Posted on 05/12/2008 6:09:59 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Thadd McNamara was at the helm of his motor home on a cross-country trip in 2005 when his cellphone rang and a neighbor gave him the news: His grown son, Sean, was in trouble with law -- again.
...
It turned out Sean McNamara was accused of burglarizing his father's home and attempting to make off with a baseball cap bearing the logo "Snap-On Tools."
It was classic Sean, his father would later say. Nothing serious. Just another knuckle-head move from an overgrown kid who drank too much beer, didn't pay his bills and, essentially, refused to grow up. Thadd even had a phrase from his Catholic school Latin that he used to describe Sean -- puer eternus -- or eternal boy.
This time, McNamara decided, he wasn't going to bail out his son.
He pressed charges, banking on a prosecutor's assurance that Sean would be ordered to undergo alcohol counseling as a condition of his probation, if he was convicted.
"You don't want to see your kid in jail," McNamara said in a recent interview. "But I felt that him being put in rehab was going to be good for him."
But Sean never made it to rehab.
He was nearly beaten to death in a Los Angeles County jail after being placed in dorms with about 200 fellow inmates, many of them violent members of the Southsiders gang. McNamara was attacked when the guard who was supposed to be watching them left his post.
The attack, in which inmates allegedly jumped from third-tier bunks onto his head as he lay on the floor, left him with permanent brain damage.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
And what happened to the Hispanics? Oh, never mind.
So the inmates were practicing tough love?
Put the guard in next.
No, he deserved a handful of lashes, but no one deserves jail. Bring back the whip and close most jails.
I’m looking forward to the family’s civil lawsuit against the state, for not taking reasonable actions to avoid putting inmates at risk of injury and death.
The article states that the inmates targeted him due to word getting around (erroneously) that he was a child molester.
..............................................................
“...another white inmate in the area, later testified that several gang members had the mistaken impression that McNamara was in jail on a child molestation charge, an offense that often results in retaliation from fellow inmates.
Cloud testified that when the guard left, the gang members singled out McNamara and got him down on the ground, then took turns jumping off a third-tier bunk and landing on his head. The attack went on for so long that “they got tired and took breaks before resuming,” he said.
One of the inmates has since pleaded no contest to attempted murder and was sentenced to six years in state prison, according to a district attorney’s spokeswoman.
Thadd McNamara didn’t learn of the attack until days after it occurred. It was nearly a year before he saw his son. At first, jailers wouldn’t grant him access while his son was in the hospital, he said. Later, Sean refused to see any family members — a decision his father attributes to his altered mental state after the attack.
When McNamara finally saw Sean at a court hearing in the burglary case, he barely recognized him. Once a strapping six-footer, weighing 200 pounds or more, Sean McNamara was down to 130 pounds, his father said. His hair, once short, dangled to his shoulders and covered his face.
“Here was this little old man who was my son,” McNamara recalled. He began to weep as he knelt next to his son at the defense table.
The burglary case was later dismissed because of the severe injuries Sean had sustained while in jail.
These days, Sean resides in an assisted-living facility. His father said he has no memory of the attack and has the intellect of a “third- or fourth-grader.”
His dad routinely visits, often taking Sean to a nearby In-N-Out for burgers. But he said Sean’s injuries have so severely altered his personality that he’s like a different person.
“You miss him every single day. Even when he’s there, you miss him,” McNamara said. “There’s just this big hole.”
Despite his long career in law enforcement, McNamara said he’s convinced the system failed his son.
“Somebody didn’t do their job, and I damn near lost a son because of it,” he said.
Just another hate crime.
Bet the union backs the union member who left his post.
See post #7
You’ve done it again: said an awful lot, in very few words. Quite a talent.
Well-done.
Of course the intended subtext of the article is: “Parents are entirely responsible for their children’s behavior, AND must do nothing about it.”
I'm being way too picky, but this seems like a faulty telling of the story. I weigh 200 lbs -- if I jump off a third tier bunk and land on your head, I only have to do it once and you are dead. Here we have multiple guys doing it -- doing it until they get tired -- and the victim is severely injured, but not killed.
A surprising outcome.
That makes too much sense.
The inmates were only celebrating diversity
Latino gangs ... residents of the sanctuary city, no doubt. If so, L.A. should be liable for having violated federal immigration law. The city is an accessory to the crime.
Don't ask me why--but this whole thing doesn't quite seem pass the smell test. The "kid" broke into his father's house and stole a cap--and his dad gets him put into jail for that?
Maybe it's all as it's written here--who knows? I just have my doubts......
A third tier jump off would likely result in a badly sprained or broken ankle.
This guy received a viscious prison beat down for sure though. I wonder how they got word he was a kiddie diddler?
did you read the full article?
This is why I counsel people not to let legal consquences be used in helping their teenager grow up. The legal and corrections system is so fraught with dangers and unpredictablilty that it is counterproductive and in sad times like this, lethal.
Duh!
susie
I've been saying this for years.
There are four classes of reprisal for offenses that make sense.
In descending order of severity, they are:
1) Death
2) Permanent physical isolation
3) Immediate physical punishment
4) Restitution
Prisons are an inverted world where good is evil, and evil, good. They train the worst criminals in our world to escalate their behavior, and most offenders come out worse than they went in.
I would close all prisons and replace them with punishment on the scale above.
The guard didn't leave his post. The place was under staffed. There were too many of Mexico's finest in there for them to handle.
"I doubt this would have happened if he were not white in a jail filled with Hispanics."
It could have happened in any jail that's understaffed like this one, or that's staffed with incompetents. They'll do this on the outside too and it doesn't matter what paint job the perp's sporting.
Maybe there is more to the story, but I think the dad went overboard if all that was taken was a baseball cap.
The state actually likes stories like this. Increases the deterent effect of the threat of jail time. Guess they thought the threat of being raped wasn’t harsh enough.
While I agree with you, what other recourse is there for a parent fed up with a “grown up kid” to be set straight ?
As far as I know, the family has no alternatives to getting help for a misbehaving adult other than a legal conviction.
As for this family - they understood the result would be probation and counseling, not jail, and they were misled.
In fact I bet the guards regularly left their posts to let the cons treat the new guys to a little “tough love”.
Eggxactly, Baynative!
Notice how few of our Freeper friends here are using logic and the words “illegal alien”. I wonder why. Hispanic? How about just “illegal aliens from whatever country/countries”?
The Mayor Tony Villar (a former gang member himself) and wussie Po-lice Chief Bratton should both be sued for allowing this to happen on their watch. Things need to start happening in L.A.!
As for this family - they understood the result would be probation and counseling, not jail, and they were misled.
The reason I do not counsel use of legal system and to keep family memebers out of the legal system is contained in your sentence above. I have seen this happen dozens of times.
All liberals and gun grabbers are accessories to criminals.
There is but one thing about the Saudi culture I agree with but sadly, we will not see happen here in “civilized society”—hangings in the squares of America. Crime would go down exponentially if we allowed this. Also, firing squads for capital crimes by convicted service personnel.
The boy was 41 y/o, had a history of screwing up and was explicitly told not to go around the parent's house. He kicked the door in while his parents were away and the neighbor's called the cops. The old man was fed up and the DA promised to force an alcohol treatment program.
Interesting. It’s getting hard to tell which way these stories will break here on FR. Usually it’s a “got what he deserved” reaction. Actually, it’s not hard to tell at all.
I have to agree. Jails are full of very dangerous and very bad people that you would not want your children to be around. Unless your child happened to be one of those very dangerous and very bad people.
I am surprised no plaintiffs lawyers have figured out how to sue some of these sanctuary cities when their loved ones are murdered by illegals who are drunk at the wheel or just committing mayhem because it’s part of their culture.
They weren’t misled at all. The case hadn’t gone to trial yet, and the parents wouldn’t bail him out.
You know...I am concerned about jails too. I don’t understand how so much violence can go on inside a jail? How is it allowed? Shouldn’t each inmate have a cell and when it is time to go somewhere a guard accompanies them? How come so many people get hurt in the jails? I may not understand it all but it seems it should be a simple thing. If you lock someone up you lock someone up. How come so many can gather and hurt others? Something is wrong with the jail system. I would like it if we could find a better way to incarcerate a person other than a jail. It’s antiquated and we need to find a better way for EVERYONE...because what happened to this young man was wrong and someone should be punished for it but...they are ALREADY in jail so now what? Doesn’t make sense to me. There needs to be change and big change at that. I pray for this young man and his father who thought he might just be teaching this boy a lesson. What a heartbreak it must be for him now. As for the ones responsible...they too will meet their maker one day and will have to go to yet ANOTHER jail and this one will be quite warm.
Unless your child happened to be one of those very dangerous and very bad people.
There is a huge difference between a sociopath and a garden variety knucklehead. By the time the sociopath makes it to jail and prison, the family is breathing a sigh of relief because they now know they and society are safe.
The knucklehead would do well in the old-fashioned garden variety jail with a sheriff and a work detail. Now that “corrections” has become a big business, there are few of those havens for knuckleheads to grow up.
In my neck of the woods intellegent judges sentence children of the upper class to have psych evaluations and they are mandated to the local private psychiatric hospital. Although the families are initially upset, they quickly realize how fortunate they are that their child is there.
Well we live in a police state right now and we could never build enough jails. We have more folks in jail, on probation and involved in the legal system then any country in the world. It’s not hard to find an overzealous cop or prosecutor to throw you in jail for even the most minor offenses. Think I’m kidding, get stopped for speeding and give the officer attitude or go into small claims court and just whisper that the judge is a moron and see what happens to you. We have petty criminals mixed up with animals like these evil scumbags. The Federal Criminal code is what 10,000 pages long. Are there really that many things a person could do endanger other fellow Americans or is it primarily laws and regulations that one anal retentive segment of society imposes on the other. Would back in 1870 a person be held in jail with murders and hardened criminals for robbing what is primarily his own home. Dad overreacted here and a tragedy ensued. Until we get sane with our drug laws, reform the legal system and start enforcing the death penalty more strictly the jails will swell and our society will continue to degenerate into gated communities and SS-like police departments .
The state uses rape as tool for control. The AG of California gave this away when he gleefully stated that he wanted to put the CEO of Enron in jail where he would be raped. The fact that the AG not only wasn’t repromanded, but was actually allowed to keep his job proved that the state endorced his statement.
bingo.... He probably mouthed off to the guard or hadn't been in jail before and thought it was like TV. So he might have posed as a hard case or might even have been drunk at the time.... very bad to be incarcerated, limited physical capacity due to drugs or beer and white.
As it was explained to me once a long time ago by somebody as he was pointing to a white dude, " he's the (insert ethnic slur) when he goes to lock up. We're in charge there."
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. --
Deuteronomy 21:18-21
The rules in effect that are outside the laws on the books have been put in place by the process of protecting criminals. No law is challenged by law-abiding people; laws are challenged, tweaked, reworded, and changed by criminals and their attorneys and a judicial system that tends to legislate as opposed to interpret.
No it wasn't his home at all. The boy was 41 y/o and was explicitly told to stay away. He refused to do so and was caught by the cops after having kicked the door in.
Your point is expressed in my post of Deuteronomy 21:18.
When a family tries to chastise and correct their son, to no avail because the kid is a serious mental case / sociopath, it’s best to take him to the “elders” and let them deal with him - if our society would still allow that.
The elders can decide if the kid is a serious threat to society and take him out of it if necessary. It’s a lot more compassionate than letting him harm others.
Well, it’s terrible and while people should be punished for their crimes they should not be put someplace so violent and horrible where others can take lives or maime someone like this young man.
I do not advocate treating criminals with kid gloves. They SHOULD be punished for their crimes and either be executed or spend the rest of their lives away from society. However, I am just thinking there has to be a better way.
Did you even bother to read the full article? If you did then you would know the exact reason why he was targeted.
Well, that should hold true for ALL CHILDREN and not just those who are upper class. If this is done early it might just save some young people. It’s all very sad and horrible.
This is not even human anymore. I wish someone in power could move ahead and make these changes. Some people go to jail do their time and come out with lessons learned. They should not be attacked while serving out their sentences. It’s just not right to me. I don’t care if you are rich, poor, or what nationality someone is. You should be able to serve your time and released when and if the time comes. I think our jail system is just awful and I would hope it could change. Can you imagine someone going into jail for the first time in their life sorry for their crime and doing their time and then something like this happens. I don’t know...it jsut boggles my mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.