Girl Ordered Held In Custody For Anti-Gay Fliers

[deadparrot]

Source: Northwest Herald

(Northwest Herald) WOODSTOCK, Ill. A judge Tuesday ordered that one of two teens charged with a hate crime for distributing fliers that contained hateful messages toward gays at a Crystal Lake high school remain in custody at a juvenile detention center until her trial.

“I’m very nervous about your daughter being home without supervision,” Judge Michael Chmiel told the girl’s mother.

The 16-year-old girl has had about 12 other run-ins with police over recent years, Chmiel said.

“I know several of those, or quite a few of them were from this summer,” the girl’s mother said in court. “We’ve had rough spots – lots of them.”

Read more: http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_143112241.html

[Ben Masel]

1. Something's very wrong here.

A felony for a leaflet? Or is there more to the story not in the link?

[pschoeb]

2. One of the charges is Obstruction of Justice, which is a felony

also Disorderly conduct can be a misdemeanor or a felony in Illinois, depending on the circumstance, though usually it is a misdemeanor.

Since a particular individual was the victim, and my guess is the flyer's were trying to instigate immediate violence against that individual, it seems that it's possible these charges are warranted.

[northernsoul]

28. I would be interested in seeing the Illinoin Hate Crime statute

The young man depicted certainly has the opportunity to bring defamation and invasion of privacy civil actions, but I'd be interested in seeing how this conduct created criminal hate-crime liability.
How long until this becomes a cause-celebre of the religious right?

[orleans]

3. i found this in a fox link

"The girls were arrested May 11 after handing out fliers in the parking lot of Crystal Lake South High School that depict a male student kissing another boy and contain hateful language about gays.

"Officials say the fliers targeted a male classmate, who is also a neighbor of the girls. The two girls had apparently been feuding with the boy.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,275096,00.html

[19jet54]

5. A very troubling young lady...

... I hope the court & school focuses on "correcting behavior" rather than just punishment - not to mention the source of her bad behavior, learned, provoked or just out of control.

She is far too young to be a throw away child, but she needs to learn there are consequences for such bad behavior?

[William769]

4. Hate is hate.

If people on this website cannot see the similarities of what I just said, then America is truly fucked.

[Ian David]

6. She should be forced to do community service with a gay rights organization. n/t

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Maybe, maybe not

That kind of community service can be very good when the bigotry is based on ignorance. When it is based in deliberatel malice or active hate, however, it will probably cause far more trouble.

[KurtNYC]

27. Seems like the guy depicted is her ex-boyfriend so probably not gay

at all. Hard to tell exactly from the story.

Regardless I'm not a fan of community service for criminals -- why should people in their category of bigotry (eg gays) be forced to be part of her education? Would you want some wacko bigot spending a court-ordered number of hours around people they claim to hate? How is that fair to the people?

[donco6]

8. She was targeting a specific kid.

Trying to incite violence against him. She needs some serious help.

[momster]

9. She's a Bully

Whether she was promulgating a physical attack on the boy or creating a hostile environment, she's a bully. Bullying should be a no-tolerance situation as it does more harm to a greater number of people that (for instance) a private toke or two. For drug abuse, I would recommend compassionate treatment and a continuation of school. For bullying, I say 'toss the little rodent out on her ear.' Instead, they throw a drug user out and let the bullying go on. I hope they teach other children through this girl's example that this kind of bullying (physical, emotional, cyber) will not be tolerated.

[anotherdrew]

13. they need to separate the sisters, send them to different schools. n/t

[jpwhite]

10. totally disgusting

I don't care if this boy is gay or not. To imply that someone is gay in order to get other
kids to want to beat him up is just plain wrong. That girl knew that if she handed out these
fliers that she would destroy that boy's reputation. I hope she spends a lot of time behind
bars.

James - [e-mail]

[David__77]

11. Not enough info.

But my inclination is to say "ship her off to the reeduction camp." Seriously - she needs to be reformed.

[Rage for Order]

12. Held in custody for this?

Unless the fliers were specifically calling for violent action against gays as a group or the individual boy named, this seems excessively harsh. The article didn't state what messages were on the fliers other than "anti-gay", so it could've been anything from "being gay is yucky" to "kill gay people". If it's something like the former, the girls should not be kept in custody, but if it's closer to the latter then it's a different story. I have a problem with the gov't locking people up for words unless those words are extremely egregious, and even then I'd have reservations about it.

[LostinVA]

15. It was directed towards a specific student

[Rage for Order]

16. Well, maybe

I can't tell from reading the article. It says:

"Students told the Northwest Herald that the girls produced the fliers to get revenge on a friend after their relationship soured.

The alleged victim of the hate crime also is the neighbor to one of the girls charged, according to court testimony."

So they did it to get revenge on the guy, but there is no mention of the content of the fliers other than "anti-gay". Did they say "John Smith is gay and should be beaten", or did they say "gay is bad and John Smith is gay", or something in between. The article is very short on specifics, but I would like to know more.


typo edited

[LostinVA]

17. It WAS directed against a particular person

And, the girl was charged with obstruction of justice.

[Rage for Order]

19. The article doesn't say that

It says the girls produced the fliers to get revenge on a student, but it does not say that he was the subject of the fliers. My question is, was the content of the fliers something that would make the neighbor fear for his safety, or was the content something that was merely embarrasing or mean-spirited? It's not right either way, but it would make a huge difference in how the case should be handled. And again, the article doesn't tell us what the fliers said. I'm not in favor of the gov't detaining people for the things they say unless it's an actual threat of violence against a person or people.

[pschoeb]

22. Yes the article does

read my other post.

Also if someone made a flyer in an area that still has a strong feelings against interracial dating, with a particular known black student kissing a white girl, along with "god hates race mixing". I think the intent is clear, they would be trying to spark violence against that particular person, not engaging in political speech. Making it towards a particular person changes the intent of the speech.

[pschoeb]

20. It's right in the article

"The girls were arrested this month after they allegedly were caught distributing the fliers in Crystal Lake South High School’s parking lot. The fliers depicted a male student kissing another boy, along with hateful statements about gays."

So the flyer has a picture of the victim kissing a guy and also makes an anti-gay statement, in another article I read, there is a Myspace page involved, which might possibly show intent to insite violence.

[Rage for Order]

21. Ah, thank you

I was misreading it as "showed males kissing" rather than a male student, which I presume would be the male student mentioned in the article. I'm curious as to what the hateful statements are though.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

25. oops

wrong place...

[closeupready]

14. Is a 16-year-old female a "girl" or a "woman"?

I mean, it depends on the crime, doesn't it?

[pepperbear]

18. why not a variation on this?

http://www.jokestarter.com/?p=648

sentence this girl to wear an "i'm an ignorant homophobe" t shirt for a week?

[customerserviceguy]

23. They'd better be damn careful

about how they prosecute this. The fundies are always looking for 'martyrs' in this situation.

[seriousstan]

24. The flyer showed 2 boys kissing and said "God hates fags".

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_137105252.html

Investigators and school officials would not specify the flier’s contents or whether the students remained in school this week. But classmates said the flier showed a picture of two boys kissing along with the words, “God hates fags.”

[GoddessOfGuinness]

26. I can't help wondering where

these girls learned to hate gays with such vitriol. I think the parents' silence speaks volumes.