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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Reality comes home to roost: Suspects in video beating could get life in prison |
| 2008-04-11 |
| Eight Florida teenagers -- six of them girls -- will be tried as adults and could be sentenced to life in prison for their alleged roles in the videotaped beating of another teen, the state attorney's office said Thursday. The suspects, who range in age from 14 to 18, all face charges of kidnapping, which is a first-degree felony, and battery, said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the Polk County state attorney. Three of them are also charged with tampering with a witness. Everyone involved in the case was under a gag order imposed by a judge. The only attorney for the teens who has been publicly identified did not return calls from CNN, and his assistant cited the gag order as the reason. The teens are scheduled for their first appearance in court Friday. The video shows a brutal scene: The 16-year-old victim is punched, kneed and slapped by other girls. She huddles in the fetal position, or stands and screams at her attackers, but the assault continues. Authorities say the eight teens said they were retaliating for insults posted on the Internet by the attack victim. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd called the March 30 attack "animalistic." "I've been involved in law enforcement for 35 years, and I've seen a lot of extremely violent events, but I've never seen children, 14 to 18 years of age, engage in this conduct for a 30-minute period of time and then make these video clips," he said. Police say the teens planned to post the video on YouTube. The victim, a 16-year-old from Lakeland, Florida, was hospitalized, and still has blurred vision, hearing loss, and a swollen face, her mother told CNN on Wednesday. The video shows only girls doing the beating; Judd said the boys acted as lookouts. The idea of girls administering a vicious beating so they can post the video online may seem shocking, but it's becoming an increasingly common scenario, according to experts and news reports. Another example was also in the news this week: A high school art teacher in Baltimore told police a female student beat her up last week, and a video of the attack was posted on YouTube, according to CNN affiliate WBAL. A search for "girl fight" on YouTube gets thousands of results, and a suggestion to also try "girl fight at school, boy girl fight" and other search terms. There's at least one Web site devoted exclusively to videos of girls fighting. In 2003, 25 percent of high school girls said they had been in a physical fight in the past year, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (The figure for boys was 40.5 percent.). A Justice Department report released in 2006 showed that by age 17, 21 percent of girls said they had assaulted someone with the intent to cause serious harm. Frank Green is executive director of Keys to Safer Schools, a group that studies and tries to prevent school violence. He said he's not sure whether girls have actually become more violent, or whether there's just more awareness of their fights. My guess: The internet and relaxed norms have allowed groups to bypass the realities of a larger society, which in turn has left them unleashed in much the way boys have traditionally been due to their more "dominant" role. "In one respect, girls have always been more vicious than boys," Green said. "Their violence is of a personal nature." He said boys usually have some focus and a concrete goal when they fight. "But girls want to cause pain and make the other girl feel bad," he said. Native Americans knew how to take advantage of this, I understand. :-) Judd, the Polk County sheriff, said an important part of the plan in the Lakeland attack was to post the video of the beating on YouTube to humiliate and embarrass the victim. "It's the next stage of cyberbullying," psychologist Susan Lipkins said. "They want to show what they're doing." "Our kids are being peer pressured, in another sense of a trend, to put these shock videos out there at other peoples' expense," said Talisa Lindsay, the victim's mother. "And I hope that it doesn't come to the point where there's more people's lives that are being affected by having to take a beating for entertainment, or possibly being killed." The suspects didn't have a chance to post the video online before police moved in and seized it, Judd said. The Sheriff's Department made it public, and it wound up on YouTube anyway. Judd recognizes the irony. "In a perverted sense, we were feeding into exactly what the kids wanted," he said. "But according to Florida law, [the video] is public record, and it's going to be in the public domain whether we agree with that or not." Well, exactly what the kids thought they wanted. There's going to be an outcry now that demands harsher justice. Judd said the suspects showed no remorse when they were arrested and booked. "They were laughing and joking about, 'I guess we won't get to go to the beach during spring break.' And one ... asked whether she could go to cheerleading practice," he said. Lipkins, the psychologist, says there's a "disconnect between their actions and their thoughts.""They think the entire society is doing it, and they think it's funny. So they put it on YouTube. And I don't think they expect kids to get really hurt, and they also don't expect to get really caught." |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #19 I'd be Ok with a couple days' "Golden Rule" lessons. Grab each of these assholes and bet the shit outta them while digitaping for internet usage. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-04-11 22:33 |
| #18 Like Barbara, my Father was allot worser to face than the PO0OoLice! |
| Posted by: RD 2008-04-11 22:18 |
| #17 Woodrow, if you think this sort of thing deserves some sort of slap on the wrist, best you stay outta Flo'dah. Youse gots to be from a nort' Miami crew to get away with this sort of stuff. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-04-11 21:59 |
| #16 Amen, Barbara...and my mom is a red-head! Suddenly, break rocks in the hot summer sun in stripes seems like vacation to what my mom would've done. |
| Posted by: BA 2008-04-11 20:55 |
| #15 If I'd been involved in crap like this, I would hope they'd put me in jail. It would be easier than what my mother would have done to me. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-04-11 20:38 |
| #14 I'm with Steve. Woodrow must not have children. I can't imagine what I'd be like if this were one of my kids. If these punks are going to be charged as adults, their names and mug shots should be released. Ironically, it may be the tampering with a witness that puts the judge over the edge. What these kids should get is a webcam in their cells 24/7. They get the noteriety they wanted and all the other kids in America understand what happens when you do this to others. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-04-11 20:35 |
| #13 OS, common morals are soooo old fashioned. And besides, how are you going to choose which morals to teach? I mean, if you base them on the ten commandments, then you are favoring one (or 2 or more) religions, which violates the first amendment. And if you use ethics from anywhere else, well, they probably originally came from some dead white guy, so they can be ignored. I mean, the only real moral should be "if it feels good, do it. If somebody disses you, put them in their place." /sarcasm |
| Posted by: Rambler in California 2008-04-11 20:08 |
| #12 Would that the schools actually teach common morals these days. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-04-11 19:12 |
| #11 Would footage of their laughing in their cell be admissible if there was such footage? |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-04-11 17:42 |
| #10 "Our kids are being peer pressured, in another sense of a trend, to put these shock videos out there at other peoples' expense, said Talisa Lindsay, the victim's mother." Peer Pressure? Let me blunt…Fuck that! It’s pathetic when even the girls’ mother sees a “victim hood” in the narcissistic behavior from the feral youth that beat her daughter. Western culture must begin to eliminate the concept of “adolescence”. It had merits in an era that sought to move away from child labor. However, the “age of adolescence” now only serves as the postponement of adulthood. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2008-04-11 13:34 |
| #9 5 years of hard labor. Hell, there's a fence to build down south. Fences need post holes. In 5 years, all the holes should be dug, heh heh. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2008-04-11 13:25 |
| #8 Woodrow, these young women committed aggrevated assault. That's a vicious, violent attack. They deserve a very careful scrutiny after conviction and, in the absence of some obvious mitigating factor, deserve the maximum or near-maximum sentence Florida law provides. Violence crosses a line. I can have sympathy for some non-violent offenders depending on life situation and circumstance. But the instant a person commits a violent, criminal act my sympathy meters pegs at zero. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-04-11 12:59 |
| #7 Cheerleaders and prison. There's a movie script in there somewhere. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-04-11 11:18 |
| #6 MAYBE not life -- but at least 15 to 20 years. And they should SERVE IT ALL. These animals have no place in civilized society. Many people like to pretend that teenagers are incapable of rational thought... and maybe these teenagers are incapable -- but there are millions of responsible young people in this country, and they shouldn't have to share the streets with this kind of vicious scum. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2008-04-11 10:59 |
| #5 Obviously, these have feral. The system won't cure that, but I know some good Drill Sergeants who'd give it try as long as the limp wristed bleeding hearts don't interfere. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-04-11 09:10 |
| #4 They won't (and probably shouldn't) get life in prison. They have really screwed up their potential of ever getting most good jobs though. And they may put their parents into bancruptcy once the lawsuits play out. |
| Posted by: Menhadden Snogum6713 2008-04-11 09:08 |
| #3 I think the girls' own attitudes have brought this backlash on. The sheriff commented that they were all in the holding cell laughing and cajoling and generally making it known that they knew the authorities wouldn't really do anything to them for the attack. That kind of behavior causes a backlash, which is what they are getting. And they won't get life, they'll bargain it down, BUT I BET THEY AREN'T LAUGHING ANYMORE. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-04-11 08:55 |
| #2 I seriously doubt the 'children' (most of whom are 17-18) will face 'life' or any time at all. That's just the 'journalist' trying to sensationalize the story. I expect they will get a slap on the wrist, a few hours of community service, and a 'Don't do that again!' lecture before they go to the beach for spring break. I think they should do some time - and get a permanent 'Felony Conviction' stamped on their record. If the victim has to live with permanent hearing loss then at least they should have to live with having to tick off and explain that 'Have you ever been convicted of a Felony?' question on their job application. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-04-11 08:35 |
| #1 life in prison? Please. Give me a F**** break. Yeah, that's a GREAT idea. How about we punish them accordingly and move on. Who comes up with this crap?! |
| Posted by: Woodrow Slusorong7967 2008-04-11 07:50 |