When turning on the nightly news or picking up the local paper what are you looking for? Sports scores? Obituaries? National news or local news? Who do you rely on to bring you the news about your surroundings? What if, on a Sunday morning you made your cup of coffee, settled down in your favorite quiet spot, opened your morning paper to see a front page, above the fold headline and a photo of the man that murdered your daughter? Would you read it? Fold the paper up and throw it away? Or would you sit frozen, unable to move, a pounding in your chest when the headline suggests that this person is the “inspiration” for a law that will save lives? That was me. I actually knew the story would be coming out, I did not know it would give him credit for “inspiring” an initiative to save lives that is supported by people the world over. He was NOT the inspiration for Kari's Law. I say it again, he was not the inspiration for my actions concerning Kari's Law. A law named for my daughter who was murdered in the most horrific way by the man the paper lends credit to for “inspiring” it. He had no contribution to society the time I knew him and he doesn't to this day. Some have said it was my daughter Kari that was the inspiration for Kari's Law. The fact that she paid the ultimate price for legislation that bears her name doesn't negate the fact that, weird as it is, she was not the inspiration for Kari's Law. The inspiration for Kari's Law still looks at me with eyes full of wonder and sometimes sadness. She is an active 11 year old trying to move ahead in her life without her parents. Put yourself in an 11 year old child's place, a child that at 9 years old witnessed her father murder her mother and knowing that she followed the “rules” and the “rules” failed her. Just a few hours after my daughters death this nine year old little girl sat on my lap in the lobby of a Police Station and looked at me with eyes that will forever be emblazoned in my mind. Eyes that asked why and eyes that squarely put the blame on myself and every other adult in the United States. Eyes that said, “ I did what you taught me to do, what my Mother, my teacher, my grand parents, the Police and The Fireman told me to do but it didn't work. “I tried 4 times Papa but it didn't work”. What do you think I said? Nothing..... what could I say. She was right. We don't teach children to dial a “9” first on a Multi Line Telephone System such as those found in a Hotel or Motel, an office building, a SCHOOL or anywhere a prefix number such as 9 or 8 or 7 are required for an “outside” line. Those aren't the only things required by some entities. I stayed at a hotel in Waco Texas that informed the person using the hotel room phone to dial 6821 in an emergency. Who would answer that call and even if you had an emergency would your “lessons” from the past automatically make you stop, look at the face of the phone and “Learn” how this phone reaches 911? If you're reading this then you probably know the story and I need not bore you with the rest. The inspiration for Kari's Law was a 9 year old little girl that depended on her instruction from adults on how to handle an emergency and those adults let her down. Now, it's the adults who MUST fix the mess they have created. 911 should be 911. If it isn't at any phone, anywhere, anytime then the instruction should be removed from every Police car, Fire Truck and Ambulance. -Hank Hunt (Kari's dad) www.change.org/karislaw www.nonineneeded.com