I’m normally against throwing the book at adolescents, legally speaking, when they break the law. In this case, it’s tempting to make an exception.
Just before 1:30 a.m., this past Sunday morning, officers from LAPD’s Central division, the group that patrols Skid Row, saw a homeless man on the sidewalk enveloped in smoke. Three teenagers were standing over him. As the officers rolled up to find out what was going on, they noticed something odd: Rather than helping the man, who was developmentally disabled, two of of the three boys were videotaping him using their cell phones. Worse, his blanket was on fire.
When the officers put out the fire and hauled the three boys down to the station, they found that all three—two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old—had cell phones featuring videos of their act of throwing a smoke bomb at the homeless guy, the blanket fire, and whatever distress resulted.
Plus there were other videos stored in the phones, showing other assaults on other homeless men—all bearing July dates, all of individuals sleeping on Skid Row or in Hollywood. Some of the attacks involved smoke bombs. In other cases, the teenagers shot people with “airsoft” pistols—B-B-like air-guns that shoot plastic pellets. Once they threw a bicycle at a homeless man.
On Monday, police arrested a fourth kid, a seventeen year old, whom they said had also participated. According to the AP, the kids told investigators that they’d been influenced by Bumfights, a vile, independent 2002 video series that still sells at a rapid clip over the Internet, in which homeless were paid to fight each other on film. (Bumfights is credited as inspiring other incidents of violence by teenagers against the homeless, including the 2004 murder of a homeless man in Milwaukee by three teenage boys.)
In February of this year, CNN reported that Bumfight-inspired teenage age “sport” beatings and killings of the homeless were on the rise. The perpetrators are usually middle-class kids.
It seems that the LA teenagers had hoped to post videos of their assaults on the Internet too, just like Bumfights.
“I’m normally against throwing the book at adolescents, legally speaking, when they break the law. In this case, it’s tempting to make an exception.”
Tempted hell, I’m BEGGING for an exception. This is not just assault, this is assault with intent to cause bodily harm (and ultimately death?) Wonder what their parents would say were the KIDS the victims?
Celeste, would this article have been written if they were beating up rich kids from the suburbs, instead?
I have no idea, Woody. It would depend on the circumstances, and the story. I think you’re fishing for something that ain’t there. Certainly, I personally happen to be attracted to stories that give voice to the generally voiceless. And in this case, the trend for middle class kids beating up the homeless suggests a profound dehumanization of those whom they’re attacking and filming. And the fact that there’re still folks out there making money from media promoting this kind of behavior (although the website for Bumfights says disingenuously otherwise) is disturbing.
Celeste, I accept that. You have a good heart.
Woody, my brother in law was walking down the sidewalk in San Antonio in a fairly well to do neighborhood many years ago. Two kids, walking in the opposite direction stopped him to ask the time. As he looked up from his watch to tell them, he was hit in the face with a rock and clubbed behind the head resulting in fairly serious, but not life threatening injuries. The kids then were absolutely then very upper middle class. Now, they have 2 year prison convicition for Assault with intent as both were 17 at the time.
G.M., a black man told a story of him walking in Washington, D.C. one evening and he heard footsteps coming towards him and was worried about being mugged. He said that he was relieved to look up and see that the person was white. The person who said that was Jesse Jackson. I’ll take my chances with rich spoiled kids in the suburbs before poor angry ones in the inner city.
We had a kid severely attacked at the gates of Six Flags Over Georgia the other day. The people who almost killed him were part of a gang. When animals do things like that, I’m all for building new prisons to accomodate them.
And I thought the little snots who wrecked my vacation by yelling and splashing in the pool were unbearable. Anyway, I agree with you Celeste. In this case better to throw a brick than the book. Makes me reconsider the death pentalty.
Lord of The Flies?
this is about class
class
class
class.
everything is.
Another vile crime by kids… throw a book AND a brick at these two. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/13708685/detail.html?rss=dgo&psp=news
Very creepy. (And a very, very sad little cat.) GM, one of my students at UC Irvine last quarter did her big story on animal cruelty. It was very well researched, and told us in detail all the stuff about how animal cruelty by kids is a predictor of violent behavior later in life. (As it happens, her story’s main running character was a very sweet German Shepherd that’d been set ablaze but survived, and was being rehabilitated.)
It was quite sobering.
Speaking of animal cruelty…Miohael Vick.
Yeah, no kidding, Woody. If this fool is convicted, I hope they throw, not only the book, but the whole library at him. Six years is evidently the maximum penalty, but when you read what went on with this dog fighting group, six years doesn’t seem like nearly enough. This is sick, sick stuff.
One more to add to the list. From the NY Times: After a Brutal Attack, Many Hope for Change but Few Expect It by Abby Goodnough, 7/19/07.