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Tough love ends in family tragedy
Los Angeles Times ^ | May 11, 2008 | Scott Glover and Richard Winton

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 ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; crime; prisonviolence
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This is sad. Sean McNamara deserved jail time, but he did not deserve this torture. I doubt this would have happened if he were not white in a jail filled with Hispanics.
1 posted on 05/12/2008 6:09:59 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1

And what happened to the Hispanics? Oh, never mind.


2 posted on 05/12/2008 6:12:44 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: reaganaut1

So the inmates were practicing tough love?


3 posted on 05/12/2008 6:12:47 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: reaganaut1

Put the guard in next.


4 posted on 05/12/2008 6:15:04 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Et si omnes ego non)
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To: reaganaut1
Desereved jail time

No, he deserved a handful of lashes, but no one deserves jail. Bring back the whip and close most jails.

5 posted on 05/12/2008 6:15:25 AM PDT by bvw
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To: reaganaut1

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.


6 posted on 05/12/2008 6:16:45 AM PDT by Tax Government (Government-funded education, for the most part, is content to make morons of us all.)
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To: reaganaut1

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.


7 posted on 05/12/2008 6:17:49 AM PDT by misterrob (Obama-Does America Need Another Jimmy Carter?)
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To: reaganaut1

Just another hate crime.


8 posted on 05/12/2008 6:19:00 AM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Ted Kennedy - Codename -> "Bobber")
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To: reaganaut1

Bet the union backs the union member who left his post.


9 posted on 05/12/2008 6:19:45 AM PDT by Mark was here (The earth is bipolar.)
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To: VeniVidiVici

See post #7


10 posted on 05/12/2008 6:22:31 AM PDT by misterrob (Obama-Does America Need Another Jimmy Carter?)
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To: AppyPappy

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.”


11 posted on 05/12/2008 6:22:55 AM PDT by BibChr ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?" [Jer. 8:9])
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To: misterrob
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.

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.

12 posted on 05/12/2008 6:23:04 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Et si omnes ego non)
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To: bvw
No, he deserved a handful of lashes, but no one deserves jail. Bring back the whip and close most jails.

That makes too much sense.

13 posted on 05/12/2008 6:24:41 AM PDT by freedomfiter2 (It's too bad I've already promised myself to never vote for McCain.)
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To: reaganaut1

The inmates were only celebrating diversity


14 posted on 05/12/2008 6:26:46 AM PDT by right turn at the light
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Comment #15 Removed by Moderator

To: ClearCase_guy
I was thinking the same thing when I read this. Also, how much fun is it to jump off of a third-tier bunk? Isn't there some risk of injuring yourself doing that?

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......

16 posted on 05/12/2008 6:30:14 AM PDT by basil (Support the Second Amendment--buy another gun today!)
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To: ClearCase_guy

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?


17 posted on 05/12/2008 6:30:20 AM PDT by misterrob (Obama-Does America Need Another Jimmy Carter?)
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To: right turn at the light

did you read the full article?


18 posted on 05/12/2008 6:30:56 AM PDT by misterrob (Obama-Does America Need Another Jimmy Carter?)
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To: reaganaut1

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.


19 posted on 05/12/2008 6:31:34 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Nude dancing in North America)
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To: reaganaut1
Sonia Mercado, the McNamaras' attorney, argued in court papers that jailers never should have put the nonviolent low-risk offender in with violent gang members of another race.

Duh!

susie

20 posted on 05/12/2008 6:34:59 AM PDT by brytlea (amnesty--an act of clemency by an authority by which pardon is granted esp. to a group of individual)
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