hoping it would help him overcome some of the social stigma he might face in the future.

Downs was charged with criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, corruption of minors, conspiracy to commit simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.

Downs and Bowers' mother have clashed in the past about her son's playing time, police said. The R.W. Clark Youth Baseball League requires that each player get at least three innings in the games.

The league investigated the incident after a complaint was made but concluded that it could not prove Downs had done anything wrong.

A woman who answered the phone at Downs' home yesterday said that he would not talk to the media and denied the charges.

Broadwater said after conducting several interviews with the boy who threw the ball and his father, he determined that there was enough evidence to charge Downs.

Downs has a preliminary hearing July 28.

Vacation

First of all, I apologize for the lack of updates lately. I also recognize this is not my first such apology. I am going to get back to the roughly once-a-week update schedule that I maintained in the beginning. It's not lack of material but lack of time, but since this is a prime vehicle for communicating news about John, I will make a better effort. --Eric

We recently returned from a week at the beach. Pictures will be posted in a couple of days.

This was the first time we took John on any significant trip or vacation, aside from a trip to Florida when he was an infant. We weren't sure how John would handle the change in routing plus change in sleeping quarters plus change in eating location, etc. The short version is that he did great, although he got overwhelmed. In total, it's been an extremely busy last 2 weeks, and he's done far better than we expected.

He was nervous about the water, but quickly warmed up to it. If you've been to a beach and seen sandpipers in action, well, you have a good idea of how John did. He dashed in and out of the waves, growing ever more fearless. On day 3, we got him out into waist-deep water, and he had a blast riding the waves (or, more precisely, letting the waves crash into him). A few times, he got his face wet too, and while this clearly affected him, he usually was able to just wipe the water away with his hand and resume playing. That, all by itself, was amazing to see.

We built lots of sand castles and sand pits and such. We brought his Tonka trucks with us, and had massive digging and dumping activities. Of course, this being John, the digging and dumping often happened concurrently, such that he would dig with the front end loader, empty the bucket into the dump truck, and then dump the sand back into the hole he had just created. Fun to watch.

We saw a new side of John, too. When he would get tired (and this was often), he seemed to be trying to keep himself awake. Usually, he did this by talking. Nonstop. About anything. His default was to ask questions over and over, but he would also rehash jokes and previous conversations. It was as if he didn't want to miss any fun, and so didn't want to sleep. He was not 100% successful, though, as you'll see from the pics we post in a couple of days.