<p>The (Munster) Times</p>
<p>Imagine walking your children in what is supposed to be a quiet residential neighborhood.</p>
<p>You’re pushing your 18-month-old daughter in her stroller. Your 5-year-old son is right there with you as well.</p>
<p>Then all hell barrels around the bend and into your life in the form of a car speeding in a residential zone.</p>
<p>The car jumps the sidewalk and slams into the stroller, ripping both children from your hands.</p>
<p>Kevin Foy doesn’t have to imagine what that is like. He lived it last year in Munster.</p>
<p>And this month, he watched in a Lake County criminal courtroom as the conjurer of the nightmare, Nicholas C. Heppner-Lundin, received a slap on the wrist for a degree of recklessness that could have wiped out Foy’s world.</p>
<p>It’s a sad commentary on a justice system that is all-too-often soft on criminals who put our lives at risk.</p>
<p>The message delivered by Lake County Judge Diane Boswell should be unacceptable to everyone, much less the parents of young children among us.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Foy’s precious children survived. Quite horribly, Foy’s daughter must now live with the untold effects of a traumatic brain injury and his young son with the hellish nightmares.</p>
<p>And for what?</p>
<p>Heppner-Lundin, 21, admitted to police he was out joyriding with friends when the utterly preventable tragedy occurred Aug. 18, 2018.</p>
<p>Heppner-Lundin had three passengers in his car that day, according to police: two 20-year-old Munster men and an 18-year-old Hammond woman.</p>
<p>The defendant told police he believed he approached a bend in the residential road at between 65 and 70 mph — more than 40 mph above the posted speed limit. Accident investigators estimate he was driving about 51 mph before the crash.</p>
<p>Heppner-Lundin also admitted he knew the vehicle’s brakes were not good before the crash, police said.</p>
<p>And the 18-year-old passenger in his car told police Heppner-Lundin commented about how he wanted to see how the manual transmission was smoother and faster at high speeds because of the vehicle’s turbo booster.</p>
<p>The evidence in this case stacks up to the six felony counts of criminal recklessness and three misdemeanor counts of reckless driving with which Heppner-Lundin initially was charged.</p>
<p>But that’s not where the story ends.</p>
<p>Prosecutors cut a plea deal with the defendant, allowing him to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of reckless driving. The judge saw fit to essentially let Heppner-Lundin off the hook with no real level of punishment.</p>
<p>The one-year jail sentence he could have faced was suspended. So he faces no jail time.</p>
<p>He’ll serve that year on probation and must remain enrolled at Purdue University.</p>
<p>So a criminal defendant who put the lives of innocent people, including two children, on the cusp of ultimate peril gets to stay in school as part of his sentence.</p>
<p>The defendant expressed remorse at the sentencing hearing.</p>
<p>He receives no points for that.</p>
<p>As his college classes resume this fall, we all should remember that two young children were nearly denied any chance of ever attending school — or doing anything else in life beyond the ages of 18 months and 5 years, respectively.</p>
<p>And we all must continue to ask when the punishments will begin fitting the crimes.</p>
