False accusation leads to tragedy (A question for the forum)

Kansas City Star ^ | 2/15/04 | Timothy Dwyer

[cubreporter]

and proud of it.

[cubreporter]

Amen!

[cubreporter]

Suicide is an absolute action. No matter how actuallized, it is no less, no more, and is un-undoable, incapable of ever being corrected or lessened.


And since you don't know me at all...you can't know how much or how little I know about suicide.

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[tracer]

Not to mention civil damages for the wrongful death caused by these lying little bastards. And the school district, the school board, and, last but not least, the officials therein who are responsible for this outrage should be ruined both financially and professionally.

Other appropriate remedies beyond these must remain outside of the scope of this forum.....

[tracer]

"Mayfield worked closely with Roanoke's office of Refugee and Immigration Services to help students adjust to their new life, director Barbara Smith said."

Now, let's all join hands and sing a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya" to begin yet another nation-wide celebration of "diversity".... </sarcasm

[bvw]

Only from your posts, only those.

What happened? It's tough, very tough when someone close to you opts out that sad way.

[cubreporter]

You don't have to tell me how sad it is. Good night now...have a good week.

[stainlessbanner]

The accusation did not cause him to commit suicide. Libel, slander, false statements to the authorities, yes - manslaughter, no.

Did you know this man?

[templar]

Good old Jerry Gibbons. Even his wife didn't trust him.

Well, I sincerely hope that the same thing happens to you someday.You asked for an example, I had given two that everyone in the US knows about, That wasn't good enough so I gave you one of a perwson I knew once. So you get smart alecky about it. I really do hope it happens to you someday.

Bye.

[steplock]

capital letters instead of italics or bold - just a different method of emphasis - just because you could not figure that one out.....

To put it in easier terms - a BOLD word signifies one that, if spoken, would have had added inflection for emphasis. Maybe you speak in a monotone, but I don't and neither do I write in a mono"tone(?)".

Did you figure out that last one? A bit more advanced than the basic ". , ; ! ?"

If you wanted to pantomine that last, you would see someone do the stupid "double quotes" with the index and middle finger of each hand extended and slightly curved downward and the other fingers tucked loosely out of the way. The fingers would then be wiggled downwards a couple of times conjunctively to signify QUOTE / UNQUOTE.
(The capital letters here make it clearer that the words QUOTE and UNQUOTE were to be seen/read as proper names)

And as far as pulling my own pin ... you could not even imagine what I have been through and I would lay odds that you would have already killed yourself years ago if you had to go through the same.

Am I "cock sure" of myself? Damned right!

End of lesson...

[Blue Collar Christian]

"...truth arising from the induction of season."

Would that be Fall? ;^)

It is a close call, I'll grant you that.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"But, if the kid truly made a false accusation he ought to be held accountable, fully in accordance with the law."

Now, all you have to do is dig up what the State law regarding an exaggerated perception of a physical altercation.

Kid -- "He punched me."

Teacher -- "No, I shoved him."

"For example, you challenged me when I said the kid was a chronic menace, despite the article that clearly substantiated he was."

What's funny is how you mistrust those parts of the articles that do not support your beliefs, and take others to be Gospel. How much of a "menace" is a wheelchair-bound thirteen year-old?

What he is in all likelihood is a disciplinary problem. It quite probably has something to do with anger at being wheelchair bound.

Illegal aliens should be deported, not all immigrants are illegal aliens. Certainly, I've never encountered an illegal alien from India.

Maybe, sometime in the future, Mayfield's family may be thinking about the system's deep pockets, but I doubt that it would be this close to his death.

"Because he has an apparently well-documented history of misbehavior for the 27 months he has been in the Roanoke school system - he would not be permitted to attend my daughters' schools."

If I recall your post, one teacher said that he had disrupted her class the previous year, and the rest of the testimonials came from Mayfield himself.

There you go again.

Believing the parts of the story you want to believe.

[MissAmericanPie]

I'll still go with the manslaughter charge. Some people are very sensitive, to failure, to condemnation, to seeing everything they have worked for implode. Knowing that even if he is cleared, the taint will always follow him. Charge a few liars with time and alot of false accusers will find something else fun to do that won't cost them.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. That is one of the Ten that can land one in the pit. This story is a good example of why you don't bear false witness against your neighbor. It's such a bad thing to do that God thought it important enough to place in the ten commandments, it's so important that it carries a death sentence, so a charge of manslaughter for a teen seems a small price to pay to society for his crime against an innocent man.

[em2vn]

No the capital letters indicate shouting. Do you write letters in the same fashion as you post on FR or is it possible you are just a closet Dem who has an answer for all of life's problem? "If only the world would listen to me everything would be fine."
I have to question anyone who tells me how much they have been through, " pat on the back, sympathy hound, looking for momma's tit," any of a number of names fit.
If everyone at work would just follow your lead any company would be a world leader,right? It's just a fact that no one can measure up to you. Just ask. Have you taken to telling people that an entire unit could be done away with if there were only three people like you to do the work.
Maybe you started your own company because you couldn't take working with (fill in the blank). If that is the case I am sure there were a lot of tears shed when you left. Did they give you a going away cake that said,"Don't let the door hit you in the ass?"

[SarahW]

I'm not convinced that the child WASN'T disciplined as he claimed, based on the fellow's assurance that he was "ruined" before the investigation was over, and based on the child's parent's description of the child and their own reaction to physical restraint of the child.

In other words, they had him "recant" because they approved and didn't want the man punished.

But assume the child really did invent the shoving.
He isn't guilty of manslaughter, by any legal definition of the word. He did not cause the suicide.

(If he had on impulse, in response to the provocation of being shoved, whipped out a gun and shot the teacher who shoved him , he would have been guilty of manslaughter.)

The lying could be a crime. It is certainly a civil tort.
But it isn't the cause of the man's death.

[skip2myloo]

"Believing the parts of the story you want to believe."

Maybe so - but, if I am -- you're doing the same thing.

None of the articles said the kid, or his parents, dropped the charge. The articles said the kid made a false accusation.

There is a difference.

Until I see it reported differently, I choose to believe the kid made a false accusation.

I do not agree with your characterization that the dispute revolves around the resolution of whether it was a shove or a punch.

The kid probably has issues related to his disability, some folks do I guess, but most learn to deal with it without anger or disruptive behavior.

I wouldn't tolerate it, other kids shouldn't be subjected to it, and it provides no excuse for making false accusations, if that is what happened.

You haven't seen any Indian illegal aliens ??

Do they look any differently than a legal Indian immigrant, wear a warning label or something ??

Like some of the terrorists who overstayed legitimate visas, I do know Indians who have done the same thing. But, the Indians I know personally have applications pending for legal status. Just as I suspect, but do not know, that Abdul's family has applied for political asylum.

While I note you agree illegal aliens should be expelled, I remind you I've already stipulated the family's alien status is not relevant to this issue.

As others on this thread have noted, many people make false accusations and the law deals with them accordingly -- I see no reason why this kid should be treated any differently, regardless of his creed, ethnicity or physical condition.

However, obviously you feel differently, and that's OK, I guess.

Without citing any specific cases, it does frustrate me generally that there are folks who rationalize guilt away by attributing an offense of the law, or societal mores, to a misfortune of societal neglect

We've both delved deeply into the aspects of this particular case far beyond the sketchy facts presented, based on our own assumptions and interpretation of what really happened using our individual life experiences as a guide.

Not having the time, nor frankly the interest, to explore every detail of this case to its ultimate resolution, I'll just say -- I don't believe you and I will ever reach an agreement about the greater moral arguments represented to us here by this one example.

The framework for my personal morality doesn't contain very many shades of gray. While I am compassionate, emotion alone does not rule my judgment.

In my eyes, being hungry doesn't give one the right to rob a bank. While the law contains latitude to temper judgment based on unique circumstances, I wouldn't excuse unlawful behavior on grounds of compassion. I'll leave to the Victor Hugos of the world license to emote endlessly about injustice.

Like the fable of seven blind men who each "see" an elephant differently -- apparently we have a different vision of humanity.

[ClintonBeGone]

Teacher's accuser lied, police say
Charges dropped . . . in sex assault case
 

Here is another story where the teacher was falsely accused.  The accuser, and another kid, actually set up a chat name using the teacher name and conducted a sexually graphic chat pretending that one of them was the teacher.

[Ignatz]

From your reply: "The evidence of his guilt comes from the fact that he preferred to kill himself rather than fight the charges."

From the story: "What Mayfield didn't know as he mounted the bridge that morning was that police had cleared him of wrongdoing."

From your reply: "A reasonable person might reasonably conclude that Mr. Mayfield searched his conscience and concluded that he was guilty of the charges or that he was guilty of similar charges with other students and the investigation would inevitably result in the truth coming out and to his undoing."

From the story: "What Mayfield didn't know as he mounted the bridge that morning was that police had cleared him of wrongdoing."

From your reply: "Yes, but I am not going to jump off a bridge over this serious charge, because I know I am no guilty, unlike this Mayfield character. The seriousness of the charge matters not a whit, what matters is the evidence. The fact that Mayfield was not willing to face the evidence against him is itself evidence of his guilt, just as the it would be evidence if he got false identification and fled to Mexico."

From the story: "What Mayfield didn't know as he mounted the bridge that morning was that police had cleared him of wrongdoing."

From your reply: "I hope I have explained this in a simple enough manner for you to understand, but I am not optimistic, given your totally flawed conclusion drawn from my earlier observations."

Based on your keen "earlier observations" noted above, a "reasonable person might reasonably conclude" that you're a pompous ass who couldn't be bothered to read the whole story. But I would disagree; you don't seem pompous to me, and I would prefer to let that last quoted comment from you stand on it's own merits. Perhaps that will help you retain your optimism!