If they’re going to harvest his organs, pay particular attention to the asshole and brain, they’re all but impossible to tell apart. :rolleyes:
ONLY 10 years? Jesus, she even told him, repeatedly, not to touch her. They both told him not to fuck around with those things? WHY would you even think of shocking someone as a goddamned prank?
If you ask me, he’s getting off light.
At the last place I worked (I need an acronym for that, I say it so often), horseplay would get you fired. On the spot. Even managers. Assembly line, conveyor belts, power tools, hot glue, paint – you wouldn’t believe the stupid things some people did with and around them.
The guy was told not to mess around with the paddles. Assuming he was properly trained and knew what they could do, he was lucky to get off with a manslaughter charge.
I kinda regret all the times I came across a news story and called the participants and/or actions in it “the dumbest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard of”, because this pretty much is, and may very well be for years to come.
Ten years is way too long in such a situation, says I. I mean, buddy isn’t some dangerous criminal. He’s just some guy who messed with something he shouldn’t have. Frankly, I didn’t know that those paddles were fatal. I always figured they’d just shock you something awful. Buddy probably figured the same thing, especially given his neophyte status.
3 years suspended feels right. That’d keep him from doing it again until he gets a clue.
Palooka, I’m guessing you’re not an EMT. Nor have you been told not to touch the equipment by senior personnel.
Your lack of knowledge is not the same as his. I can consider it excusable ignorance in a layperson. I still think it’s dangerous ignorance, but I wouldn’t be so furious if this were a layperson’s actions. The fact that he was an EMT means he should have more knowledge than that. And should be able to recognize that most medicine can be fatal when used at the wrong time.
Ten years is the max sentence. Typically, one day of good behavior gets you one day taken off your sentence. If this guy gets the max sentence, he’ll be out in five years. More likely the judge will give him five years and he’ll be out in two and a half.
Yes, he’s getting off insanely light. How much will a 2-5 year timeout effect his life in the long run? He’ll get out, get another job, probably have a family, and spend the rest of his life telling everyone how awful he feels. Meanwhile, that poor woman is gone, her kids will be traumatized permanently, and her family destroyed. Not to mention the fact that the world has lost a professional EMT. How many lives do you suppose she would have saved over the course of her career?
Goddammit this pisses me off.
Does that mean it’s okay to kill people, if everyone thinks it was only meant in fun? If that’s true, look for a rash of murders made to look like practical jokes. No thanks. I’m perfectly comfortable making an example of this guy.
No. And Palooka said absolutely nothing that supports that strawman, unless you believe that compassion and empathy for idiots implies approval of their behavior.
The moron should’ve used one of these if he wanted to shock someone. They sting but won’t kill anyone.
Fair enough. I’ve no idea what they cover during EMT training. Worked in a hospital though and followed most of the safety warnings, since that’s just a good idea.
I meant it more that if you’re not a serious threat to people, you probably shouldn’t go to jail for 10 years. I seriously doubt that this guy is going to do such a thing again.
May we assume that this asshole will lose his EMT credentials forever for this? I sure as hell hope so.
No, but who knows what stupid, dangerous shit he’ll get up to next? Personally, I don’t feel safe with morons of this calibre walking the streets. Lock him up and throw away the key.
This is roughly like saying that someone who only wants to kill his mother shouldn’t serve a long sentence for killing her, because he certainly won’t be killing his mom again!
In other words, it’s completely and totally fucked up.
The guy deliberately inflicted a lethal electric shock after being directly told not to touch the equipment. Give him the maximum.
Um, no, it’s not like saying that at all. Not even roughly. The reasons why the idiot in question won’t kill again are different then the reasons behind your average act of matricide.
I don’t want to fight over this, but while I will admit my comments were bluntly sarcastic, this is not a strawman.
Can you say with absolute certainty that moron didn’t *want * to kill this woman? My high school anatomy class covered the fact that a shock from one of those units could kill a healthy person, are we really to believe he never had been told in EMT training? He didn’t shock her on the hand, or on her butt, he distinctly put the paddles on her chest where it would do the most damage. Sure, he probably did it as a joke. Maybe he secretly hated her and wanted something bad to happen to her. Maybe he’s a low level sociopath and thought it would be fun to do something potentially fatal to her. (The excuses offered by his mother and his aunt seem to fit the pattern.) If either of those are the case, he deserves more than ten years.
And if none of this is true, if it really was just a prank, if we let him go with a slap on the wrist, what does that say to the real sociopaths? ‘If it looks like a prank or an accident, you’ll walk.’ Not exactly an incentive to refrain from putting people’s lives in danger is it?
We don’t really know what was going through moron’s mind. All we know is that he willfully and intentionally placed the paddles on her chest and set them off. He snuck up on her so she wouldn’t stop him. He had been told not to do it, but he did it anyway. Replace the phrase “It was only a joke” with “I always hated that woman’s guts” and you have a clear case of premeditated murder and life in prison. Instead he gets at most ten years, probably out in five. He’s getting off light.
Your comments (at least as framed by your first sentence) certainly did seem like a strawman. The hypothetical question posed in the first line of your post (“Does that mean its OK to kill people … ?”) implies that Palooka was saying that the idiot’s actions were OK–that is, that he approved of his actions. It’s obvious that he does NOT approve of the idiots actions (note that he did advocate some judicial punishment for him).
Therefore, the argument you were rebutting–that it’s OK to kill people if everyone thinks it was only meant in fun–is not the argument that Palooka was making, and is in fact a MUCH easier argument to attack.
His argument was that the man should be sentenced more leniently because he didn’t mean to kill her.
Do you disagree with that?
This isn’t comparable to an act of matricide, nor any other crime of anger.
This is a crime of idiocy, and a failure to consider consequences.
It is more in the line of a worker who deliberately jiggers a fail-safe switch so that the maintenance is easier to do, resulting in a fatality. Or the bozo who thinks it’s amusing to stick the air gun up someone’s arse and let go, resulting in a fatality. (Yes, I know Cecil debunked that myth, recently - it’s not meant to be a real-world example, just a similar story that I think matches the idiocy shown here.) Or the teen who grabs a gun, points it at his best friend and pulls the trigger, because he knew it was unloaded, forgetting that there is a bullet in the chamber - resulting in a fatality.
All of these are criminal acts. All of them meet, to my understanding, the requirements of involuntary manslaughter.
I believe that this instance is worse, because I do believe that there is good reason to believe that an EMT should know the hazard that a defib device poses to a healthy person. I believe that voluntary manslaughter is a more serious crime, with a harsher sentence, and would seem more appropriate to this instance. I can also accept that the DA in this case chose a lesser charge, based on things like intent and maturity of the defendant. (Whatever bozo’s age, it’s pretty damned sure he wasn’t very mature.) I’m not happy with the decision, based on what’s reported here, but I won’t argue it’s a miscarriage of justice. That’s one of the jobs of a DA.
But to say that the kid is being punished beyond what his actions merit is just as unreasonable, I think, as to claim his crime is like matricide, or any of the more outre similarities that have been suggested.
:eek:
What I don’t understand is: this guy is trained as an EMT, not trained on the defibrillator, told not to touch the defibrillator, touches the defibrillator anyways and kills someone. How is that involuntary manslaughter?
No kidding.
Yes. I read this after my other post.