Horrifying gang rape & assault on mother & son

[Sundae]

The crimes committed are horrifying, of course. But what separates the lawless from the law-abiding is simply... the law. There is a line drawn in the sand regarding the difference between juveniles and adults, and I do believe that in order to keep the system working then you have to adhere to it.

Of course, they don't believe that in Iran:

Iran has the shameful status of being the world’s last official executioner(1) of child offenders – people convicted of crimes committed when they were under the age of 18. It also holds the macabre distinction of having executed more child offenders than any other country in the world since 1990, according to Amnesty International’s records.(2)

In many cases, child offenders under sentence of death in Iran are kept in prison until they reach 18 before execution. In this period, some win appeals against their conviction. Some have their sentence overturned on appeal and are freed after a retrial. Some are reprieved by the family of the victim in cases of qesas (retribution) crimes and are asked to pay diyeh instead. Some are executed.

Although executions of child offenders are few compared to the total number of executions in Iran, they highlight the government’s disregard for its commitments and obligations under international law, which prohibits in all circumstances the use of the death penalty for child offenders. The executions also gravely undermine the particular obligation that all states have relating to the protection of children – one of the most vulnerable groups in society.

I found that while looking for something else - I'm not suggesting that American justice compares to Iranian, it just interested me.

[smurfalicious]

Originally Posted by danac

I wouldn't be at all surprised if one or more of these boys is still too dangerous to be allowed out into society when they are in their forties... Most important issue for me, is removing dangerous people from mainstream society and keeping them incarcerated until they have been reformed enough to pose no threat...

I think you hit the nail on the head with removing dangerous people from mainstream society. I don't believe our prison system is reformatory in any way, shape or form. However, some people just don't belong in society. Britain had the right idea - throw all the criminals that can't function in society on an island somewhere far, far away. [Disclaimer: I love Australia, I don't think Aussies are criminals, and if I could vacation anywhere in the world, Australia is at the tops of my list.]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

I don't buy that they just weren't "developed" enough to understand.

They were certainly "developed" enough to
(a) bring and wear condoms during the attack
(b) develop a plan of attack, which included 10 assailants
(c) bring and/or find guns
(d) use household chemicals to pour all over the bodies of the victims to erase DNA and other evidence
(e) and for God's sake, THEY MADE THE VICTIMS PARTAKE IN INCESTUAL ACTS AT GUNPOINT. Jesus fucking Christ!


My problem with drawing a line in the sand is that not every rule applies to every person. Our government and court system, lacking though it may be, was developed to address these kinds of issues. As an example, I know 2 brothers. 1 was mature enough to drive a vehicle at age 14. His brother is 17, and I don't think I'd trust that boy to help my 8 year old cross the street.

Maturity involves not just age, but other factors, like emotional/social/physical development, certainly socioeconomic factors play a part, and knowing the difference between right and wrong. At age 14, you know what rape and assault are, and you know they're wrong. Some of these kids have already been determined to have criminal records - and I will go out on a low and long limb here and say I will guarantee that most of these boys have criminal records already.

As far as I'm concerned - and as far as the court systems are also concerned apparently - these kids are perverts, too. Watching a young boy perform a sex act... who gets off (sexually or otherwise) on that kind of thing??? And with his mother??? I'll tell you who - the kind of people who are fucked in the head and don't belong in society where they can do this sort of thing.

[smurfalicious]

Originally Posted by Cicero

Smurf- read some Florida citators and it will alleviate your shock.

yeah, I'm in the legal field... I see a lot... will still always be shocking to me, thought, that people can do such horrible things.

I was born and raised here, and I'm not like that, the people I know aren't like that. This is why I refuse to live in West Palm, and refuse to go there. I travel to Orlando for things I can get in West Palm just because it's West Palm - I'm beginning to think it's worse than Miami.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by smurfalicious

They were certainly "developed" enough to
(a) bring and wear condoms during the attack
(b) develop a plan of attack, which included 10 assailants
(c) bring and/or find guns
(d) use household chemicals to pour all over the bodies of the victims to erase DNA and other evidence
(e) and for God's sake, THEY MADE THE VICTIMS PARTAKE IN INCESTUAL ACTS AT GUNPOINT. Jesus fucking Christ!

What do any of those have to do with "developed"?

[smurfalicious]

They had knowledge to know that what they were doing was wrong and illegal, or they wouldn't have tried to cover it up. If I committed a crime, I wouldn't know that ammonia would erase fingerprints and DNA evidence or whatever. That's because even though I'm twice the age of these little bastards, I'm less criminally "developed" than them.

[Happy Monkey]

Adulthood is more than attempting to avoid punishment. A five year old will try to avoid punishment. I still don't know whether ammonia will erase fingerprints or DNA (the article says "in an attempt to"), but it could probably be discovered pretty easily from Google or an episode of CSI.

Originally Posted by smurfalicious

yeah, I'm in the legal field... I see a lot... will still always be shocking to me, thought, that people can do such horrible things.

I was born and raised here, and I'm not like that, the people I know aren't like that. This is why I refuse to live in West Palm, and refuse to go there. I travel to Orlando for things I can get in West Palm just because it's West Palm - I'm beginning to think it's worse than Miami.

One of the major problems with WP is that it is so transient. It causes deep-seated and multi-leveled Issues with that area.
It is a HUGE strain on the infrastructure, leaving those that live there to live on the scraps, existing with crime, within a maze of walls, surrounded by the uber-rich who don't really interact with the actual community. They have a secluded community, within the community, with no trickle-down effect. Hell, most of them are only there a few weeks out of the year, so they have no residency issues, taxes, etc, that they need contribute other than property tax. Which goes into one of the most corrupt systems that one can imagine.
It reminds me a lot of Apartheid S Africa.

[seakdivers]

I read this the other day. I found this particularly disturbing:

"So a lady was raped. Big deal," resident Paticiea Matlock said with disgust. "There's too much other crime happening here."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...ang-rape_N.htm

Fla. mother and son are attacked
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Mother and son huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom — sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.
Surely the neighbors had heard their screams. The walls are thin, the screen doors flimsy in this violence-plagued housing project on the edge of downtown.

For three hours, the pair say, they endured sheer terror as the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers and her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room.

Then, mother and son were reunited to endure the unspeakable: At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on the boy, she later told a TV station.

Afterward, they were doused with household cleansers, perhaps in a haphazard attempt to scrub the crime scene, or maybe simply to torture the victims even more. The solutions burned the boy's eyes.

The thugs then fled, taking with them a couple of hundred dollars' worth of cash, jewelry and cellphones.

In the interview with WPTV, the mother described how she and her son sobbed in the bathroom, too shocked to move. Then, in the dark of night, they walked a mile to the hospital because they had no phone to call for help.

Two teenagers — a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old — have been arrested. Eight others are being sought.

Welcome to Dunbar Village, a place residents call hell.

"So a lady was raped. Big deal," resident Paticiea Matlock said with disgust. "There's too much other crime happening here."

Built in 1940 to house poor blacks in then-segregated West Palm Beach, Dunbar Village's 226 units sit just blocks from million-dollar condos on the Intracoastal Waterway. Billionaires lounge on beachfront property just a few miles away on Palm Beach.

The public housing project's one- and two-story barracks-style buildings are spread across 17 grassy, tree-lined acres surrounded by an 8-foot iron fence. The average rent is about $150 a month.

Almost 60% of the households in the area that includes Dunbar Village were below the poverty level in 2000, according to Census figures. Only 19% of the area's residents had high school degrees. About 9% of the adults were unemployed, nearly triple the state average.

Teenagers with gold-plated teeth wander the streets. Drug dealers hang out on nearby sidewalks. Trash bin lids are open. Flies hover over dirty diapers. Clothes dry on sagging lines.

Since the June 18 attack, police have increased patrols in the area, blocked off one entrance and will soon install surveillance cameras.

"It took this to make that happen?" Matlock, a 32-year-old single mother of three, snarled.

As in other blighted neighborhoods across the country where criminals seem to have free rein, residents here live in fear. Snitches get stitches, they say. Or worse.

"I try to be in my house no later than 7, and I don't come out," said Citoya Greenwood, 33, who lives in Dunbar with her 4-year-old daughter. "I don't even answer my door anymore." On the Fourth of July, "we didn't know if we was hearing gunshots or fireworks."

Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, will be charged as adults in the assault and gang rape, prosecutors said. They are jailed without bail.

Lawson's DNA was found in a condom at the crime scene, and he admitted involvement, authorities say. Police say Walker's palm print was discovered inside the home. He denies being there. His attorney says he will plead not guilty. Lawson's public defender did not return telephone messages.

Walker and Lawson did not live at Dunbar but visited often. Lawson stayed with his grandmother there. Walker came to hang out and play basketball. Dunbar has become the place to be for wayward black teens, residents and neighborhood kids say.

Walker and Lawson both grew up mostly fatherless, bouncing between homes. Walker's family sometimes lived in old cars or abandoned houses, said his mother, Ruby Nell Walker.

"We've never really had a real home," said Naporcha Walker, Nathan's 15-year-old sister.

He dropped out of school after spending three years in seventh grade. The family lives on food stamps and recently had to pawn their television and radio, Ruby Walker said.

"I just feel like he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. ... My son is not a rapist," she said.

Ruby Walker said she herself was raped twice, at ages 7 and 12. She said that just days before the Dunbar attack, someone tried to rape her again, and "my son came to me crying and said he wouldn't ever do that to anyone."

She has had her own problems with the law — at least nine arrests on charges such as disorderly conduct, aggravated assault and battery, according to state records.

Avion Lawson was a headstrong kid, never listening to his mother, said his cousin, Cassandra Ellis.

"I knew he was bad, but I never pictured him to be that type of bad," Ellis said. She said one traumatic experience may have scarred him — watching his older sister fatally stab a boyfriend.

"It was an accident. She killed her boyfriend. They was fighting, there was a knife," Ellis said. "He was there when it happened."

City officials are quick to note that neither Lawson nor Walker lived at Dunbar, and say they are doing their best to make the place safe.

As quickly as overhead lights can be replaced, they are shot out, so officials are now considering bulletproof lighting.

"Isn't that quite a commentary on what the situation is there?" said City Commissioner Molly Douglas, whose district includes part of Dunbar. "Dunbar Village is a hell hole. They shouldn't have to live in fear."

More officers are hitting the streets, but "I just bow my head sometimes and think we just couldn't possibly have enough officers ever to take care of all of this," Douglas said.

Laurel Robinson, head of the city's housing authority, said that up until about four years ago, the federal government provided the city with $160,000 a year for security in public housing projects, but Congress did away with the money.

"Every family housing project in the country has suffered because of it," she said.

The rape victim and her son have not returned to their apartment since the attack.

The woman fled Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with her son seven years ago in search of a better life. With no money, they landed in Dunbar. The two almost instantly became targets for crime, standing out as Haitians among the mostly American-born blacks in the housing project. Her car and the boy's bicycle were stolen. Their house was ransacked.

On the night of the attack, she was lured outside by a teenager who knocked on the door and said her car had a flat. Nine more teens, their faces shrouded with T-shirts, barged in, she told authorities. They brandished guns and demanded money, then went beyond the imaginable.

"I was so scared," the woman told WPTV. "Some of them had sex with me twice, some of them had sex with me three times. They're beating me up. They make me do those things over and over. The man with the big gun, he put the gun inside of me."

She said that when she was forced to perform oral sex on her own son, she told the boy: "I know you love me, and I love you, too."

Investigators say it is not clear exactly why the thugs picked her house.

The boy's sight has returned. Both mother and son are seeking counseling.

"I have to try and talk to him every day. He's so angry," the woman said. "He said we never should have moved to Dunbar Village."

[piercehawkeye45]

God, that is so disturbing. Those kids are going to get whats coming to them. I want to know the intentions of this is. I'm guessing there was one or two ring leaders and all the rest followed but what the fuck is going on in those kid's minds?

"It took this to make that happen?" Matlock, a 32-year-old single mother of three, snarled.

I think this quote gives the most insight on the situation.

[Bullitt]

I agree with the idea that juveniles should be tried and sentenced as such, distinct from adults. But in my mind, there comes a point where the crime committed far overshadows the age of the offender. Like this case for example. Juveniles that with intent commit life threatening crimes, esp. of a sexual nature, should be tried as adult without hesitation. These crimes are far more serious than simple stealing, etc.

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

Which they did. Sorry, I don't buy that they just weren't "developed" enough to understand. 15, 18, 21. I didn't draw the arbitrary lines in the sand, but I sure know when those lines don't matter.

In all of my education classes (I'm pursuing a degree in special education/early childhood for those who don't know, which is probably close to everyone haha), something that is stressed throughout every class is that age does not matter. Every child grows and develops personally and socially at different rates and at different stages. It is not a simple ladder. Using age to discriminate between juveniles and adults though convenient, shows its profound weakness and ineffectiveness in times like this. This runs into my unpopular opinion that our country needs to refocus on our public education system first and foremost and incorporate it, via various tests and standards that have to be met, into the two big stages of responsibility dictated by the government: turning 16 and being able to drive, and turning 18 and being called an "adult" and everything that comes with that age.
"And now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast"

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

God, that is so disturbing. Those kids are going to get whats coming to them. I want to know the intentions of this is. I'm guessing there was one or two ring leaders and all the rest followed but what the fuck is going on in those kid's minds?


I think this quote gives the most insight on the situation.

This is exactly what I was talking about.

Once again you're criticizing what he didn't say. He said, "black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs". As Clodfobble pointed out that could also apply to other races and probably the Hispanics in that situation outnumber the Blacks now. Insensitive, not PC, perhaps... but that doesn't make him racist.
I'm betting you have yet to confront one of these little bastards... believe me, they are scary.

[Yznhymr]

Off with their heads and stick them on tall poles for all to see. Boo to you if you don't like it. They should never be allowed to victimize someone else.

Then we become what they are.
No difference.

[Clodfobble]

That logic really only works with murderers, rkz. Last I checked, even the harshest criminal sentences don't amount to gang-raping them, pouring ammonia in their eyes, or forcing them to receive a blowjob from their mothers.

[Cicero]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Then we become what they are.
No difference.

I think that it's pretty hard to force yourself on people if you don't have arms anymore, and if somehow that doesn't work you can just keep taking random limbs that have been identified in other crimes..............I'm willing to start a rehabilitation center if anyone would like to invest. Shoot, I'd be willing to go non-profit for that.......Now RK do you think that makes me a mother rapsit?