On the recordAugust 10, 2010
I rise this morning because three teenagers are dead. I have made a commitment as a mother to reconcile this horrific tragedy and to ask our government for help. I believe every American should have the opportunity to have the feeling that, when all else fails, our government will stand there and assist us where they can. Americans don't ask for handouts. They don't ask to have their lives interrupted. They simply want to know there is a Federal Government that can stand up for them. Whether or not it is a young man or woman in the United States military, whether or not it is a senior who needs Medicare or Social Security, we need to know that when there is a need that the Federal Government can fulfill, they will do so. In the middle of July in Houston, Texas, Sajan Tamalshina, a native of Nepal, decided to drive his car through a red light. In the course of that, he hit a family that were bringing their teenagers home from a legitimate night out in a legitimate teenage club, if you will, picked up by their parents and being driven home, as families will do across America. Rashaundra 17, Avianca 13, Detrihanna 13, were all happily and busily talking about the fun they just had, and the right way that it was done where the parents picked them up and took them home. But Sajan Tamalshina decided to drink and run the red light, and now three teenagers are dead, expelled from the car, laying on the hard cement.
