ClimbingUP

I was coming back from AA when I heard this on the radio:

Man Gets 50 Years For Killing His AA Sponsor

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) ― A Long Beach man who shot and killed his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor at an AA meeting has been sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

Jurors convicted Scott Gordon Reynolds of the first-degree murder of 33-year-old Uriel Noriega. He was sentenced Thursday by Superior Court Judge Jesse Rodriguez.

The 29-year-old defendant testified that he snapped after Noriega told other members at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting two years ago that Reynolds is gay, a secret confided by Reynolds to only his mother and the AA sponsor.

Reynolds claimed he brought the weapon to the meeting at St. Luke's Episcopal Church because he planned to commit suicide in front of fellow AA members.

Prosecutor Patrick O'Crowley says "none of that was substantiated" during trial.

Ago

The sponsor broke his confidentiality?

there's a lesson here somewhere..........

vegibean

What was his sponsor thinking? Not that I'm condoning shooting and killing your sponsor but seriously.......

Lily

Trippy.....

espresso

Blimey! Sponsor should not have blown his confidentiality but to be shot for it?

Pinkcuda

He should have told the group before his sponsor got the chance. How are we supposed to get sober keeping secrets from our support group?

CarolD

We had a thread about the murder in our
Alcoholism 12 Step Support Forum months ago.

Thanks for posting the results of this tragic killing.

Ananda

well....i've learned that my aa group doesn't want or need to know everything about me. I share what I need to with the group, share everything i can think of with my sponsor. The group really doesn't need to or want to know the details of my sex life.

But I hate to see anything to indicate that shooting a sponsor would be in anyway acceptable or deserved. A healtheir response would be to get a new sponsor

I'm not so sure AA had anything really to do with this...it seems to me that someone got upset because someone else told people he was gay and he shot the guy...could have happened in any social group.

CarolD

I wonder if this would have been so news worthy
if the man had shot his bartender for outing him?

ClimbingUP

I think the thing that's troublesome is that AA has a code of privacy. There's a tradition that what you tell your sponsor is supposed to be respected and held private and this privacy is what makes AA an attractive place to be open and honest. If he only ever told his mother and his sponsor about his sexuality, then this was one hell of a secret for him. I'm not in any way condoning his behavior, but for many people, being gay isn't option even if you're gay. It's a shame that the sponsor showed such a lack of integrity when he publicly revealed the secret, but he certainly didn't deserve to die for it.

Ago

does seem a bit severe, kneecapping him would have been appropriate, but murder?

/shakes head at the state of the world today

oh...wait.....this happened in SOUTHERN California? that totally explains it, those people do AA all wrong anyway, up here in Norcal we do it MUCH better then they do.....






I am so totally kidding SoCal actually has some Pow'ful program, they really do, I just always laugh about the whole moving to a new area and "viewing with alarm" for the "good of AA" that takes place.

it's really strange switching fellowships.

least

His sponsor 'outed' him two years ago?? And he waited two years to shoot him? Something's really screwy here, besides using a gun to settle a problem.

ClimbingUP

Well, trials do take a long time and it doesn't say when the crime actually occurred. I would assume that the crime took place closer to two years ago.

tennis71

Murder trials commonly take a year or longer and the sentencing is the final phase, typically a month or so after the guilty verdict.

I think the lesson here is in the end result. 1 person is dead needlessly, another person is in jail for a long time and the secret he claims caused his behavior is now in the newspaper and on this forum.

LouLou629

WOW,This made me feel sick...yes the sponser made a mistake by sharing his secret,obviously...however murder is never justified in my opinion.. we are all human and I dont know when his sponser outed him what his intent was, but our society today scares me..people have no freaking conscience they have no moral code, no respect for human life..there is no fear anymore...people walk around thinking they are equal to God calling the shots, dont they know how messed up that is? I am just spewing my opinion obviously and in generalization of what goes on today..its just my observation..all in all..its scares the crap outta me..Crazy people ready to kill...yuck..makes me pray even harder