I can’t place the date, 80s or 90s maybe, heard of a case where one young child apparently pushed another one down a stairway killing them. The surviving child says they did it because the other child expressed a desire to die. Both children were aged 5 or under as I recall. There was mention that no prosecution was possible, and of course there was an investigation into why a child would express a desire to die, if that is what happened at all.
Wait. Does this mean that at seven I might have been held to a different standard than a classmate if we committed the same crime against our teacher because I was gifted (and had been given a standardized IQ test) and he or she wasn’t?
No. At age 7 you are always presumed to be incapable of committing the crime. It is between the age of 8 and under 12 you might be held to a different standard.
But if @elfkin477 were 8 years old and gifted she could have been tried for the crime as someone age 12 and older would be, while a 7 year old classmate would be considered incapable of committing the crime. gifted or not. It is absurd but could happen. “The other kid did it too” is not much of defense, may not be allowed at all in court. If someone were actually harmed by you and your classmate the call to prosecute one of you would intensify if the other could not be prosecuted.
It’s really not a matter of an IQ test and whether or not someone is “gifted” - the fact that one eight year old has a higher IQ than another , high enough to be considered gifted does not necessarily mean that the eight year old with the higher IQ is able to appreciate the nature of their act and know that it was wrong. An IQ test doesn’t measure that.
Update: The teacher this child (allegedly) shot is suing the school district, among others, for $140 million. There are a gazillion links out there, so pick your favorite news source if you wish to dive further down this rabbit hole.
Other disturbing behaviors he engaged in have come to light; among other things, last year, they sexually molested a fellow kindergartner on the playground and the reason they had to have a parent accompany them to school was because they were refusing to have the child evaluated regarding their behavioral issues. My own guess is that the parents are refusing to do this for at least one of two reasons: they are from a culture where having a child with a diagnosed difference is considered more stigmatized than the behavior that indicates the difference, and/or they don’t want the child to tell doctors things about them (the parents) that they don’t want outsiders to know.
I had long speculated that the cap on their identity was due to the child being in foster care, but I’m starting to think this isn’t the case.
Who are you referring to here by saying “they molested a kindergartener”? The boy who shot his teacher or his parents?
The boy who shot his teacher. He tackled a girl who was wearing a dress on the playground, and did it in front of a teacher.
I used they-them pronouns because even though I’m assuming this is a boy, I don’t know for sure.
Tl;Dr:
The boy, who is now in the custody of his great-grandfather, will not be criminally charged, Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn has said.
The child has “extreme emotional issues” and is in therapy and showing improvement
Interesting case for a different thread on nature vs. nurture.
from CNN “My mom had that gun. I stole it because I needed to shoot my teacher,” the 6-year-old said after the shooting, authorities claimed during a statement of facts in court Tuesday.
The mother of a 6-year-old who shot his teacher in Virginia was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for felony child neglect, nearly a year after her son used her gun to critically wound the educator…
Taylor was sentenced in November to 21 months in federal prison for using marijuana while owning a gun, which is illegal under U.S. law. The combination of her state and federal sentences amounts to a total punishment of nearly four years behind bars.
An earlier thread on the subject:
When should kids be charged as adults? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board