School Daze
Good grief!
I agree, Skip, too many unanswered questions, and the answers are probably more than a little significant.
Every such incident as this makes me increasingly certain that schools should be run like boot camps.
Good question Skipper. The man who produced the movie “Kids”, in which kids engage in unprotected sex, drug use, and other dumb shit, was asked the same question—Where are the parents? He raised his finger, winked, and made a clicking noise. If that was his motive it may even justify the pain of watching the flick.
Same thing years ago in Indy—some 14 y/o was shot to death crawling around in a pawn shop’s ceiling space at 3 AM. The paper quoted the grieving (Single? You Bet!) Mother, without asking her WTF she was doing letting her kid wander around at that hour.
Posted by Oink
01/14/2006 at 08:17 AM
Cop did the right thing.
Sad of course, but the kid is responsible for his own death.
Posted by gdonovan
01/14/2006 at 10:02 AM
Of course, this kid will be Tookified by the media and every liberal in the country. Poor misunderstood soul, it’s not his fault. BS. It’s real simple: take a gun to school and risk getting shot and killed by the police. It sounds like the kid made everyone think he had the real thing, and he spent part of his day making sure that others knew he was up to no good. What’s the officer supposed to do? “Stop or I’ll think about shooting!” “Shoot me first so it looks good in the news!” Give me a break.
As for the parent(s), having a 15 year old boy myself who used to be a troublemaker and heading down similar paths, it is difficult, if not impossible to have absolute control over a kid who is intent on his own path. A parent’s responsibility is to teach their kids the right things, but we all know that in spite of that, some kids go wrong anyway. I was forturnate in that I was able to place my kid in a place where people with a lot more resource are able to redirect his focus from hell-bent rebellion. This was a last resort for us. After everything we did with him, with nothing working, this has worked. He is turning out to be the young man we worked hard to produce, but failed in our efforts.
I am not defending this kid’s actions, nor his parents if they have been negligent in the slightest. If they have done everything they could trying to teach this boy right it would not be their fault in the slightest. If, however, he turns out to be abused, neglected, or allowed all his life to do whatever the hell he wanted in spite of consequence, the parents should be held responsible in some degree. At least this kid didn’t kill anyone before being killed himself.
Whew! I don’t mean to be long winded, but this is a subject of some passion with me. Knowing this kid could have been my kid at one point scares the hell out of me. At least I was in a position to be drastic for my son’s sake.
JohnC: Very happy things turned out for you. I could give my kids some slack because of their good behavior —in general, most of the time. Are you a black man? Your avatar is ambiguous. It occurred to me that if we were black, I would have to crack down on them, because of the greater likelyhood that the cops would shoot them if they did something stupid—like run. We had a case, back then, of a cop shooting & killing a fleeing 15 y/o black suspect for robbery.
Posted by Oink
01/14/2006 at 03:00 PM
Oink, white as white can be. I picked that avatar almost randomly. At some point I will attempt to find or make a better one. Glad to hear your kids weren’t problems all the time.
Cooperating with the cops is always a better option than running, fighting, threatening, etc, simply because it usually doesn’t involve death. On either side.
OCM, I have always had a problem with the whole “age” and “adult” thing. I know people who, at 50, aren’t as mature and responsible as my 12 year old daughter. Legally, kids aren’t adults until they are 18 or 21, depending on which state and whether or not they want to purchase smokes or booze. But, theaters, buffets, and amusement parks charge adult prices when they are 10 or 12. The libs want to say they are responisible enough to have sex and abortion at 12, but do not want to try them as an adult if they murder someone when they are 17. If kids are responsible enough for sex at 12, why do we have statutory rape laws? It’s no wonder today’s children are confused as hell.
John: One of my peeeves when the kids were young was “The Dukes of Hazzard”. The show was dumb and innocuous EXCEPT when it showed what a lighthearted romp it was to run from the cops.
Posted by Oink
01/14/2006 at 06:19 PM
According to Fox, the lad is now brain dead and they’re keeping him going to harvest his organs for donation. This looks like the only good that may come of this.
I feel sorry for the family and I feel bad for the officer that had to shoot him. A damn shame all around.
That poor cop. He’s gonna feel like
for the rest of his natural life because of what he did, right or wrong. My heart goes out to him. I’m glad I don’t have his job. 
