Nine charged in bullying suicide

Scary, scary, aren't we scary?

It's very hard to take you seriously, Mordea.

Especially when you are so blatantly dishonest.

Or when your comprehension of the issues you speculate about is so obviously narrow. To answer your question, it's not only worht considering in that scenario. Also, consider your sad, speculative tale about your fictional girlfriend; you've just repeated my own point to me, which is why I consider you dishonest.

Actually, the implications of your argument are worrisome. That you cannot comprehend the difference between a mundane stressor—e.g., relationship failing—and calculated cruelty is very suggestive about your motivation for defending such people. Perhaps you feel some kinship with the willfully cruel.

Kid gloves? You consider not going out of your way to be cruel "kid gloves"?

I mean, really, that's kind of sick in its own right.

True. Would you suggest all people are the same? Would you suggest one's brain chemistry is the same at age fifteen as, say, thirty-two?

Consider the implications of Roper v. Simmons, Mordea. Part of the court's reasoning for striking down the execution of offenders who were minors at the time of their crime is that the juvenile brain operates differently than an adult brain. The juvenile brain is, generally, considerably more unstable.

So if you have a number of potential stressors at to consider, by which criteria do you calculate the trigger?

Let me guess: months of calculated bullying that includes bodily harm can't possibly be it; maybe she spilled ice cream on her dress, and that's what did it.

I would also appreciate it if you would give some thought to murder statutes. Are you aware that most American jurisdictions include a murder statute that accounts for a victim's actions? Indeed, there is a "heat of passion" defense.

Sure, he might have caught you boffing his wife, but that doesn't make you responsible for his actions when he puts a kitchen knife through your throat while you're stumbling around trying to pull up your trousers.

He's not going to face death. He won't face Murder 1. And there is a reasonable chance that he will be acquitted.

Because of the actions of others. In this case, yours. And his wife's. But you, poor victim, will bear some culpability in your own demise.

There is a difference between abstract and applied logic, Mordea. I suggest you learn about it.

 

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They do. But I'm not going to let their expertise dictate my own opinion when their assertions are speculative. I have a brain of my own.

You are a scientist. Surely when you were studying undergraduate science, you would have been required to critically appraise scientific studies. This would have involved assessing how the study was conducted, the validity of the data, and then determining whether or not you agreed with the authors conclusion. The authors would undoubtably have had far more expertise than you. Yet this didn't prevent you from looking at the facts and forming an opinion that may be justifiably contrary to their's.

According to Tiassa's logic, you aren't allowed to do the above. Authority trumps all, and simply saying 'expert' makes their say-so immune to the scrutiny of us plebians.

Intellectual snobbery at its worst.

 

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(yawn ....)

Cry us a river.

But don't expect anyone to care.

 

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You have failed to explain how I am dishonest.

Then one must wonder why you would previously implied otherwise. Why would we focus on mental illness in the 'killed myself over girlfriend' scenario, but not in the 'I was picked on' scenario? People respond to abuse in varying manners, and mental illness is worth focusing on whenever someone takes their own life.

Your failure to address my sad speculative tale is telling. Getting dumped can be very stressful, even to the mentally sound. And you yourself admitted that stressors can precipitate suicide. So one must wonder why you would not hold the girlfriend liable for her boyfriend's suicide.

Getting dumped is far from a mundane stressor, especially if one was in a long term relationship. But that is beside the point. What constitutes a significant stressor can vary from individual to individual.

Tiptoeing on egg-shells to avoid insult, imaginary or not, could be regarded as handling others with kids gloves.

No. Would you?

Exactly my point.

That's a caricaturisation of my argument, but yeah, you're on the right track. It's hard to identify with absolute sureity the exact stressor that 'causes' suicide.

Which I don't agree with. One is always responsible for their actions, except in exceptional circumstances (eg. mental illness, drugged up).

 

(yawn ....)

Quite simply, you overlook a point I made and then throw the same one back at me. It is dishonest because—

"Your failure to address my sad speculative tale is telling."​

—I've already addressed it. As in, before you raised the point yourself.

Mundane issues can be significant. But getting dumped is a common occurrence. This kind of calculated malice is not nearly so common.

Additionally, I'm sorry if you can't understand the difference between something someone has a right to do (e.g., break up a relationship) and something someone does not have a right to do (e.g., assault, harassment, &c.). When you have a mundane stressor such as a breakup, the focus on mental illness is pretty much all you have. When the stressor is criminal activity, then there is more to look at. This part isn't exactly neuroscience, Mordea.

Three months of calculated harassment, including bodily harm, and you're suggesting that to not behave in such a manner is "tiptoeing on egg-shells to avoid insult"?

Clearly not. That you have to ask makes me wonder about your reading comprehension and good faith. That you ducked the next paragraph entirely—

Consider the implications of Roper v. Simmons, Mordea. Part of the court's reasoning for striking down the execution of offenders who were minors at the time of their crime is that the juvenile brain operates differently than an adult brain. The juvenile brain is, generally, considerably more unstable.​

—is both telling and predictable. That many people who suffer persecution do not resort to suicide is irrelevant in the face of human diversity and the psychiatric, neurological, and biochemical transformations affecting the juvenile brain around age fifteen.

Hardly.

It was a question. How do you calculate the trigger? Convenience? Self-interest?

Logic suggests that, given a situation that involves assaults and some sexual circumstance that might put two teenagers behind bars for the rest of their lives, I think there is something more significant about the possibility of bullying as a stressor compared to something less significant, like spilled ice cream.

One of the big questions is the evidence investigators have reviewed. DA Elizabeth Scheibel so far will neither confirm or deny whether Phoebe Prince left a suicide note, and described an "inexplicable lack of cooperation" from certain web sites that may have been used by students involved in the harassment, or possibly Phoebe Prince herself.

You don't put a seventeen year-old up to face a potential life sentence without a damn good reason. Your cynicism runs both deep and broad, but what is effective in the abstract does not necessarily translate in real-world application.

That's why the heat of passion defense is often described by the term "temporary insanity". That many jurisdictions include a specific charge and sentencing schedule only reminds that plenty of juries have been convinced that one or another son of a bitch had it coming. So what would you prefer? A reduced conviction, or a full-blown acquittal? I mean, if you want to hold people responsible for their actions, that is.

Remember that this is the kind of case that will break careers if prosecutors or investigators blow it. And these will also go before a juries unless defense attorneys are desperate enough to waive. So what do you think, Mordea? Will good folks in Hampshire County side with your determined defense of willful cruelty? Or will they convict defendants of statutory rape, civil rights violations with bodily harm, stalking, and disturbing a school [or] assembly if the evidence demands it? And with a suicide as the apparent outcome, just how lenient do you expect the system to be if the defendants are convicted?
____________________

Notes:

Lowe, James F. "Authorities charge nine teens in Prince case". Daily Hampshire Gazette. March 30, 2010. GazetteNet.com. March 31, 2010. http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/03/30/authorities-charge-9-teens-prince-case

 

Gee, this is one of my favourite topics.

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I was the kid who got bullied when I was in high school. Dad was in the military so we moved a lot, I was always the new kid (read that as "sucker") that the bullies would hit on as soon as they became aware that I was there. "Pecking order" (cheap excuse to exercise some basic cruelty)

Gratefully, I was abused at home, so I had developed a super power - the rage of a victim. When 14 members of the football team jumped me in the local restaurant to give me a haircut (the coach didn't like my hair), I hit 3 of them in the head with a sugar shaker and put them on the floor before pulling a knife on the rest. They took their fallen and left. I kept my hair, thanks.

The knife became 'me poquito hermano' - my little brother - always ready to help me out. Now, he has been replaced by a .357 stainless steel J - frame. If it had not been for the bullies, I would not have gotten my black belt in Taekwon Do, become an NRA pro marksman, or a knife fighting expert, nor done power lifting or a lot of other things that have made my life much better. For that, I hope that they all died a miserable death and now rot in the ground.

I recall seeing that nasty blond Paduka footballer giving a tv interview after the kid he and his footballer buddies had been bullying brought a rifle to school and started shooting them. He actually snickered on camera as he described how he and his Christian buds had bullied the kid at the before school prayer gatherings they held. Didn't seem to miss his dead friends or realize that he was responsible for their deaths. I wonder how his pro football career is doing now?

Yeah, the high school expelled me when I got beat up - easier to toss the one kid that lost the fight than the 4 who jumped him between classes - especially when he had a cracked skull and a concussion so he didn't talk too clearly. Probably needed the time off anyhow.....to recover some and to clean off all that blood.

OK - if your kid is under 18 you are responsible for his/her actions - period. If he/she does something that results in someone dying, they should go down for that crime (murder 1, 2 or 3) and you should pay through the nose.

My kid is big, strong, athletic, nice....... and every other kid at his school knows that his dad is NOT someone to mess with, so we don't have these issues. Other kids do though, and that is what laws are for - to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Better to be someones bitch in slam for a few decades than to meet a well armed irate parent after killing their child.

In short - "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime". If you are a parent and have raised a bully, you will pay for that stupid move one way or another.

Oh yeah - where I come from we define statutory rape thus - "15 will get you 20". Cornball trolling and 'what if's' aside, that means 20 years in stir (state prison) - make a note.

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Bullshit. Apparently, nobody read the whole story so here it is in a nutshell:

15 year old fucks 17 and 18 year old boys. Boys' ex-GFs get pissed and start to harass her, with text messages (evidence!) verbal abuse, etc. Girl instead of telling it to anyone kills herself.

The moral of the story:

1. Don't start having sex at 15 and specially not with older boys who get into trouble because of it.
2. If you have a problem, TELL it to someone. Even the boyfriends could have done something.
3. Parents should monitor their children.
4. Children should be tougher.

What did I leave out?

5. Get the facts before forming an opinion.

 

Most kids that start having sex real young have a real good reason for doing that.

Blaming the victim is not only illogical, it is an indefensible ethical position.

"15 will get you 20."

 

Actually we do have laws about age of consent and being within two years.

This boy was 18, and she was 14. The other boy was 17. They were seniors, and she was a freshman from another country trying her best to fit in. She was targeted because both of those boys had sex with her, and the publically ridiculed and physically and mentally tortured.

She was raped, and they were convicted by a grand jury. One of the boys was four years older, the other was three years older.

 

Save the ad homs for fights where you are right, and not just being a self-righteous jerk.

She was 14 when the rapes happened. She was a new girl, with no friends, from a country an ocean away who was just trying to fit in. You make poor choices when you are young and peers make a huge impact on your life. How much did you talk to your parents about your social issues when you were a teenager?

 

14 or 15, what's the difference? Oh yes, 14 is WORSE. I don't have sympathy for jailbaits. If by rape you mean consensual sex between teenagers than you are right.

Excuses,excuses. So she had to spread her legs to fit in? I feel already sorry for her.

Are you asking a self-rightous jerk? I didn't have sex at a young age so just I would fit in....

 

Regardless of the specifics of this case bullying is an insanely mismanaged problem. I think the bulk of problem stems from the attitude of most education authorities (and most teachers in my experience) that the role of the educator is to impart knowledge; nothing more, nothing less. But of course school's arn't just factories for learning, theyre day care centres where children are sent to be looked after in lieu of their parents being at work monday to friday. Therefore if a school is complacent towards bullying they arent fulfilling their role as full-time carers.

The wider social problem of course, is that witnessing violence/assaults/bullying on a day to day level tends to breed moral complacency. It really doesnt take long in any school for bullying to become 'normalised' and treated as a simple brute fact of reality - "what doesnt kill you makes you stronger". You see the same dynamic in Prison institutions in which humane, well-meaning people sign up to regulate a prison populace with all the right intuitions about how this should be done. But within a matter of months end up witnessing obvious scenes of abuse and ignoring them simply because within the twisted logic of this particular social institution this is the what passes for 'normality'.

Obviously this situation is bad enough with hardened criminals but 10 times worse when youre dealing with frightened insecure children. So what's the solution? I think primarily the onus has to be on the teachers/custodians to live up to their responsibilities as carers. More pragmatically i think there should be mandatory training programmes to enable teachers to recognise when bullying is occurring and how to respond to it. And if teachers persistently fail to respond properly to bullying, it would seem logical to me to discipline them in the same youd discipline them if they were failing their students academically.

 

Story is not that simple

Bells, you are exaggerating the story and inserting falsehoods.

The various news accounts state that the boys involved are age 17 and 18, and that the victim was 15. None have stated that she was 14 when the sex occurred.

Additionally, from what is known the bullying came AFTER the fact, and was not planned as part of some conspiracy to demean her. Indeed there were two or more different groups involved. What has been reported, in the Boston Globe, New York Times, and various other news sources, is that the victim had a relationship with one of the boys. After they broke up, one of the girls named Narey, who afterwards dated the boy, began a concerted effort to bully and attack her. This was because the Narey girl considered the boy "hers" and tried to exact revenge on her for dating him. The same thing has been reported about the other girl who bullied the victim. This girl came from another group and did not attend the same high school. After having a brief relationship with a boy from another school, that boy's new girlfriend sought out the victim and began to bully her.

All of the news stories seem to indicate that the bullying was carried out almost exclusively by the girls involved. All of the incriminating evidence regarding the bullying, including the text messages, online harassment involving sites like Craigslist, Facebook, Myspace and such, have thus far exclusively implicated the girls, especially the Narey girl and the out of town girl.

Until new information comes to light, it seems that the charges against the boys were brought because they were relatively easy to add onto the case. Proving statutory rape is only as difficult as proving sex occurred (which might actually be difficult since the victim is deceased).

I believe that the main bullies, the ones instigating and perpetuating the bullying should be harshly punished. This may or may not involve the boys. For that reason I am a bit disturbed by the charges of statutory rape, particularly if it turns out that the two boys were not the main participants or actors involved in the bullying. If it does turn out that the girls, such as Narey were the ringleaders and were the main antagonists, and that underage sex occurred, then it is likely that the girls will be given much, much lighter sentences than the boys - even if they were the principle culprits and drove the bullying. People need to keep in mind, even if bullying is found to have occurred, the criminal punishment for such harassment is not very harsh.

 

You should really see that documentary before you make judgements about who was following whom. The fact that he was a priest was secondary to the fact that he was a close family friend (a 20 year friendship). The idea that you would not befriend someone because they belong to a religious order is besides the point and a little silly if you ask me but that's neither here nor there what shows is that you have missed my initial point.

I use the example of father Grady to illustrate that though they were close to the priest they were also close their daughter AND YET it wasn't until she was a grown woman did they discover that this priest had repeatedly molested their daughter. Now in the way you assess this they should have known, they should have guessed, they should have picked up on it and yet they did not. Changes in a child's behaviour could be due to a lot of things some of which a parent cannot assess and at times their child will give them no access to. The changes you notice may not lead to the correct conclusions, it happens all the time. You also assume that all children show signs of things, so that a child who is a bully at school will come home and show signs of cruelty etc which in reality they may only display in groups or on the school yard.

When I was growing up I was always the advocate for the underdog, I intervened when others were being cruel and this happened regularly but there were also incidents where I could be very cruel to another child and was quite terribly so on a few occasions like when I tormented my god sister Nancy when she was visiting us from Canada. Did it show? No. I would have forgotten about the incident by the time I arrived home or a new thought entered my head. Did it mark my character? No. And yet I was the same kid who could protect an underdog from the general mob. Had my parents changed their parenting style? No. They hardly knew of any of these incidents save one as I never said anything and neither did anyone else. So which dispostion should my parents have noticed? The one who was an advocate for underdogs or the one who could tease and torment another kid? Which disposition did they foster? Which one are they accountable for? Both? Neither? How were they culpable? I would say that I was who I was. Children and their behaviour or parents and their insight is not so neatly packaged as you would like to make it seem. The variety of behaviour displayed by a child cannot be packaged so neatly that a parent can say for sure that their child at all moments is this way or that way.

The way you look at your daughter now is fine but you assume that the access you have to her person now as a young child will be the same when she is older and it isn't necessarily true. Nor is it necessarily true that your assessment of who she is and what is going on with her, how she is feeling etc is even accurate at all times. We could say for example that your child is just as likely to know when you are angry, when you are stressed or sad, when is the best time to ask you for a favor and when its best to wait. She will know what to tell you and what not to tell you. She will also know when you are stoned and when you are not. Why? Its natural for a child to adapt her behaviour to her parents as well as its a parents job to 'know' what is going with a child. Its common though for a parent when they hear about some tragedy occurring in another family to say 'well that could never happen in MY family because I do this and that and such and such'.

 

Grand juries do not convict people.

That's a "fact"? Really? Because according to everything I've read, the bullying was carried out by the boys' girl friends after they became angry that the victim had sex with their boyfriends. So far as I know, there is zero evidence that either boy had sex with her as part of some sort of plot to humiliate her. If you have a reliable reference to support this claim, I would be interested to see it.

 

Getting back to the article from the opening post, it seems worth noting that this:

doesn't really seem to go along with this:

Uh...did students really not call each other sluts, threaten each other, and knock books out of people's hands when this lawyer was in school? Assault, battery, threats, and behavior that would easily qualify as criminal harassment in the adult world was pretty much par for the course when I was in highschool. You could see it going on in the halls every day. So while I certainly agree that their behavior sounds criminal, it hardly sounds like it was exceptional or shocking.

 

This and that

Those would be excellent sources for people to consider. Can you provide the reference? I mean—

—it would really help the discussion if we had those sources at hand.

Actually, it's a logical conclusion people are reaching, Nasor. People's underlying cynicism about government agencies is getting out of hand these days. To repeat something I've addressed a few times in this thread:

• Barring an extraordinary cockup by the prosecutors, [statutory rape] should be a fairly easy charge to prove, require an insane jury to acquit, and expose the perpetrators to a life sentence.

• The way the Massachusetts laws are written, it appears the only way out of the statutory rape conviction is if the accused didn't actually have any sexual contact with the girl. Charging them, as such, would thus qualify as what I referred to as an "extraordinary cockup by the prosecutors".

• Remember that this is the kind of case that will break careers if prosecutors or investigators blow it.​

This kind of monumental cockup by prosecutors will not only cost people their jobs, but their entire careers. Setting up two teenage boys for potential life sentences without believing you can demonstrate that the events—e.g., sexual intercourse—even occurred is so irresponsible that if this is what has happened, the DA shouldn't be practicing law at all. So maybe people like to be cynical toward the government, but how about considering the individuals in the government as human beings?

What prosecutor in their right mind would put two teenagers up for potential life sentences for sex offenses if they had nothing to show that the offenses ever occurred? I wouldn't. Bells wouldn't, and she's a lawyer. How about you? Would you? I mean, we should always presume innocence for the accused, sure. I don't disagree. But I'm not on the jury, and neither do I see any reason to presume such guilt against prosecutors and police.

• • •​

I recognize that because of your post count, you cannot offer us links at this time, but can you give us bylines or dates or something? Anything to find these news sources that would so definitively clear up some of the vagaries about this case?

Thanks much. And welcome to our humble bedlam.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/03/30/standing_up_for_phoebe/

I read these as stating that the sex was the reason why she became a target, rather than part of some pre-planned scheme. I have not seen anything to indicate that the boys planned to have sex with her in order to torment her later.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Of course they probably have substantial evidence that the sex occurred, otherwise they wouldn't be charging them. This does not indicate that the sex was part of a pre-planned scheme to torment her.