Its official: Prosecutors in Salt Lake City are idiots...

[hardheadjarhead]

A fourteen year old baby sitter dares her eight year old charge to touch her breast...the eight year old gets charged for "lewd conduct with a minor."

http://kutv.com/local/local_story_210004013.html

Gee, I wish I was making that up.


Regards,


Steve

 

[arnisador]

Unbelievable. The person taking care of him initiated it--and he was arrested!

Things have officially swung too far.

 

[Shu2jack]

Perhaps the prosecuter thought that if he can't get away with touching the baby sitter, then some slick little kid shouldn't be able to either.

(I know, bad joke, but I felt it had to be made)

 

[arnisador]

Did they do anything to the babysitter? It seems she was also guilty of engaging in lewd conduct with a minor. To my mind, she really did commit a crime, given the vast age difference and her position of responsibility.

It's like the argument that if two very drunk people engage in sexual intercourse, then each has raped the other, because neither was sober enough to consent to sex.

 

[Jaymeister]

Where is the limit??? Why do so many F'ed up cases exist???

 

[arnisador]

In fairness, they reversed themselves early on. But it still seems like a dumb thing to do, and the psychological damage done to an 8 year old who went through being arrested (and now has an arrest record?) is still there.

Was he a flight risk? Couldn't they have sat on this for a day or two to think it over? It was his own mother who called the police!

 

[TonyM.]

Someone please beg this person not to breed again.

 

[andy]

i'm continually amazed at how upside down our world has become

 

[Bob Hubbard]

In a world where you can be deemed a sexual preditor for stealing a kiss, a drug dealer for sharing an antacid, and a violent freak for bringing a plastic safety knife to a school picnic, very little surprises me. We program our kids to be unthinking, unfeeling little robots, then wonder why so many turn out ****ed up.

It is like the argument that seeing a woman topless will screw up a kids mind. It's not the bare breast that does the damage, but the prudish parent who freaks out and drags the kid away, hands over eyes, and mouth slinging profanity.

The crime here is not just that an 8yr old was charged, but that the 14 yr old somehow felt that there was something "naughty" about her chest that made touching it worthy of a dare. The 8 yr old now thinks he did something wrong, the supposed adults have driven that point home, and the 14 yr old thinks touching is naughty, which has also been reinforced.

Too much of our nature is represed, and taught to us as bad. I wonder, if no one made such a big stink out of it all, would we feel half as "dirty"?

 

[Tgace]

Its the parents fault for turning this into a federal case. Do you think the Police and DA's office were monitoring these kids and swept in when the "touch" happened? Some kook parent called the police, who were obligated to make a report. (I doubt the police made an arrest on the scene, possible but doubtful) And the DA decided to pursue it. At some point along the line someone should have told the parents they were being silly turning kids playing "doctor" (although 14 is getting to the age where she should have thought 8 yo was a little young for it) into a "federal case". Charging the 8 yo was without a doubt one of the nuttiest things out of a DA's office I have seen in a long time.

We get the system we demand. Where do you think all these cases originate? Most are "US" demanding action and the government oblidging us.

 

[Tgace]

In a world where you can be deemed a sexual preditor for stealing a kiss, a drug dealer for sharing an antacid, and a violent freak for bringing a plastic safety knife to a school picnic, very little surprises me. We program our kids to be unthinking, unfeeling little robots, then wonder why so many turn out ****ed up.

Most of those examples are from school administrators and they're "zero tolerance" policies are they not? Doubt any of those were the police or "gubernment" watching the kiddies from satellite's and swooping in on black helicopters. We citizens have to start demanding "common sense" out of each other and our schools and much of this stuff will be prevented.

 

[andy]

TGACE
good point

 

[Tgace]

Another WAG (wild *** guess) is that some young ADA decided to take the case and then the DA himself looked at it and said "this is stupid" and dropped it. Many times the actions of the Assistant DA's actions are called "DA office actions" because the DA is responsible for all the cases handled by the assistants, in the real world though......

 

[theletch1]

Most of those examples are from school administrators and they're "zero tolerance" policies are they not? Doubt any of those were the police or "gubernment" watching the kiddies from satellite's and swooping in on black helicopters. We citizens have to start demanding "common sense" out of each other and our schools and much of this stuff will be prevented.

Wow, you used the terms "zero tolerance" and "common sense" in the same post! Did you do that with a straight face? I agree wholeheartedly that common sense is a nearly extinct quality that we desperately need more of. I won't even start on "zero tolerance" policies. We've hashed that out in other threads already.

 

[KenpoEMT]

I wonder had the babysitter been a 14yr old boy, and the babysat had been an 8yr old girl which one would have been arrested?

Maybe this is just a case of, "the male is evil" syndrome.

 

[MA-Caver]

It could be... in Utah the victims usually are believed more than the perps thusly the perps are automatically guilty until proven innocent. Stupid I know but that's how they tend to see it here.
TGace is correct that parents are to blame for making it a federal case... but lets look at it a little deeper here... While it's an typical game "Truth or Dare" the dares don't necessarily (or even at all) have to be of a sexualized nature (touching/fondling, etc). So question is what prompted the 14 year old to initate the game and the extent of the depth of the game and what got the 8 yr. old to go ahead and do it. There's much more than just growing curiosity and wanting to be "naughty".
Any and all sexual acts (hetro or homo) are learned (at whatever age) acts... so question is at that young ... who taught those two?

The whole thing is stupid, shameful and probably goes on all across the country but it's not only the children that should be looked into but who's raising them... and how they're raising them.

 

[andy]

maybe they were just being kids.
And 'we' are to hung up on letting the governmant and the media manipulate our thinking.
kids
r kids

 

[sgtmac_46]

The reason we've gotten "Zero Tolerance" policies in lieu of "Common sense" is because we have bought in to the whole idea of legalism. A decision made on "common sense" is open to litigation, as it is clearly made using the decision making faculties of an individual human beings. Policies, however, are written and defined rules of the institution. An administrator may get himself and the institution in trouble by making descriminating decisions (i.e. using common sense). He is less likely to get himself and the institution in trouble using one size fits all policies. Of course, that also means that they are applying the same solution to vastly different problems, but it keeps the lawyers happy.

The root of all this evil? Lawyers. If this country decides it doesn't like this phenomenon, first thing we do, we shoot all the lawyers*.

(Note: This is just an allusion to Shakespeare's famous line. It is meant only in a metaphorical way. It is in no way meant to inspire anyone toward violence against lawyers. The author in now way takes responsibility for any actions undertaken as a result of this phrase. Any liability is solely that of the person that uses it. Local state laws apply. Please don't sue me if you are a lawyer, or know a lawyer.)

 

[sgtmac_46]

It could be... in Utah the victims usually are believed more than the perps thusly the perps are automatically guilty until proven innocent. Stupid I know but that's how they tend to see it here.
TGace is correct that parents are to blame for making it a federal case... but lets look at it a little deeper here... While it's an typical game "Truth or Dare" the dares don't necessarily (or even at all) have to be of a sexualized nature (touching/fondling, etc). So question is what prompted the 14 year old to initate the game and the extent of the depth of the game and what got the 8 yr. old to go ahead and do it. There's much more than just growing curiosity and wanting to be "naughty".
Any and all sexual acts (hetro or homo) are learned (at whatever age) acts... so question is at that young ... who taught those two?

The whole thing is stupid, shameful and probably goes on all across the country but it's not only the children that should be looked into but who's raising them... and how they're raising them.

Who taught a 14 year old girl about sex? Have you actually seen any 14 year old girls in the last 10 years? Many of these girls are more sophisticated than I was at 18.

 

[Tgace]

Kids do those sort of things..always have and always will. Unless there is more to this story I chalk it up to an overreactive mother.

Reminds me of a call I went to where a mother "wanted something done" because another mothers toddler pushed down her precious little angel in a mall shop (you know how 1-2 yo are, the push/shove thing)....not saying this was the case here, but it smacks of it.