Posted on 09/01/2005 9:51:24 AM PDT by NYer
TAMPA BAY, August 31, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ten year-old Joshua Heldreth, the eldest of eight children, was arrested on Good Friday of this year for trespassing while attempting to bring a drink of water to Miss Terri Schaivo. Days later Schiavo died of intentional dehydration. In court Joshua pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and ordered to write an apology for his actions.
The boy whose arrest photo was splashed on front pages of newspapers across the nation wrote in his apology letter, "I was arrested on Good Friday for trespassing on the hospice center's property . . . Not giving Mrs. Shiavo (sic) food or water was wrong. The reason I had to go on your property was because Jesus would do the same thing. It made me sad that she was so thirsty and it made Jesus sad too. I knew she would die without water and I am called by Jesus to be a defender of the defenceless. So I had to go on your property to try to bring her a drink."
Joshua added, "I am sorry that you didn't like that and wouldn't allow me to help save her life and one day you will have to tell God why. I won't be able to help you then like I tried to help her. I will pray for you every day . . ."
LifeSiteNews.com caught up with Joshua's father Scott Heldreth today. Scott told LifeSiteNews.com he is very proud of his son. "My son has amazed me through this whole thing," said Heldreth. The proud father said it was his son's own initiative to attempt to give the starving woman a glass of water, and despite the warning of his parents that he'd be arrested, the boy insisted. "He was the one who begged us to go down, because he wanted to give her a glass of water . . . We explained that police will never let you help . . . you'll be arrested, but he went anyways."
Pro-life leader Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America told LifeSiteNews.com that the whole pro-life movement shares Heldreth's pride in his son. Benham recalls the reaction of Heldreth on Good Friday as he watched his son being arrested: "When that all took place Scott was weeping, this father was weeping tears of joy seeing his son not only talk the Christian talk but walk the walk."
While the apology letter has been submitted, Heldreth told LifeSiteNews.com he's not completely sure it will be accepted.
See Joshua's full handwritten apology letter here:
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005_docs/JoshuaApolog...
Of course you cannot google Terri's cancelled rescue. It was not public knowledge.
They will always be first and be the best for investigative reporting on Terri.
Rep. Dave Simmons is not so bright. He told us after meeting with him that we could go ahead and go a press release and even he did his own. I'll never forget him saying "Terri will be a martyr." the day after Easter. in his Orlando office. They served us orange juice. we were in his board room in comfy chairs. It happened.
You also can't google up any info about Jodi's mother's mysterious death in Michael's house.
Some people think that if it isn't on google, it can't be true.
Eleanor Centonze. If memory serves me, died in 2004. Her obit is on an older Terri thread.
Everett Rice wants to be Florida's next Attorney General. We would all be doomed then.
My 897 is how it went down. The day after Easter was Terri's d day.
That's right. She was diagnosed with cancer, and died three months later in Michael's house. The media was very quiet about it.
Have you taken the initiate to contact the media yourself? If not, why not?
I don't listen to Glenn Beck any more either. As a Clear Channel employee, he didn't attack Judge Greer. He picked on Michael Schiavo because he wasn't an employee of Michael Schiavo. He said he couldn't do his show from the vigil because he would attract too much attention. Or, would he have been fired???
I know the media lurks at free republic. It's one stop shopping for them. They know how to read.
Excellent point, malikhi. It has been my experience with the media, that one must spoon feed them EVERYTHING and even then they might not use it.
I will always be grateful to Glenn Beck for his ardent and brave support of Terri. He was the first nationally syndicated talkshow host to so positively discuss Terri giving much time and deference to her case. (Rollye James was next). It was his best talk radio EVER and since. No one so publicly stood up to Michael Schiavo the way he did. No one.
The fix was in.
Too bad W didn't know.
Your #897
That dark day went down as you described it. You were labeled an insurgent as was I, both shown on tv as such and we were treated as such. It was a stage set for the media. They tried desperately to try to get us angry and to riot or something and we did not.
They were very frustrated at times because we persisted in being peaceful. Hard to portray us as violent when we are saying the Rosary. You may even remember the phalanx of cops who did a "power walk," side by side up the street as if it were a parade. It looked like a scene from a grade B movie.
"we are saying the Rosary"
The media might not want to show people praying...seems as if they want GOD ignored in the media, politics and all aspects of our lives.
There are two coverups right now. ABLE DANGER AND DISABLED DANGER. The first cost 3,000 lives and two wars. The second cost Terri's life and many lives in the future.
They had a tough time and had to be selective, because most any direction they turned people were praying one way or another. We insurgents do that a lot.
8mm
Some of it was too graphic for Easter Sunday. I asked the reporter to tone it down some - objectivity should be weighed differently because it was Easter Sunday. There was a poster at Auschwitz Woodside that showed piles of bones from a nazi concentration camp. Dumb bunny (per cp) floriduh voter recommended to the tv reporter to cut the concentration camp poster because it was too graphic while people were celebrating Easter as well as having Easter meals with their families.
Later that night, I slept in my clothes in Tampa on someone's couch because we were meeting Dave Simmons on Monday in Tampa. So, I wore my Easter clothes to Dave Simmons' office, no time to change clothes. (when we came back from Simmons' office on Monday, we went straight back to the Vigil. I stayed most of the night and finally went home. (that night, no LE followed me home that I know of).
HOSPICE EXPERIENCE EASTER SUNDAY: There were crosses everywhere. There were masses all day. There were people praying all day and waiting for somebody.... to...... rescue...... Terri.
It was an Easter unthinkable such as it was happening in the United States. The flyer naming Jeb as Pontius Pilate began circulating on Easter weekend. I have a copy here somewhere.
The rest of the Vigil I was taking Americans to the media side of the street so they could make donations to the Schindlers. If you didn't have credentials, you couldn't be on the media side. I helped people without creds get there and told them to stick with me and they'd get through.
Waiting day after day for a rescue (like the Katrina victims), one finds ways to help and I wanted people who came from far away to feel appreciated for coming such a long way. They were appreciated. They are still paying attention. They still want justice. The people who drove or flew in are my heroes. The politicians who showed up - that was just for show. The real Americans who came from all over, many from TEXAS are my heroes.
We were kind of like volunteer shepherds, wouldn't you say? Guiding new arrivals and answering their most basic questions, even telling them to move their cars or they would be towed. Do you know the tow guy lived at the apartment complex? He stayed at his complex and that's why the tows went so fast. He lived across from the Winn Dixie - those tows went fast without any warning.
That Easter day, nobody missed the irony and we were all friends as if we knew each other all our lives. Even some media people joined in. Early morning I was sitting tired and dejected, overwhelmed and in need of nourishment. I heard a sound and looked up and there was one of the cameramen from the big networks, not to take my photo but to offer a hand in charity and to offer me a little food. His charity and kindness belied the role of the media.
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