Have to agree with jar here. Why is it that, whenever someone does something wrong, the first thing wished upon them is that they become someone’s “bitch” or get “passed around” the cell block? Even the TV shows like “Law & Order” are guilty of this, with potential witnesses warned that they’ll have a bad time in jail because they’re “cute” or small or whatever.
American prisons are, i’m sure, generally bad enough that we need not go around celebrating the violence that happens within them and even encouraging more of it.
None of this excuses the type of behavior described in the OP, but prisons are meant to be just that - prisons. They should be places where law and order and the ideal of what it means to live in a decent society are reasserted, not torture chambers where even further dehumanization is encouraged. But maybe i’m just being naive.
This makes it sound like the clerk stood there and watched the whole thing and didn’t even call the police. If that’s true, he ought to be charged with something, too.
I think the dad is in denial. Sometimes the way the kids turn out really isn’t the parent’s fault. Feel bad for the father. Imagine how he must feel right now, what a failure he must think he is. Think of how ostracized this father might end up being as people blame him for something that his son, not him, did.
For me, the phrase “the truth will come out” is harder to bear than the whole characterization of the attackers as “good kids.” Of course the parents believe they raised good kids; I’d almost expect that. But the comment about the “truth” almost implies that once we all know the whole story, we won’t blame them for what they did, or that the whole incident will be somehow justified.
I ran across this kind of crap so many times when I was teaching, I could write a book. Ferexample: Bunch of kids start harassing an Amish girl (moderately mentally handicapped, NO idea how to defend herself) in the gym at lunch…they coerce her to dance (a definite no no for the Amish), say swear words, etc. The principal issues suspensions of one sort or another for every one of the kids involved (12-15 kids, IIRC), even the bystanders who didn’t bother to inform a teacher. Well. You would not BELIEVE the shitstorm that followed, as these parents started demanding resignations. They got 'em, too–the fallout over the next year or so included resignations or firings of: the principal, the assistant principal, ME, my teacher’s aide; and a whole slew of other teachers ended up on the blacklist of school board members. It was a fucking mess. Unbelievable that these parents felt that their little darlings were justified in harassing this poor kid. The sense of entitlement among this group was absolutely frightening.
That being said, I worked very, very closely with a kid who was a violent, brutal rapist. And you know…I loved that kid. I knew what he was capable of, I despised what he had done, I was sometimes sickened to be in his presence–but at the end of the day, I felt for him because I knew the circumstances that brought him to the place he was in, and I really did believe that he had had any inherent goodness simply beat out of him by his parents. So while I wouldn’t have characterized him as a “good kid,” I was one of the few adults in his corner when other people started calling him trash. It was depressing.
Geez. Did I ever tell you all why I left teaching???
Having been a clerk or two in my day, let me rise to his defense. There might not have been a bullet-proof box he could stood safely in, or he might not have had a place where he could duck out of sight and made the necessary call to the police (not all Stop-N-Rob’s have panic buttons). So the clerk could have stood there, worrying about his own uninsured ass getting the shit kicked out of it if one of these fuckwits happened to look over and see him on the phone. Or he could have simply panicked and froze while watching the horror unfold outside his window.
(My advice for any clerks out there who might be reading this and one day find themselves in a similar situation is to be as subtle as you can in lifting the receiver off the hook, dial 911, slam the phone down after a second or two and then keep slamming the phone down when 911 calls back, this makes you a priority call and every cop in the area will be scrambled to your location. Keep doing this until the cops arrive.)
Me too. If you want torture and rape to form part of your judical system why not come right out and say it, lobby your politicians and get it put in the law books.
Then expect to be asked to justify it.
Until then, quit it. I’m tired of seeing this particular line appearing in SDMB and it never fails to sicken. It isn’t amusing and displays a very worrying faith in the applied value of criminal acts.
Skeezix, excellent point about “not being caught.”
When I was in high school, one of the girls in the class ahead of me got pregnant. She chose to not terminate (which is, of course, the only reason we knew) and then she and her boyfriend gave the baby up for adoption.
She was a nice person and a student leader and didn’t let it get her down. The next year, she ran for student body president and won.
If you can believe it, some parents called the student government advisor to complain that a “girl like that” should be “allowed” such a position.
Right. Because she’s a bad girl, right? No other teenager in the entire school is having sex, right? What a crock. The only reason she was “bad” is that she got pregnant AND she decided to not have it taken care of secretly. That’s a pretty gutsy decision, but she’s bad because she got “caught.”
I graduated 15 years ago but I still feel rage over this.
Seriously? Why would this work? Is it some kind of universal 7-11 distress signal? Would it work from my home phone, too, or does it presuppose that the dispatcher has caller ID and would know that it’s coming from 7-11? I didn’t know that dispatchers would call back incomplete calls anyway. Why wouldn’t they just chalk this behavior up to idiocy, or indecisiveness, or immaturity, or pranksterism, and ignore it?
A 911 hang up call is an automatic priority for all police departments, the theory being that whomever’s calling is being prevented from talking to the police by whatever inspired the call. According to the cops who told me about this, if you stay on the line, the 911 operator is going to try and pump you for all the information he/she can get and then dispatch the police,fire department, or ambulance as needed. By law, all 911 services have caller ID which shows not only the callers name and number, but also the address from where the call’s being made, no matter if the number’s listed or not. (I used to work with some folks who’d worked for a 911 service.) Even the newer model cell phones will transmit your GPS coordinates to the 911 folks.
The folks who handle 911 calls take them very seriously, and if you prank call them, they’ll have your ass in jail on felony charges before you can hang up the phone.
Don’t do the 911 hang up if someone’s having a heart attack, there’s a fire, or you’re not in immediate danger, as it can cause problems with you getting the help you need in a timely manner, but if you’re watching someone get their ass beat, and are afraid you’ll be next if they see you on the phone, then a 911 hang up is the way to go.
i think that each of one those little bastards should be sentenced to having seven shades of shite kicked out of them by a group of mentally disabled kids. not only would it be a form of poetic justice, it would make great television.
This comment may seem a little metaphysical, however, yes there is personal responsibility and parental but there is also community and societal responsibility. The modern/urban way is to isolate the family from the community and thereby the violence of young people like this becomes someone elses responsibility, certainly not yours.
But we live within a community and a wider society and if it is violent, then this is our problem. Our taxes go towards dealing with our community’s problems.
I don’t have the answers and I too would feel that some stranger’s evil intentions and deeds have nothing to do with me but without the educated, ‘saner’, understanding adults taking responsibility, violence and other problems (eg teenage pregnancies, disease etc) escalates.
