But what then ?
Police said Tuesday that there is no indication that any other boys were involved, but the police report also notes that no other boys were around to be interviewed when officers arrived.
Yeah, this reminds me of a common school administrators dodge - "But maam, we didn't SEE five kids kicking your son unconscious"...
They weren't there because she broke the back of the assault, and they realized - oh, look, she might actually HURT us instead of knuckling under like a good little victim, yep, they headed for the hills like the cowardly little creepers they were.
failing to mention the size of the rock (5.5 inches by 3.75 inches)
GOOD work, kid.
I mention that they did NOT run even after she threw a bat at them and continued to press their assault.
Pretty good chuck, and we can't fault her accuracy, eh ?
or the gash (the police report said it was four inches long; it turned out to be 1.2 inches long, according to hospital records cited by Beshwate)
Uh huh, and of course she resisted arrest, spit on the sidewalk, burned a cross and was holding a coffee can at the time, etc etc..
or the fact that Maribel scratched the officer's arm.
Oh, being scratched is soooo dangerous, especially when you are performing a violent felony arrest on a LITTLE GIRL for SELF DEFENSE. - that's gonna do wonders for departmental PR.
Just watching the spin on this one makes me wanna puke.
Several other key facts remain in dispute. For example, police say Maribel weighs 130 pounds. Her family says she's 90 pounds. Police say they believe Elijah is 6 years old; hospital records show he's 8 and a half, Beshwate said.
Uh-huh, none of which really matters when it's six-to-one odds, nor does it have any bearing on the situation.
If a midget accosts me with a straight razor and a pack of friends, and I put a trio of .380 hornets through him, does it matter that I am bigger than he was ? nope.
Witnesses said three squad cars and a helicopter were at the scene, but Dyer said that initially, only two officers were dispatched, and they called for backup only after the girl resisted arrest.
They called for backup because they got stood off by a LITTLE GIRL ?
... there's not really anything I can say, i'm just shakin my head ...
Ultimately, the department said Tuesday, it sent six people, including three officers.
So, they lied in their original statements, great - and they STILL wanna prosecute the case ?
And anyone wonders why she was hysterical and scared half to death ?
This is idiotic, beyond all sense and definately needs some response from the community, which is being worked on.
=============
The most
*important* part is what happens now.
Please, understand the psychology of just how this (and far, far too many other incidents) have unfolded.
Most children, when faced off with persistent aggressors, first try to resolve the issue within the social and legal system we have set up for them, only to find to their shock and horror that we have either misrepresented it's protection, or outright lied to them.
More often than not the assailants are let off, and often the child themself is labelled a troublemaker or tattletale, and this breaks their faith in the system and society, which has severe, long-lasting social and personal consequences of it's own.
Quite predictably, sooner or later the child turns to self-defense, sometimes involving a weapon.
Responses such as this one are all-too-common, the child is punished for self-defense, the weapons confiscated, the assailants coddled as the victims... it is at this point the child begins to see the system and society as either unwitting, hypocritical fools aiding and abetting their tormentors, or even downright enemies and allies of their assailants.
Feeling that the system and society has betrayed them, they will cease to respect or obey it's rules and will substantially increase the force they intend to use often far out of proportion to the harrassment - if they can procure one, they WILL aquire a firearm, but as a 1978 NEA report shows, they'll use anything they can possibly get their hands on, with full intent to use lethal force because they feel our system and society has left them no other option.
This generally ends one of three ways.
# 1 - Child kills one or more of their tormentors, society and the media blame the child, and it becomes one more incident to be poorly addressed with moronic and counterproductive zero-tolerance policies which would not have ever stopped it in the first place.
# 2 - Child is removed from situation, and without some mediation this psychologically "festers" into a hatred and disrespect of the system and society, and we're not talking typical teen rebellion here, we're talking an outright criminal sociopathy which can eventually manifest in the creation of a "Life-Style-Violent" offender, such individuals are responsible for a substantial part of ALL violent crime, and they do not just appear from a vaccuum.
# 3 - Child is removed from situation, or situation is resolved, and adults work with the child to restore faith in the system and society, or at least it's tenets, so that the child isn't made to feel that self-defense is "wrong" and that what happened is an aberration, instead of the norm... of course, convincing a child of this is pretty hard when it's dubious whether such incidents are the norm or an aberration.
I think it can be prettymuch taken as a given at this point that society and the system have abused this kid, and unless something mediates it in a hurry, this kid is going to boomerang on that system and society down the road - I will borrow a quote from Andrew Vachss to simplify it.
"We do unto them, and they grow up.. and do unto us."
That cycle needs to stop, and if we here at THR can contribute in any way to stopping it, if even in this one case, not only should we, but we are humanly obligated to do so.
The High Road, after all.
-K
*PS - Sorry for being so longwinded, but it's not something that can be addressed in simple media sound bites.
