Are you guys the same people who call the cops because your neighbor’s stereo is too loud? Cops? Lawyers? Courts? Juvie? Holy shit, why don’t you just send the kids to the chair because obviously any middle schooler who beats someone up on the playground is a hardened criminal who is done for. Don’t even bother to throw away the key. Fry 'em!
For fuck’s sake, this pile on is absurd. treis is right. I guess that makes me a former schoolyard bully sticking up for the bad guys, too.
Your definition of tangible consequence for this scuffle is going to juvie?
Ridiculous. Go before a judge… Why don’t they go before the principal like every other kid in the universe who beats someone up at school?
No, clearly these two sadists had planned to beat the kid into submission, flay him live, and then wear his skin as a jacket as a warning to every other kid who might tattle on them.
maybe, but that’s far, far better than being a person who can’t tell the difference between playing a stereo too loud and having two people beat down another person without provocation.
Yes, I’m talking about you.
I hope someone’s around to give you a hand up once you’re done sliding down that slippery slope.
given the reaction of relief by the school administration when the OP said they’d press charges, I think juvie is long overdue for these two shitwipes.
because it OBVIOUSLY DOESN’T DO ANYTHING TO ADDRESS THE BEHAVIOR!
This isn’t a simple fight between 2 kids. It involved multiple bullies and a real injury. That’s a pretty clear line crossed regardless of the venue.
And yes, I’ve called the cops when the neighbor next store deliberately cranked up her stereo and left the house. She did it to piss off the other renter. to hell with her.
You’re the on who made with the lunacy about kids who pick fights but don’t see “tangible consequences,” by which you apparently mean being locked up, go on to assault people in adult life before ultimately being sent off to prison. Maybe I should find all those kids I went to school with who picked fight and become their prison pen pals.
No, it was a simple fight between 3 kids that resulted in some scratches and a stubbed toe.
That’s how it was when we were kids. It’s not that way now. I’m a juvenile defense attorney, and a substantial minority of my cases are school fights. The schools often don’t give the victim’s parents the choice that the OP got–they just call the cops outright.
I can’t speak for Drain Bead, but I can tell you what would happen if the prosecutor determines it’s serious, yet not serious enough for juvenile court. I’m a court advisor to a juvenile diversion board, meaning I sit in on and oversee the cases brought before a neighborhood juvenile diversion board and, along with three or four trained community volunteers per board, assign punishment. The kids *might *qualify for diversion IF it was a first offense, the kids were middle school-aged (up through 8th grade here), no one was seriously injured, and the medical expenses incurred were less than $900. If conditions exceeded those parameters, it would probably go to juvenile court. In juvenile diversion, the kid might be assigned something like: · 20 to 30 hours of community service at a local nonprofit approved of by the diversion monitor; · 10 hours of counseling if we feel the kid needs it after we confer with him and with his parents; · Monetary restitution for the victim’s expenses; · No contact with the victim; and · A letter of apology if the victim has requested it.
If the kid fails on any of these assignments, the case goes back to juvenile court. If he succeeds, there is no criminal record, as he was diverted from prosecution, and he’s accurately described as never having been convicted of a crime. His criminal diversion history is destroyed when he turns 18. Same thing as for teen shoplifting, tagging, and other minor crimes.
In addition to a home suspension, the school could also impose an in-school suspension for a longer period of time, meaning during all free time and during lunch, the student remains confined to the office, cleans cafeteria tables, carries chairs up and down floors, whatever the house administrator comes up with. ISTR a certain member of my household assigned to lunch cafeteria duty for a month for infractions.
No. That isn’t a reason, and you are blaming the victim. Telling someone that they would get in trouble if they get caught is not remotely wrong, and is not something anyone should be addressing. The fact that it would have pissed you off as a kid is your problem, and hopefully one you dealt with.
Oh, and just because you can sort of empathize with the bullies doesn’t mean the kid is a liar. No, it is very possible for someone to be hurt by other people through no fault of their own.
The way people are reacting about pressing charges on these kids, they really are this messed up.
People are lawyering up over playground slap fights? What kind of limp-wristed, delicate-snowflake-having, everybody’s-a-winner, milquetoast, overly-litigious bullshit is this? It is absolute insanity to sic attorneys on people because because two eleven year olds beat up another eleven year old on the schoolyard over some perceived threat of tattling. What is this, Revenge of the Nerds?
Is this the new catchphrase of the SDMB? “Blaming the victim?” I’ve noticed any time someone remarks on an attack with anything other than “The offender is an irredeemable monster!” throngs of shrieking little girls cry out that somebody’s blaming the victim. Where, exactly, did **Citizen **blame the victim for any of this in that post? What I read in his post is it doesn’t seem accurate to paint the bullies here, because they beat up the OP’s kid, as a team of roving thugs who go around beating up other students randomly and for absolutely no reason. The kids were indeed assholes, and I don’t see anyone denying that, but let’s not start with this “blaming the victim” fall-back line because someone pointed out that the two kids didn’t just spot a passer-by and decide to attack.
Little kids hitting other little kids? Of course not. Juvies would be filled to the brim if everyone called in cops and lawyers for every schoolyard dust-up.
Yeah, my milquetoast heart bleeds for the little shits who assault children. Wait, I’m not the person who wants to shrug it off with “boys will be boys”. That would be a coddling attitude if I thought that.
Ha ha! Okay - you got me! Because I find it silly to drag a bunch of children into court because they slapped somebody around (not even in the face), I think we ought to cue up the violins for violent criminals who assault children.
And what do we think would have happened if the student, parents and school had just “let it go”? The two kids didn’t let the incident go after they’d all left the bathroom; they continued it outside later. That’s not just a bit of opportunistic bullying; that’s premeditation. Let them get away with planning an assault and what kind of message are you teaching them?
Is this even a serious question? Are you going to pretend that the only two responses to misbehaving children are to send them to jail or to “let it go”?
…says the person who characterized the incident as “slapping someone around” and a “schoolyard dustup”.
I didn’t say, and don’t think, that they should be sent to jail. But I do think that as described this was more than some minor scrap that would have been over and done with on its own. Official intervention and punishment were fully warranted.
