Photo supplied by family attorney Bobby R. Taylor
An 11-year-old boy suffered kidney failure after being beaten on the back and buttocks with a tree branch, a police affidavit says.
Posted on 07/09/2002 7:10:44 AM PDT by Illbay
By ARMANDO VILLAFRANCA
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN -- An 11-year-old boy who read the wrong Bible verse at church was severely beaten with a tree branch by a Baptist pastor and the pastor's brother, the boy's family said.
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Photo supplied by family attorney Bobby R. Taylor
An 11-year-old boy suffered kidney failure after being beaten on the back and buttocks with a tree branch, a police affidavit says.
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The boy suffered kidney failure as a result of the beating and spent the Fourth of July weekend in the intensive care unit of Brackenridge Hospital sedated with morphine, according to a police affidavit.
Austin police issued arrest warrants Monday for Joshua W. Thompson, 22, of Austin, and his twin brother, Caleb D. Thompson. They are wanted on charges of first-degree felony injury to a child.
Joshua Thompson is pastor of the Spanish-language congregation at the Capital City Baptist Church. Caleb Thompson is an assistant to the pastors. They are accused of using an inch-thick tree branch to discipline the boy.
"(The boy) was accused of not taking this very seriously," said Bobby Taylor, an attorney for the family.
According to Taylor and family members, the beating occurred Wednesday while the boy and other children practiced for a Bible competition.
"He was trying to find the verse and he was on the wrong verse, and they thought he was goofing around," the boy's mother said.
She said church assistants summoned Joshua Thompson, who took the boy to Caleb Thompson's house.
Taylor said the boy was placed facedown on a bed and beaten with the tree branch on his back and buttocks. When the boy tried to break free, Caleb Thompson held him down so the beating could continue, Taylor said.
Taylor said the beating lasted 90 minutes, during which the boy was allowed to use the bathroom one time. The boy told his family the Thompsons turned up a radio to drown out his screams.
The family said the Thompsons brought the boy home and suggested he wear long sleeves for a while. The family said one of the brothers told the boy's stepfather, "It's your turn now" and that they suggested he "finish the job."
According to the police affidavit filed in support of the arrest warrants, the stepfather told investigators the Thompsons said they tried to break the child and make him repent from wrongdoing.
"Their idea of discipline was to take him out of school and beat him until he was black and blue," said the boy's uncle, Felipe Garcia.
A photograph provided by Taylor showed deep purple bruises and scabs on the boy's back and buttocks. The police affidavit noted the boy also was bruised on his arms, legs and head.
Attempts to reach the Thompsons on Monday were unsuccessful. Jerald Finney, a lawyer for Joshua Thompson, told the Austin American-Statesman that "facts have been distorted."
"These are two very responsible young men," Finney said. "Anybody can make allegations. That's what the criminal justice system is for -- to sort out truth from fiction."
The boy's mother said she and her family had attended the independent Baptist church for four years and that the sermons never endorsed severe discipline.
"It was a surprise to me; it was shocking," she said. "I never heard nothing like this. I never heard the pastor preach like this. I have no idea why they beat him so badly."
The family intends to file a civil lawsuit against the church.
Holy Mary Mother of God. Somebody forgot his lithium that day.
Question for ya-- playing devil's advocate here, Illbay-- were there any other witnesses besides the boy? Any corroboration to his story? Cops should check into this as a routine measure, make sure he didn't have the sh!t beaten out of him by the local crips and bloods or something...
Maybe I am a little thick today, but I don't see where you get your 4.7 number from the growth rates.
But it's impossible to make that consistent with the claimed Christian growth rate since 1970. You're the actuary -- work it out for yourself.
The Christian growth rate data is for Evangelicals only (I mentioned the unfortunate title choice in a prior post). Note the 7.5% figure for 2001, which lines up with the numbers shown in the "Important Religious Groups" chart.
Frankly, the statistics are likely constructed of whole cloth.
There is always that chance so a second source would come in handy. I was able to find a second source at http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm. I think you would agree that these folks have a slightly different agenda than the original source I posted above. Here is what they have to say:
Within Christianity, not all denominations have the same growth rate. Some annual growth rates are:
Pentecostals: 8.1%
Evangelicals: 5.4%;
All Protestants: 3.3%
Roman Catholics and Others: 1.3%
Note that the original source combined Pentecostals and Evangelicals and here there are shown separately. While I don't have the counts to use as weights, the 7.5% shown in the original source is reasonably consistent with some blend of 5.4% and 8.1% shown above. While the other categories don't match exactly, they are reasonably consistent.
Having said all that, my intention in posting the data in the first place was to illustrate that the evangelical population is NOT decreasing. The data I have referenced supports that. If anyone can find data showing a decrease in the evangelical population, I would be happy to review it.
Given the information we have any reasonable person would believe the pastor and his brother did it. For you to imply that we should jump to the conclusion (as you did) that the step father did it is absurd. If you have information other than what is in the article, perhaps you would care to share it?
Yeah, I would think that the boy's family would want to find the thugs who beat their son. A pity that the rest of the congregation apparently won't help the police track them down though.
You must have proof for such an accusatory statement. I must have missed the part in the article that they are in hiding to be "tracked down"--can you point it out for me, please?
If they found the priest with a bloody stick and soiled sheets on a bed and they all matched the boys DNA/blood sample,I wouldn't even be on this thread.
read #63 to see where I am coming from.
Didn't you read ANY of the replies to your first post on this thread? The two are not analogous situations.
Its the smallest possible ratio of Catholics to Protestants given the claimed growth rates for Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, and "All Christians." You have to assume that the number of Evangelicals is 0, because any other non-negative number makes the ratio even larger.
If "Christian growth rate" refers to Evangelicals only, then the same table claims that there were 899 million of them last year. That would be about 1 out of every 2 Christians. I don't believe it, and in any event, its inconsistent with the statistics in the other table. "Christian growth rate" really does mean Christians of any stripe.
Thanks for the link to the religious tolerance site! There are some problems with their statistics, too (e.g., the % of Christians can't be dropping given the numbers cited, and there are over 50 million Shintoists in Japan), but I bookmarked it anyway.
Sorry if I sounded flip earlier, but I sometimes get put out when I see claims made on the basis of statistics that don't pass a cursory sanity check. I agree with you on the growth of Evangelicals.
Jesus said to let the false ("tares") grow together with the good wheat until the harvest at the end of the world. At that time, He says, the angels will gather the wheat into the Lord's barns, but will bind the tares into bundles to be burned.
No matter how many tares you can see, there is plenty of good wheat there too, to be sure.
BTW I am an actuary too, though have not practiced as such for many years...
This "pastor" at age 23 probably is rather self-proclaimed. It was never stated that he held valid ordination from any organized denomination of Christians. This boy will recover from his physical injuries, and I hope goes on to maturity in Christ. As to his assailants, we could only hope that they repent and turn to the Lord too. He is able to forgive and cleanse them of sin if they will turn to Him.
Estimates for 2000 have only 289 million Protestants, but some 1.3 million Catholics and Orthodox. Of course, the latter are far more generous and liberal in who they will include, namely almost everyone baptized in them at birth is counted for life, while most Protestant groups count only adults, and delete those who disappear or apostasize, or join other religions...
Whatever the original meaning might have been, it has morphed into a belief that authoritarian leaders and strict regimentation are the way to God.
No snakes, and no weird outfits or anything. But they held to a lot of Old Testament stuff, like the Sabbath being on Saturday (and anyone who said differently was d*mned), no eating pork, minister had to approve of marriages, no makeup for women, no musical instruments except for tambourines (iow nothing that the Bible didn't expressly mention), men and women sit separately during worship, "shunning" practiced against people who don't conform--this happened to my S-in-L since she married outside the "faith" even though my bro. is a Christian, etc.
No snakes, and no weird outfits or anything. But they held to a lot of Old Testament stuff, like the Sabbath being on Saturday (and anyone who said differently was d*mned), no eating pork, minister had to approve of marriages, no makeup for women, no musical instruments except for tambourines (iow nothing that the Bible didn't expressly mention), men and women sit separately during worship, "shunning" practiced against people who don't conform--this happened to my S-in-L since she married outside the "faith" even though my bro. is a Christian, etc.
Anything's possible, but this ISN'T that complicated a case, since the boy is alive and able to talk. And I don't know but must suppose that the police investigation might have turned up any evidence he was lying.
Tawana Brawley didn't stand up too long under police scrutiny, for example.
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