A certain amount of poetic justice

[Josh]

Link

SPANAWAY, Wash. -- A 12-year-old boy who was firing bottle rockets at cars was chased into traffic Friday by an angry driver and killed by another car, authorities said.

The driver and his passenger, both 22, were arrested for investigation of manslaughter, the Washington State Patrol said.

The death came soon after midnight in this small town south of Tacoma, where the preteen and a 12-year-old cousin had been hiding in bushes while shooting the bottle rockets, trooper Johnny R. Alexander said.

A car stopped, and passenger Tyrone Sherrod got out, chased the cousin and started beating him, Alexander said. The driver, Mario N. Haley, chased the other boy, who ran onto the highway and was struck by a car driven by a 17-year-old girl.

Both men fled, but police found them at homes. Investigators determined the girl was not at fault.

Witnesses unsuccessfully tried to revive the boy struck by the car. His cousin was treated for injuries and released to his parents.

I take no pleasure in the death of children, but this sort of behavior has been increasing for the past several years. While I was driving, I've had people try to blind me with sudden bright lights, which I consider to be nothing less than a form of attempted murder. What's missing from this story is the fact that the other punk doesn't seem to be facing any sort of consequences.

[Robert Walper]

I take no pleasure in the death of children, but this sort of behavior has been increasing for the past several years. While I was driving, I've had people try to blind me with sudden bright lights, which I consider to be nothing less than a form of attempted murder. What's missing from this story is the fact that the other punk doesn't seem to be facing any sort of consequences.

*nods* While I certainly don't support the idea of kids dying for their misdeeds, the idea of one or two of the bastards getting a good beating for their stupidity and trouble making doesn't bother me much. Some of them really deserve it.

[Lord Stormbringer]

*nods* While I certainly don't support the idea of kids dying for their misdeeds,

I truly care less and less. These kids are old enough they should know better and they easily could have caused the death of some one else. In my mind that really does make it hard to do anything but shrug and simply not give a crap.

My only question is were the heck were these ankle-biting idiots parents were in all of this? First of all, how did they miss their kids having bottle rockets and secondly how they missed that they were out at midnight shooting them at cars?

[B4UTRUST]

My only question is were the heck were these ankle-biting idiots parents were in all of this? First of all, how did they miss their kids having bottle rockets and secondly how they missed that they were out at midnight shooting them at cars?

Well, not trying to pull out cards here or anything but in my experiance, secondhand from my mother who's a public school teacher...

Mommy doesn't care, is out doing drugs, peddling drugs, peddling her ass, or working 80+ hours a week in a dead-end thankless job where she gets bitched at, stepped on, tampled and passed over for everything and in turn she gets home, has no tolerance for her children and generally is to tired to give a rat's ass about the little noseminer. If the kid's lucky. She might be passed out upstairs coming off of a high of cheap booze and nose candy.

And Daddy... Well we don't talk about Daddy much because Daddy left Mommy and is in jail right now because his whor-errr mistres-errr girlfriend was underage and shouldn't have been playing with him. He also killed her last boyfriend and stole a car. He's in jail and will be for awhile. No positive male rolemodel there either.

The parent(s) in turn then leave supervision and 'raising' to the public education system which is underfunded and illequiped to deal with this as a whole. The children, having a shitty homelife bring it to school and disrupt the educational process, driving everyone else down and thus the entire class learns nothing. So when summer vacation rolls around and mommy's still working 80+ a week and daddy's taking it up the ass from Rashem the child is left to his own devices. Mommy gets home, staggers in, grabs the bottle and goes to bed leaving Twiddle Dumb and Twiddle Dumbass to their own devices once more. Hey look, Johnny down the street got his parents to buy the firecrackers, lets steal some of his, or buy some of his, or get some stupid adult to buy them for us because we're poor and can't have a good 4th of July! Thank you kind sir!

Midnight rolls around. Hey, you know what would be cool? Lets see if we can get a car to explode like in GTA! We've got all these bottle rockets, lets try it!

[Comrade Tortoise]

the horrible part is... what he just said is probably at LEAST 80% true. :?

[B4UTRUST]

I could tell you stories so errily similar to that, that are completely true it's shocking. My mother teaches kindergarten in a small little town. The school isn't racialy unequal. By that I mean there is no major minority or majority of any one race in particular, a pretty decent mix of all the races that attend that school.

She teaches kindergarten. Last year she had 2 kids suspended for sexual harassment. This is in kindergarten. 4 of them had what amounted to parole officers. Call them resource officers or whatever since they're not 16 or 18 but they had cops who checked in on them. A few of them were autistic and had no business being in the environment in which they were placed, but were regardless because the school system is underfunded and can't afford many seperate learning environments for autistic children. She highly suspected at least 1 student, if not more, of doing drugs.

Now you ask how she could have known that? Well I lived with her for a few years. I admitantly did a few drugs. She admitantly did a few drugs during college and her younger years. Mostly marijauana along with my father. Now...taking that into consideration you would figure that she would be able to at least pick up certain signs and symptoms of being high or stoned. Now back to the list.

Nearly a quarter of her students had parents in jail or awaiting trial. Charges ranged from rape to murder to drug dealing to grand theft auto and armed robbery. Of those who didn't have parents in jail, nearly another quarter came from single parent homes and about half of those had no contact with at least one parent and in some cases had no clue who the other parent was.

Sitting in on some of the phone calls and meetings between herself and some of the parents, it was obvious that the parents didn't care about their child save to defend the little mistake's honor and integrity. The little bastard is a mistake and a nusciance and a drain on their money save when the teacher accuses the child of being a disruption in class and a little terror. Then the child is a perfect fucking angel that could be considered the lamb of God or the next candidate for popedom. And the school system doesn't help matters. Because of parents complaining and being so outspoken the school system is actually afraid to punish and discipline students. If a student is sent to the office, the teacher gets in more trouble then the student it seems.

Though vindication was had last year when one substitute teacher beat the shit out of a kid who hit him. Most kids seem to think that you can hit a teacher and you'll get suspended if that and nothing major will ever happen. That guy didn't like it, choked the kid into near unconciousness and then threw him across a desk resulting in the kid breaking his arm. The student wasn't punished of course, though he should have been. But substitute was fired and nearly jailed. The mother tried to press charges but it was turned down when it was defended as self-defense.

Oh the stories that could be told about our education system. It's enough to make you weep for the future of this country.

[Cynical Cat]

My only question is were the heck were these ankle-biting idiots parents were in all of this? First of all, how did they miss their kids having bottle rockets and secondly how they missed that they were out at midnight shooting them at cars?

Are you serious Stormbringer? Kids hide things from their parents all the time. As for being out that late, the parents shouldn't allow that but we don't know if they snuck out or if one of the scary situations laid out by B4UTRUST applies.

[Lord Stormbringer]

Are you serious Stormbringer? Kids hide things from their parents all the time.

And in most states and municialities you can't buy fireworks under 18. Which again, begs the question of how they got them.

[Cynical Cat]

The Fourth of July wasn't that long ago.

[Lord Stormbringer]

The Fourth of July wasn't that long ago.

Which changes the fact that children shouldn't be able to buy fireworks how? They either got some one to buy them for them or their parents bought them.

[Cynical Cat]

Or they got them from friends or whatever. I could have gotten fireworks around July or October without leaving the schoolyard in elementary school. Really Stormbringer, there are all sorts fo ways for them to have gotten their hands on them and stashed them. Kids do it all the time with drugs. Could the parents have been totally irresponsible? Sure, but we don't know how they got their hands on the fireworks or the circumstances that involved them being out that late.

[Lord Stormbringer]

Sure, but we don't know how they got their hands on the fireworks or the circumstances that involved them being out that late.

No but again, if twelve year olds are out at midnight shooting off fireworks, there are definitely issues with parental responsibility there. I grant that it's possible for kids to get things behind their parents backs and to sneak out. But I find the two in combination don't exactly sound promising.

[Cynical Cat]

That's true, but I happen to have known people who did that kind of thing at that age with a fairly decent set of parents so I am loath to jump to conclusions.

[Lord Stormbringer]

That's true, but I happen to have known people who did that kind of thing at that age with a fairly decent set of parents so I am loath to jump to conclusions.

I'm not saying they're bad people; that's other people. I am saying that if their kids are out at midnight shooting fireworks at cars there is a problem.

[Cynical Cat]

No question of that. Something is fucked up.