Thoughts after the fatal beating of Ricky Whistnant.

Those who knew and loved 39-year-old Ricky Whistnant were thrilled by how his life kept getting better and better—that is, until Saturday afternoon, April 5, 2003, when he was beaten up in the foyer of his apartment building. A group of teenagers, thinking the pudgy, loquacious man a bit strange, followed him and poked fun at him after he left a neighborhood market in Hartford, Connecticut. Inside the foyer of the apartment, the three leaders of the gang—two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old—began hurling full containers of soda at Whistnant. One struck him in the head and he collapsed. Then the group kicked him viciously while he lay motionless on the floor. Whistnant died a short time later in the hospital. Interestingly, a security video camera in the foyer recorded everything the boys did. It showed that the more weakened their victim became the more viciously they attacked. It also showed that the leaders enjoyed what they were doing. Also interesting and puzzling was that the medical examiner ignored the obvious precipitating cause and stated that Whistnant died of a failing heart. If the victim had been the president of the First National Bank of Hartford, one cannot help but wonder if the medical examiner would have issued the same cause of death. Would the doctor who performed the autopsy have issued the same cause of death?