Hoping to have something good come out of her son’s death, a Red Deer mother is trying to change how hit-and-run collisions are prosecuted.
Amy Sorensen has been circulating a petition seeking defined mandatory penalties for all hit-and-run collisions and more severe penalties for hit-and-runs resulting in major injury or death.
Her son, Trystan Sorensen, 18, was killed on May 20, 2014, while he was longboarding east of Penhold on Hwy 592.
Jessica Lyn Masyk, 26, pleaded guilty to the three charges against her — failing to stop at a collision, public mischief by filing a false police report and driving while disqualified — last Wednesday in Red Deer provincial court. She will be sentenced in November.
“This whole thing has been a travesty of justice,” said Sorensen.
“It’s a game, you plead not guilty to get a lesser sentence and then you change your plea to guilty to get a lesser sentence. It’s almost as though the justice system is geared toward the accused, protecting them and getting them off and not holding them accountable.”
Sorensen has been gathering signatures on a petition she started in the wake of her son’s death.
She has been walking door-to-door and been active at the Saturday morning Red Deer Public Market getting signatures.
Another of Sorensen’s sons, Harry Midgely, set up the petition.
“He set it up because I was in too much distress to deal with it at the time,” said Sorensen.
So far, she has collected about 10,000 signatures showing support.
“Hopefully it will do something good, I’m trying to have something good come out of Trystan’s death,” said Sorensen.
“He was a really loving kid, he used to hug me to death. He’d give me a big bear hug and practically squeeze the life out of you.”
She feels Masyk isn’t being held responsible for her son’s death because none of the three charges deal specifically with the death.
“We spend our lives as parents teaching our children that you have to take responsibility and culpability when you do something wrong ... (but) when you get into the (justice) system, it reverses it.”
mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com