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

[sgtmac_46]

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.

I agree, she should have fired the babysitter and been done with it. Problem solved. There's been far more emotional damage done by her response, than by the original incident. Had she fired the babysitter with little more comment to her son than "That kind of behavior is inapproprate", there wouldn't have been a problem.

 

[Tgace]

Absolutely. Id be willing to wager that the 8 yo is an only child as well. Just call it a hunch.

 

[Rich Parsons]

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"?

Where did a 14 year old learn that something Naughty was done by touching her chest. By the same person who is forced to teach sex ed and does not just teach but also puts in their own opinions to the children.

Case in point a good friend of mine, had a daughter that was upset, and crying, the crying would only occur in the mornings after the parents had sex. Small house parents upstairs in Cap style house, children downstairs. The mother asked what was wrong and after a while the daughter told her that Daddy was hurting Mommy becuase they were having sex. The mother asked where she learned that? The daughter replied from her teacher in sex ed, when she said it not only hurt to have sex, but that it was wrong, and should not be done. It was not stated that it should not be engaged in by minors, or until marriage, but not done at all.

I know, I know, single case, single person, single child, yet, I expect there are more out there, who may have taken the teachers words the wrong way also.

 

[arnisador]

I agree, she should have fired the babysitter and been done with it.

Surely a word to the girl's parents was appropriate in this case. This is not usual behavior for a babysitter, or indeed for a 14 year old and an 8 year old spending time together. One is prepubescent, the other is postpubescent.

 

[arnisador]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_re_us/girl_charged

An 11-year-old girl who threw a rock at a boy during a water balloon fight escaped jail time Wednesday on a felony assault with a deadly weapon charge after lawyers worked out a deal in the emotionally charged case.

On the one hand, throwing a rock is indeed a potentially serious assault, and the boy was injured and required stitches. On the other hand, I wonder if the school could've handled this one on its own with a lecture, a call to the parents, and detention; the parents of the boy would be within their rights to sue for damages as well.

Maribel spent five days in juvenile hall and a month under house arrest after throwing a 2-pound rock at 8-year-old Elijah Vang, cutting his forehead after he pelted her with a water balloon in April. The gash required Elijah to receive stitches. Police responded with three cars while a helicopter hovered overhead, and said they arrested Cuevas for resisting arrest and scratching an officer's arm. Police described the rock as "jagged" and measuring 5.5 inches by 3.75 inches.

The girl's father claims she acted in self-defense.


Too many acts by children are being zero-toleranced into major threats to the public's safety. This is the downside of zero-tolerance: No false negatives means more falso positives.

 

[sgtmac_46]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050803/ap_on_re_us/girl_charged


On the one hand, throwing a rock is indeed a potentially serious assault, and the boy was injured and required stitches. On the other hand, I wonder if the school could've handled this one on its own with a lecture, a call to the parents, and detention; the parents of the boy would be within their rights to sue for damages as well.



The girl's father claims she acted in self-defense.


Too many acts by children are being zero-toleranced into major threats to the public's safety. This is the downside of zero-tolerance: No false negatives means more falso positives.

Yeah, except this isn't really a zero tolerance gone awry situation. She used a dangerous instrument to cause physical injury. If I hit you with a two pound rock, would you ask the officer to give me a stern reprimand? Once the police are called, and people are demanding that charges be made, then it comes down to us simply applying the statute that fits. It's the job of the court at that point to determine how best to adjudicate.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Only in America? These things can get out of HAND? .....Aloha

 

[Simon Curran]

I seems to me like TGace summed it up already, it is a case of missing common sense (obviously isn't that common anymore)

8 year old boys (as I rememember from my childhood) think "boobies" are great and 14 year old girls aren't really little girls anymore, but they lack the mature reasoning skills of an adult

By the way I'm not an 8 year old boy anymore but I still think...