This isn’t an RO style thread for the Pit, just a bewildered “what in the name of pluperfect hell happened here?” Hence, it’s in MPSIMS. If it gets heated, it can go to the Pit.
A man pulled over by the side of the road, removed a baby from his truck, and proceeded to beat it to death in front of passersby. He single-mindedly resisted all attempts by the passersby to stop him. It took the police shooting him to stop it, but the baby died at the hospital.
What the bloody hell? Does meth or other another drug turn one into an enraged murdering machine, completely insensible of consequences? I am totally at a loss to explain this one.
One of the things I always heard about PCP is that it could turn someone into this sort of raging monster, but it was generally presented in Movie-of-the-Week style histrionics.
My question is, did none of these passers-by have a tire iron or jack handle? A cracked skull would probably have made it harder for the guy to keep beating the kid.
I also think people hope the guy will either take off or change focus to them instead of the kid. Spending time rummaging around in the trunk for a weapon is maybe not as high up on the list as getting in the guy’s face as fast as possible. You don’t go into an encounter figuring that beating him unconscious is the only way to stop the guy.
I’m the classic 98-pound-weakling (well, 175-lbs.) but my foot would have found his nuts right quick like.
That is so fucked up.
And this after seeing one of those WE “Women Behind Bars” stories about a 16-year-old who threw her infact against the wall because it was crying, she felt trapped and her live-in 19-year-old boyfriend came and went in a way that she couldn’t.
Well sure, but after the second or third time you try to tackle the guy and he doesn’t budge, it’s time to escalate. If you don’t have a jack handle, how about a rock from the side of the road? A shoe? A briefcase? Anything.
I don’t care how hopped up he is on PCP or whatever, if he’s focusing on the baby and I can get behind him, I’m slapping a choke hole on him (I like the Lion’s Kill (pic here, although I suspect some of the…er…choicer aspects of this particular picture are waisted on you Otto. :p). 8-10 seconds later he’ll be unconscious. PCP or no, your brain needs air and blood.
I dunno; it seems to me that there are few people in the world who wouldn’t do what it takes to stop someone from beating a baby to death; I think they must have tried as best they could. We can armchair quarterback now, after the fact, but I think it probably happened very fast, and everyone who stopped were in shock and didn’t know what the hell to do.
The man was quoted as saying the baby was possessed by demons.
That sounds to me like the man was completely unaware of the actual world he was in, and reacting as if the world within his mind was the actual reality.
I wonder whose baby it was, and why it was with him, and all that kinda stuff.
I must admit I was expecting something like this when I first read about the case (the article I read didn’t reveal whether or not the child was dead at first, just that the man had been shot after an elderly couple reported him assaulting a child).
It sounds like people tried to do something, but if the guy was already in the process of beating the kid when the first couple reported him, it’s likely that he was alread dead by the time anyone tried to help anyway.
I think it’s a little silly to talk about what bystanders should have done. Considering how bizarre and horrible the situation is, I doubt anyone was really thinking clearly. Tackling him might have injured the baby even further, and unless one of the passers-by was Batman, I wouldn’t really expect them to know what else to do at a moment’s notice.
