# 16 year old dies in "Underground Fight Club"



## Cryozombie

> A 16-year old boy collapsed and died after boxing in what authorities called an underground "fight club." *Jefferson Pitner* died Sunday after fighting at least three rounds in a Palm Desert park, where he had gathered with eleven other boys, authorities said. Pitner, who lived in Indio, died of head injuries at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, said *Sgt. Earl Quinata*, spokesman for the *Riverside County Sheriff's Department*.
> 
> *FATAL FIGHT BEING CALLED A HOMICIDE*


 
http://www.ringtalk.com/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=876

This is why I believe fighting is NOT A SPORT...


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## Brian R. VanCise

That is horrible!  I feel for the child and his family.:asian:


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## SFC JeffJ

If it was voluntary, I'd say manslaughter instead of homicide, but still a tragedy. 

Maybe incidents like this will smarten some of these kids up.

I really feel sorry for the boys family.

Jeff


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## Carol

JeffJ said:


> If it was voluntary, I'd say manslaughter instead of homicide, but still a tragedy.
> 
> Maybe incidents like this will smarten some of these kids up.
> 
> I really feel sorry for the boys family.
> 
> Jeff


 

A homicide means a person was killed by another person.  A homicide can be a murder case or it could be a manslaughter case.  

Very very sad.


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## MA-Caver

JeffJ said:


> If it was voluntary, I'd say manslaughter instead of homicide, but still a tragedy.
> 
> Maybe incidents like this will smarten some of these kids up.
> 
> Jeff


Maybe, but most likely maybe not. Don't mean to be cynical but ... <shrugs> kids are kids... right? 

Prayers to the family from over this corner of the world.


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## SFC JeffJ

You are absolutely correct.  I was reading murder instead of homicide for some reason.

Jeff


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## tshadowchaser

a tragic loss  
a true horor story


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## exile

tshadowchaser said:


> a tragic loss
> a true horor story



That boy was someone's baby... it just doesn't bear thinking about. Can't bear all this news about all these children dying.


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## MBuzzy

This is a real tragedy - but the greatest tragedy is that I believe very little will be learned from this.  I only hope that some change is brought about in children, parents, or communities....

Too many people are needlessly dying lately.


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## Jade Tigress

Technopunk said:


> http://www.ringtalk.com/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=876
> 
> This is why I believe fighting is NOT A SPORT...



Exactly. I'm am so sorry for this boy's family.


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## Arizona Angel

That is very sad.  How in the world do we get...don't try this at home...into a teens head?


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## rutherford

This is a terrible tragedy. However, I'm surprised at all the negative opinions voiced in this thread. Anybody care to go into a bit more depth?

I've gloved up with friends outside of a training hall and inside many, many times. Haven't you??

Here's a couple more articles:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fightclub3oct03,0,286373.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061006/NEWS0801/610060387/1006

Jefferson Pitner, :asian:.


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## kenpo0324

I feel so sorry for this boy's family!


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## Andrew Green

Gloving up and beating on each other was an occasional part of my childhood.

And as much of a tragedy as it is, this is by far not the first time someone has been accidentally killed in what IMO amounts to a pick up game.  Had he been accidentally hit in the head with a baseball while pitching a game with his friends, or tackled and took a bad fall while playing rugby or football, or been hit by a car while bike riding would the reactions to what he was doing have been so negative?

Boxing is a sport, and it is not the only contact one, nor is it the only one with risks involved in it.

It doesn't say what they where doing exactly, it could have been something stupid, it also could have been quite safe under normal circumstances.  All activitey carries risk.

Joinging a club would definatly have been a safer and better option, but is there any male here that can honestly say that they NEVER engaged in contact sports outside of "official" teams?  Cause I fail that test pretty bad...


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## born_fighting

I feel sorry for the family. But if your going to fight expect the worst, training accsedents happen every day, from broken necks to broken arms, sadly sometimes when your exhasted the fun dies off and severe injurys occre.. but Realy Hommoside? he volentered to fight, was he stomped on the ground? who's more responsible the fighter or reff, was there a ref? some one for shure is responsibel and should be penalized but not murder, mabie neglect casuing death.... thats my feelings on that. and again it is a tragic wast of life. But we all make choices and know there posibility's and 16 is 5 years smart enugh to have known and understood the risk's involved.


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## Andrew Green

Homicide is nuts, and again my response would be "Had this occured in any other contact sport would it even be a issue? Had it not been a punch but a baseball would homicide be getting considered by anyone?"

Accidents happen, it sucks, but it happens in every activity.


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## zDom

"Underground fight club" seems to indicate a lack of qualified supervision or expertise among the participants.


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## MJS

Andrew Green said:


> Homicide is nuts, and again my response would be "Had this occured in any other contact sport would it even be a issue? Had it not been a punch but a baseball would homicide be getting considered by anyone?"
> 
> Accidents happen, it sucks, but it happens in every activity.


 
Sure, there are risks in every sport.  The difference here though, is that these underground events, are not legal.  The contestants and ref most likely are not anywhere near qualified as the fighters and refs in the UFC, Pride, etc.  A baseball to the head most likely is going to be an accident, whereas a punch in these events is going to be intentional and with bad intent.

Mike


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## bcbernam777

Technopunk said:


> http://www.ringtalk.com/index.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=876This is why I believe fighting i*s NOT A SPORT*...



Amen to that...Just a pity others cannot see a difference


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## Andrew Green

zDom said:


> "Underground fight club" seems to indicate a lack of qualified supervision or expertise among the participants.



Given the way the media likes to sensationalize things and use their trigger words like "underground" and "fight club" it's hard to say.


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## Carol

Andrew Green said:


> Homicide is nuts, and again my response would be "Had this occured in any other contact sport would it even be a issue? Had it not been a punch but a baseball would homicide be getting considered by anyone?"
> 
> Accidents happen, it sucks, but it happens in every activity.


 
It's not nuts, at least, not they described it in the article...which says they are _investigating_ the death as a homicide.  It also says that there was no evidence so far that it _was_ a homicide.

Think about it from the family's point of view.  A 16 year old, bright student, doesn't have a history of trouble, is killed because he's been because he's been hit in the head a bunch of times.

The cops can either shrug their shoulders and say yep, dead kid with a smashed up head, oh well, and tell the parents to get his body.

Or, they can investigate to see if anything went wrong, to make sure his death was only an accident.

A homicide investigation that shows the death was an accident also clears the names of all of the teenagers invovled.  

I think the cops did the right thing.


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## Don Roley

Carol Kaur said:


> A homicide means a person was killed by another person.  A homicide can be a murder case or it could be a manslaughter case.



And then there is the case of _justifiable_ homicide such as when you use leathal force to defend someone's life.

And in this case, the difference between a sport accident and this is that someone was actually trying to hurt someone else. Even in a purely sport accident they would investigatge this.

Think of it from the police side of things. They probably have no real idea if this was a case of the kid agreeing to be part of this, or if the other guys took him out and beat him to death and made up the story of the fight club to cover it up. Until they are sure that this kid went into this of his own free will, they have to investigate this from all other angles as well.


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## matt.m

It really sucks.  Now the kids parents are going to go through life asking "How come."


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## bydand

matt.m said:


> It really sucks.  Now the kids parents are going to go through life asking "How come."



Another side to this is that all the other kids are going to be going through life asking the same thing.  Except the ones who actually fought him that day are going to be asking "was it me, who killed my friend?" as well.  Kids horsing around, it is a fact of life unfortunally, this is a tragic event for everyone involved.  We all did stupid things with our friends I think (I know so in my case.)  I agree that this points out the simple fact that boxing/MA/wrestling, *none* of them are playing around.  I know for a fact this could have happened to me and my friends at this age, we got lucky, these kids didn't.  My heart goes out to everybody involved.


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## searcher

Are we going to further digress into the "ways of old?"   Secret fight clubs seem to me like we are taking several steps back as a society.   The real question is what are WE going to do about it?


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## rutherford

searcher said:


> Are we going to further digress into the "ways of old?" Secret fight clubs seem to me like we are taking several steps back as a society. The real question is what are WE going to do about it?


 
Ignore the headline.  It's garbage.


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## searcher

rutherford said:


> Ignore the headline. It's garbage.


 

Tell that to the kid's parents.


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## Andrew Green

the headline says "Underground fight club" but the rest of the article sounds like they where just doing some boxing sparring.  Big difference between the two IMO.


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## MJS

Andrew Green said:


> the headline says "Underground fight club" but the rest of the article sounds like they where just doing some boxing sparring. Big difference between the two IMO.


 
Well, we can call it whatever title, but the fact remains that there is a very good chance that these injuries happened due to people being careless, not knowing what they were doing, no proper supervision, and the list can go on and on.

If someone is interested in cage fights, I think they'd be better off getting some legit, proper training under someone who can direct them to legal events.


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## modarnis

Carol Kaur said:


> It's not nuts, at least, not they described it in the article...which says they are _investigating_ the death as a homicide. It also says that there was no evidence so far that it _was_ a homicide.
> 
> Think about it from the family's point of view. A 16 year old, bright student, doesn't have a history of trouble, is killed because he's been because he's been hit in the head a bunch of times.
> 
> The cops can either shrug their shoulders and say yep, dead kid with a smashed up head, oh well, and tell the parents to get his body.
> 
> Or, they can investigate to see if anything went wrong, to make sure his death was only an accident.
> 
> A homicide investigation that shows the death was an accident also clears the names of all of the teenagers invovled.
> 
> I think the cops did the right thing.


 
And that's what the police are paid to do... investigate stuff.  Cops investigate the untimely deaths of elderly people in their homes, kids hit with baseballs, car accident victims etc.  They try to analyze the circumstances and put the death into some category and close their case


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## Jimi

It is very sad about the death, I agree. Another sad aspect is that possibly some other kid invovled (And under investigation) is thinking, I am such a bad ***, rather than, Oh my god, I took a life. Most teens that play fightclub and find things on the internet like felony fights to copy, are careless about anyone elses health or life until they are about to get locked up. I am not sure if the kids invovled have this (What I call MTV2) attitude, but if they were off in the desert invovled in an UNDERGROUND FIGHT CLUB, they were trying to be little billy badasses. Pardon my blunt attitude, but children playing fightclub is on par with kids doing what they see on JACKASS, and it upsets me. It is not far removed from when teens sneak off to smoke a joint on Jefferson Rock (Wherever) and one falls to his death, while this situation of kids sneaking into the night to play fightclub and one takes a lethal beating, in both instances, they snuck off to do something wrong unsupervised. I bet some of them invovled joked about "The 1st rule of fightclub is don't talk about fight club." I am not trying to take away from the weight of this tragedy, I am just expressing my opinion about some of the dumb things our teenagers do, I used to be one of them. I am very sorry for the families and their loss and I hope they heal. The sad thing is many kids will not learn from this, either from a distance or those close to the tragedy. Too many kids will here of this and not think of how terrible it is, but they will speak of it as though it were some divine right of teen passage and some will feel they must sneak off and survive it to be cool. We may very well see more of this kind of tragedy in the future. Again, just my sour opinion, so please do not be too offended if my opinion is not as empathic as yours is. I have tried to staighten out some teen friends of the family and former martial arts students, and sometimes we can not stop them from hurting themselves. I am a little sour about such teen foolheartyness. End rant.
May that child rest in peace and may his family grieve and heal in peace.


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