The child was shot at 10:55pm Saturday per numerous news reports, some of which were posted here. He was pronounced dead at the hospital just after midnight on Sunday (just a little over an hour later), also according to news reports.
Now maybe the boy had wonderful watchful parents, but they got temporarily distracted while Dad helped a frail elderly grandmother to her car and Mom helped the hostess clear off the table or something and did not realize the boys had slipped off. Or maybe they were terrible parents who simply didn’t even try to pay attention or care. Whatever.
Any reasonable person knows better than to shoot someone, anyone, in the back as they are running away. This guy wasn’t even on his own property when he shot the kid, but standing in a public street in a residential area (think of the danger to others besides the two boys). Very stupid rash — and dangerous — decision. Also uneccessary, as the children were running away.
Maybe you think that boy deserved the death penalty because he played a childish prank just a little before 11pm on a Saturday night, but thank goodness our law doesn’t see it that way. Even if he had been up to no good, he was running away and was well off the guy’s property and *shot in the back*. Our laws don’t allow you to be judge, jury and executioner for whatever “crime” (knocking on your door a crime) you think that kid (or adult) committed when running away from you.
How would you got feel about this? Two 18-year-old students work at a restaurant or ice cream parlor or whatever to help pay their tuition. The place stops serving at 10pm and then they are required to help mop and clean before leaving. They set off for home at 10:40.
While riding along a residential street a drunk driver veers and knocks one young man off his bike and severely injures him. His roommate jumps off his bike to go to his aid. He sees his friend needs an ambulance immediately, but in the confusion his cellphone has fallen into the ditch in the darkness and his injured friend’s has been knocked who knows where.
It’s a quiet residential street with no cars in sight to flag down, so he runs to the nearest house and frantically knocks on the door — three times. No one answers, so he runs back to check on his friend, thinking that he can yell back to the homeowner(s) to please call 911 for an ambulance if they do get around to answering the door. He never makes it to his badly injured friend because the homeowner has snuck out the side of the house and chased after him and shot him in the back at 10:55pm.
You can certainly argue that the guy who shot the kid may have thought he was a robber. At the same time, it could have been the above scenario (which is a true one, but with a much happier ending because the homeowner was not a nutcase or hothead). Or it could have been a kid playing a kid prank.
The point is, you just never know — and it is a *good thing* it’s against the law to shoot someone in the back who is running away from you.
Think what you want, but I think the guy who shot the boy has a few screws loose and is dangerous and should be locked up for the safety of society.
Yes, the kid deserved a stern lecture and punishment, but he did not deserve the death penalty this hothead shooter exacted.
I agree that these days it’s too dangerous for kids to play the childish pranks of old because you never know whether a person in that home might be a hothead or high on meth or blind drunk or mentally ill or whatever and you might get shot. At the same, we can’t get back to living in a civilized society if we think it’s fine for hotheads to shoot kids in the back and allow them to do so with impunity.
I’m quite shocked, really. I thought you believed in the sanctity of human life. Apparently, some children’s lives are more sacred than others in your mind and heart.
“Now maybe the boy had wonderful watchful parents, but they got temporarily distracted while Dad helped a frail elderly grandmother to her car and Mom helped the hostess clear off the table or something and did not realize the boys had slipped off. Or maybe they were terrible parents who simply didn’t even try to pay attention or care. Whatever.”
There is no “whatever” in this. They are still the parents. They will belly ache about their kid being dead yet they let him run lose. I think it’s terrible he’s dead but if he’s going to have shitty parents then yes “some children’s lives are more sacred than others” because parents who care about their kids don’t let them FAFO. No those are the “mean mommies” who don’t let their kids do anything yet their kids live to see the next sunrise now don’t they?