Teens arrested on gun charges ruin mom's Christmas

[Lefty48197]

Yet anonther "tough guy" with a gun. "I've got a gun! I'm strong and invincible! Do you want to mess with a tough guy like me?"

http://www.freep.com/news/locway/gun9e_20041209.htm

The mothers of both the teen who committed the gun assault, and of the other teen who tried to hide the gun from the police, had similar reactions. Not reactions to the crimes their kids have committed, but rather to the amount of the bond.

Teens charged in gun incident; moms bemoan bond

"The mothers of two Detroit teens charged Wednesday with threatening people with a gun after a high school basketball game had similar reactions to what they considered high bonds set by a Family Court referee."

"It's too close to Christmas to try to come up with $1,000," said the mother of one of the 16-year-olds charged.

"Well, there goes our Christmas," said the mother of the other teen, who has to come up with $500 to bond her son out of the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility.

Telling the female staff at the detention facility to suck their ____s probably isn't going to help the boys much either.

Here's my solution to the high bond problem: Leave the punks in the juvenile detention facility. Let them do something stupid in there and get themselves sent to the big house when they're 18. Problem partially solved. What do we do about the mothers though?

[acmavm]

1. There isn't a damn thing you can do with these women. If they can't

figure out that those 'kids' put themselves in this position, that maybe they need to learn the hard way that if they prey on people bad consequences will surely follow, that might be the best Christmas present that they could all get.

[Goldmund]

2. Suck their what???

[Massacure]

3. Thumbs. They are home sick like a big baby after all.

:eyes:

[alwynsw]

4. What wonderful moms!

The things I've seen and heard coming from parents from the sidelines during my wife's teaching career have taught me that these moms are not a small minority.

On most occasions that a parent or parents were called to the school for a conference because of issues with their kids, the first thing they put on the table was either a complaint about the inconvenience of having to be at school or an automatic defense such as "My son/daughter would never do that." Those comments were usually followed by a verbal slam about the teachers and staff failing to do their jobs. The parents who were willing to identify/accept the challenge and work with the teachers and staff were nearly a minority. We hear from current teachers that the situation hasn't changed since Mrs. alwynsw retired in 2002.

When will these people ever learn that it almost always about personal responsibility?

As far as Christmas is concerned: let the little angels stew in jail and enjoy the holidays as best you can with the rest of the family that didn't commit a felony this year.

[Lefty48197]

5. On the fifty day of Christmas, my jailer brought to me...

Four brand new roomies,
Stale bread and water,
Shoes without laces,
No cigarettes,
and an oooooooorange jumpsuuuuuuuuuuuuit

[alwynsw]

8. lol

[NorthernSpy]

9. puhleeze

When will these people ever learn that it almost always about personal responsibility?

LOL! How about your personal responsibility to get a bleedin clue before forming and sharing an opinion?

Honestly, now. Am I really the only person here who's noticed that the article includes just one brief quote from each of these women? We simply do not have enough information to conclude that squeezing bail money out of their Christmas budgets is their sole, solitary concern in all this, and that they couldn't care less about incident itself.

Speaking of which, why a person might leap to such an outlandish assumption in the first place, I'm sure I can't guess.

[alwynsw]

14. Granted. It's a small stretch.

I do admit that my opinion is colored by past experience with parents. Mrs. alwynsw dealt with it firsthand and I got the fallout.

I'd wager that my call is pretty close to the mark.

[NorthernSpy]

15. "...said Torquemada to the fellow on the rack...

It's a great big stretch, actually. If these women were truly apathetic about all this, then why do they seem to feel obligated to post bail for their sons?

Thing is, the women are individuals. Claimed familiarity with the class to which they are presumed to belong does not make up for a lack of specific information about the individuals in the story.

I'd wager that my call is pretty close to the mark.

And I'll wager that the fate of the universe lies in the fickle hands of time-traveling goblin named Snork. It's a safe bet. I can't lose. In the absence of information, you can't prove me wrong.

[-..__...]

6. There are priorities you know?

:( :eyes:

I posted this in GD a few days ago, but I guess it would also be appropriate in response to your post as well.

Note: that this incident took place in England, so I guess the problem with youth violence (and more to the point... how it is handled), isn't just an American phenomenon.



"PENCIL sharpeners have been banned from a primary school after a pupil dismantled one and used the blade to slash another child's neck.

The victim was attacked in the playground at Waterloo Primary School in Ashton under Lyne.

He was taken to Tameside Hospital where he had butterfly stitches placed on the wound.

The attacker was suspended for two days and is now back in school.

Police, who were notified two days later, have spoken to the young attacker and his parents.

Headteacher David Willis has now banned all pencil sharpeners.

But the decision to allow the boy to return to school has angered parents. Some have signed a petition calling on the school to permanently expel the youngster.

One parent, who did not wish to be named, said: "Are our children safe when we send them through those gates every morning? The lad purposely took the blade out of the sharpener. In my eyes that is a pre-meditated attack".

More...

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ContentResources/107.$plit/C_17_Articles_139654_BodyWeb_Detail_0_Image.jpg

(edited to fix link)

[MrSandman]

12. When pencil sharpeners are outlawed....

On edit::eyes:

[NorthernSpy]

7. did anyone actually try READING the article?

If you did, then just how in HELL did you come to the conclusion that these women's remarks about having little money to spare at Christmas were their only reaction to the situation?

The article quotes each of the women only briefly, and only once. Anything else they may have said or wanted to say has been omitted. Aside from the fact that they clearly aren't blessed with a ton of ready cash, we know essentially nothing about these women. But you -- and others here -- seem not to have noticed that yet.


Y'know, I really do suspect that you misread the article. Please note: it wasn't the women who are alleged to have made obscene comments to the jail staff, but rather the boys who were arrested for the incident with the gun. I'll bet pounds to pennies that you didn't get that the first time.


:eyes:

[iverglas]

10. and talk about yer personal responsibility

These women -- and their other children -- were NOT personally responsible for pulling a firearm at a sports event.

They are the ones, however, who are going to suffer the immediate consequences of that act, by having their families' Christmases ruined.

Frankly, I might say yes: let the kids sit behind bars. They're the ones who got themselves there.

What I'd really say, though, is that requiring deposits of money in order for someone to be released from custody pending trial is nothing but oppression of the poor.

The issues in deciding whether someone should be released are, properly, whether s/he is a danger to the public and whether s/he is unlikely to appear for trial.

A cash deposit might make it more likely that some people will appear for trial who otherwise might not bother, but my guess is that it has this effect in relatively few cases.

Anybody who thinks that the loss of his mother's $500 is going to make the difference between appearing and not appearing, in the case of these kids, isn't thinking too hard. The money requirement is punitive, plain and simple, and the people being punished are not even the people charged with the crime.

Bail money is not commonly a requirement of release pending trial in Canada, for both these reasons. It is not an effective guarantee of appearance in the case of people otherwise likely not to appear, and it is punitive and discriminatory when required of people without ready cash.

[NorthernSpy]

13. I regret losing my temper, but sheesh!

Those women aren't the ones charged with a crime, and their few reported words aren't the least bit offensive, but they seem to have gotten the inevitable piranha swarm of knee-jerk scolds anyway.

The only defensible assumption about these two women is that their lives probably suck, at least at the moment. Knowing the little bit that we do know, there's just no reason for heaping scorn upon their heads. Yet somehow, they seem to have become the villains of some kind of moral-valyooz horror story, with everyone circling around to stick his own fork into the roast with tales of his experiences with "these people" and their non-appreciation for "personal responsibility" and so-blahblah-on. The discourse that followed hadn't a thing to do with what the article actually said, but never mind. These things are automatic: the nagscript likely started to execute right at the word "Detroit".



You make a good point about bail. Me, I'm also indignant at fines that create financial hardship for working class people while utterly failing to deter the more affluent scofflaw. At the school I attended, there were trust-fund students who would park anywhere they pleased, letting the tickets pile up, simply because the fines were (to them) neglible and were a small price to pay for convenience and the freedom to ignore the law.

[Lefty48197]

17. ?

I believe I wrote that the obscene reference wasn't going to do the boys any good either. I sure as heck didn't mean that I thought the mothers made the "suck my dick" comments, and I'm not sure why you think I misinterpreted that.

[NorthernSpy]

18. I was being charitable

I believe I wrote that the obscene reference wasn't going to do the boys any good either. I sure as heck didn't mean that I thought the mothers made the "suck my dick" comments, and I'm not sure why you think I misinterpreted that.

I went with that possibility because it was nicest explanation for the attitude that you took toward the two women in the story.

I was being charitable. That won't happen again, "Lefty".

[-..__...]

11. A bit of irony to the story.

Clearly, these kids either just don't get it, don't care or just plain refuse to listen.

"Michigan School Dedicates Football Game to Gun Violence Victims
10/20/2004

Press Release
Neighborhood Service Organization
Detroit, MI
www.nso-mi.org

Denby Technical and Preparatory High School vs. Kettering High School

Detroit, MI - A dedication ceremony remembering students who lost their lives to gun violence this year takes place during Denby High School's homecoming pep rally as part of a national campaign to reduce gun violence amongst youth. WNBA Champion Detroit Shock forward Barb Ferris is speaking as part of the dedication program.

Coaches Against Gun Violence, a public education campaign of Alliance for Justice in partnership with Neighborhood Service Organization's (NSO) Youth Initiatives Project, a youth violence prevention program, is committed to helping raise public awareness of the gun violence epidemic plaguing our schools and communities".

More...

[TyObe]

16. Only $500 & 1000 for a gun crime???

"Wayne County Family Court Referee David Perkins set bonds at 10 percent of $10,000 and $5,000"

What's absurd is that it's so low!