And, might I add, your idea of what makes a witty comeback is pathetic too.
:wally
Thanks, lieu! I now have to explain to the boss how it came to pass I laughed myself sick and wet my pants.
Just a hunch based on the supposition that a spot outside an apartment window was not selected by Mr. Russo as an ideal venue to whip his skippy based on convenience or privacy. It would seem that the view from this particular window was in some way an inspiration, it provided him with an opportunity he just couldn’t let slip through his fingers. Now speaking as someone who’s no fan of the thought police I have to presume that if the sight of a sleeping five year old could move this man to a bout of self fladulation then perhaps the idea of having sex with her excites him. I suspect that entertaining a sexual desire for children and acting on to even a limited extent, does make him more likely to act on that desire to a disastrous extent. I cheerfully admit I could be wrong but sometimes I would rather suffer consequences of being safe than being sorry.
jlzania, I must say that you and the boyfriend you mentioned are better people than myself. While I in no way condone the extent that Mr. Russo was beaten in this case I don’t see myself being as civilized in the situation you described. I hope the system worked in your situation, you have my respect.
Are you going to actually back up anything or just make infantile insults? 
Because she wanted to be ironic?
What I meant is that you aren’t the slave of your “gut feelings”. You can ponder an issue rationnally and it can change your “gut feelings”. Currently, either you think that, rationnally, your “feelings” are justified, and then you should be able to provide a rational explanation for your position, or you think that they’re rationnally not justified, in which case, you should work on supressing these unhealthy gut feelings. But you apparently don’t feel you can (or don’t want to) justify these “gut feelings”, and you nevertheless don’t seem to be uncomfortable with them, either. So I can only assume that you’re pretty satisfied with them though being unable to justify them.
To give an extreme example, I could say “I’m racist, get over it. It’s just a gut feeling and I don’t think I need to justify why I feel other races are inferiors”. I could even add “I wouldn’t seat on the jury for a lynching, because I would be biased in favor of the white lynchers”. And insist that since it’s just a gut feeling there’s no need to elaborate more, and no need to rethink (or just think) my position. Do you understand better what I mean with this example?
You can have all kind of “gut instincts”. But they don’t amount to a “get out of jail free” card, and don’t prevent you from being called upon your statements. If I say “I’ve a gut feeling that sex with 7 y.o. is fine, not harmful and a non-issue” , will you let it fly saying “oh! If it’s a gut feeling, that’s OK and not open to debate”, or would you rather switch to attack mode or at least state that it’s wrong, harmful, abusive, etc…?
You shouldn’t bother. Godwin’s law is really an irrelevant in-joke.
And in my opinion, using extreme examples is often a good way to get your point across.
clairobscur, maybe I should say it’s a gut hatred for pedophiles. I’m obviously not getting across the point I was making. How about some role-playing.
Let’s say you were being tried for the crime of masturbating outside a young girl’s window. Would you want me on the jury panel knowing now what I think of guys that get off to little kids? I should hope not.
It would be really easy for me to *try * to get into one of these juries. After all, I know enough about what lawyers look for to answer the right questions to be picked. However it would be dishonest as I’d be trying to get on the panel to try to find a reason to convict. Thereby denying a fair trial. I just can’t do that. Again, I just don’t see how honesty has become something to be ashamed of. And you’re really reading into this more than there is. It isn’t supposed to intend any inflammatory inference. (Fuck, now I’m sound like a lawyer) :smack:
/Gut reaction on
The poor widdle pervert got the daylights beat out of him and the same thing done to him that he probably wanted to do to that little girl, and probably HAS done to other children?
Cry me a river.
/Gut reaction off
/Rational Abbie
Ok, the tree branch was way over the top. But I’m not feeling too sorry over the beating. If the guy dies, yes they should go to prison but the death penalty? No. This was not a premeditated murder. This was people perceiving a threat to someone else and reacting. Had that guy not been there jacking off, this never would have happened. He came to them, they didn’t go looking for him. Are they going to go around doing this to other people in the future? Probably not.
If they hadn’t done the damn tree branch thing they’d probably have a good case for “dammit we didn’t mean to kill him.” Shoving stuff up people’s butts, though, is pretty serious and dangerous. Dumbasses should have known when to quit.
When you’re a parent and you think someone is going to hurt your kid, you will do ANYTHING to protect them. Yes the beating was still illegal, but it’s hard for me to fault somebody in a position like this one. When that parental instinct kicks in it’s like you’re not even “there.” You must destroy the threat. Ask questions later.
I don’t think vigilante justice is right, but I totally understand the reasoning behind it after working in a courthouse and watching innocent victims get completely shafted by the system. Our system is good, but not perfect, and every day the police and courts fail those they are supposed to protect. They try. But sometimes it seems that there will be no justice unless someone outside the system delivers it.
And sheesh. I have a 4 year old. If I caught some pedophile at her window, you’re damn straight I’m going to beat the hell out of him if I get to him. (Fortunately this won’t be the case considering her bedroom isn’t ground level.)Call the cops? Yeah right. They’ll get here in about 45 minutes after the jerk is long gone, off to some other kid’s window. If this Russo character dies, that’s one less asshole that can never hurt a kid again. This man is 44 years old. He has probably been doing this for YEARS; I doubt he just woke up recently and decided he liked kids.
And really. Would prison REALLY be a punishment for these people? They beat the hell out of a child molester. They’ll be considered heroes!
They shouldn’t be considered heroes. They are violent vigilantes.
IANAL, but based on the time lag, the conversations among the group, the fact that the guy was basically helpless, if he died I could see a charge of murder.
Oh I can see a murder charge too. Second degree, sure.
But 1st degree? No. And AFAIK, they’d have to get a conviction for that to get the DP.
And that’s what they did. The reacted to the situation and beat the crap out of the guy.
They then left the scene, ploted ways to get rid of the body if he died, came back an hour later (after asking questions) and beat him some more and shoved a branch up his butt. Sorry, but if you sit around for an hour plotting what to do to someone, and then go do it, and they die, that’s premeditated murder.
Heros indeed.
Was this before or after they they left Russo in a pool of blood?
I got your point. I’m not telling you that you should seat in the jury. My issue isn’t with this jury thing. It is with the fact that your hatred of pedophiles makes you biased in favor of people who commited an abject and heinous crime to the point of suspecting you could want to acquit them.
You wouldn’t seat in the jury? Great. That’s commendable. But still, I’m worried by the fact that personnally, you could think that this bunch of savages, who are way worst that their victim, would not deserve a severe punishment for their barbarous actions.
In other words, it seems that your “gut hatred” for pedophile makes you forget any sense of justice, unaffected by a really awful crime, and forget the dangers of mob rule and vigilantism.
You give yourself too much credit, dear.
Perhaps, o great legal mind, you could enlighten us as to the criteria for premeditation and first-degree murder in the state of Ohio. Perhaps you can also tell us whether or not the following scenario might fit the bill.
So, the woman sees the guy, goes inside and tells her friends what he doing, they all go outside, beat the guy to a bloody pulp, leave him there unconscious, and come back over an hour later to see if he’s still alive. Furthermore, they dismantle a video camera in an attempt to avoid detection (too stupid, apparently, to realize that this won’t affect the video tape itself). Doesn’t sound like simply “perceiving a threat to someone else and reacting,” does it?
And perhaps you should, too. Your implication that only the tree branch thing was “serious and dangerous” is too stupid for words. One of the cops on the scene said
I’d call the repeated kicks and punches to the guys head, by a mob of raving lunatics, pretty “serious and dangerous.”
They had plenty of time and numbers to stop any threat that this guy might have posed. Do you really think coming out an hour later and just looking at the guy lying there in his own blood was part of the natural parental reaction?
Blah, blah, blah, the systems not perfect, so the violent morons of the world have to take up the slack. Good argument, dropkick.
You really are an idiot, aren’t you? The very fact that there were six of them means that, even if the cops had taken 45 minutes (extremely unlikely if it had been called in as a potential child abduction or molestation), they could have held him there until the cops arrived. And i don’t think anyone would have begrudged them a couple of whacks to keep the guy quiet and compliant. You claim you don’t think vigilante justice is right, but i can’t see a single place where you do anything except justify it.
Again? What evidence do you have that he has hurt anyone? Sure, what he was doing was wrong and deserves to be punished, but your juvenile fantasies about what he might or might not have done before are completely irrelevant.
But at least they’ll be kept away from society, which is a good thing considering their behavior. If you don’t think jail is any good for them, maybe you can invite the heroes to come live with you.
If anyone’s interested, pictures of these pillars of society, as well as the police report, can be found at The Smoking Gun.
Maybe you all can help me out with something.
The video showed Russo walk up to the window, but* did not * show Russo in the act of masturbation?
The article says " the room where the daughter was sleeping" as opposed to "the daughter’s bedroom’? Why? Could it be that the daughter was sleeping in her mother’s bed?
Which leads me to my next stupid question:
If, as has been suggested in this thread, Russo could only see a head of hair under a mound of covers from the dark of the street, might he be thinking he was looking in a momma rather than the child?
As far as I can tell, the only evidence we have that Russo was masturbating is the word of a man facing a long time in a jail cell. Do I have that right, at least?
You assume that he probably beat the living daylights out of children so badly that they were unconscious in a pool of their own blood and unable to move for more than an hour and shoved inanimate objects up their asses, and that he wanted to do the same thing to this girl?
Even knowing that that’s just a gut reaction, that one’s pretty nonsensical.
What next, assuming people that go on panty raids want to use nailguns on the heads of young coeds until they look like bloody porcupines and so go ahead and do the same to them first? Oh, hey, that guy shoplifted from the store, so he obviously wants to be an armed robber who pistol whips bank tellers until blood comes out of their eyeballs, so cry me a river if someone did that to him first.
Is it just that some people go freaking insane over certain specific hot button issues and cease functioning on any level like remotely rational beings, or are they just closet sadists just looking for any excuse to justify horrible pain and torture inflicted on someone?
It’s not really clear from the story what the exact circumstances are, is it?
It’s possible that the video did, in fact, show him masturbating, but that the way the story was written failed to convey this.
Again, certainly not impossible. Doesn’t make Russo’s actions right, of course, but it would change the scenario slightly.
It seems to me that, if the police are saying that Russo was, in fact, masturbating, then they probably have evidence beyond the testimony of the neaderthal who administered the beating. Still, as i said, it’s perfectly possible that you’re right. Although this story says:
Suggests that the details might not yet be completely clear.
BTW, the link also had a video, with some small, blurry shots from the security camera video.
Man, I can’t see anything from that.