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In the past few days, some young teenagers have been arrested for some alarming crimes. Yesterday afternoon, a 13-year-old girl allegedly set fire to some papers in a classroom, causing a fire that injured six people. And a few days before that, a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old were arrested for killing an 18-year-old!
The fire at Brooklyn's I.S. 228 was called in around 5:30PM. Investigators say the girl had been "playing with a cigarette lighter" when she lit some papers. Then she "threw the flaming papers inside a wooden coat closet that was storing books and clothes," which set the room on fire. Over 60 firefighters responded and the classroom was destroyed. The girl was charged with fourth-degree arson and criminal mischief and will also face disciplinary action from the school.
And in the murder case, 13-year-old Rashaun Ferguson and 15-year-old Taquan Stotts were charged with second-degree murder in he shooting of Neville Thomas Ward on Saturday night. According to Newsday sources, the pair met up with Ward (who said, "What's up?"): "Stotts allegedly took out a gun, and Ferguson said to him, 'Burn him, burn him, kill him,' witnesses said."
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This is what happens when you let people, who shouldn't have kids, have kids.
Did anybody seen Frontline on Tuesday? Scary shit, these medicated kids (or that they somehow ended up like that in the first place).
Where the hell did you get a gun, Taquan?
Three more lives wasted. Pathetic.
I saw a HUGE brawl break out with a crowd of like 50 teens in Hell's Kitchen this morning on my walk to work.
My husband was punched in the face by kids on the E train near Spring Street at 7:30 in the evening. He was just sitting there reading his newspaper and they threw a pen at him, taunted him, and then punched him. What provoked them, other than the fact that he was Asian and wearing a suit??
I blame high-fructose corn syrup.
@lower manhattan
You really don't need to provoke animals sometimes. They just go after whatever is closest to them and unfortunately your husband was it.
i blame the welfare system of the 80's and 90's.
Hmmmmmm? With names like that I have no comment.
@lower manhattan Maybe they wanted to check out his kung fu skills?
the parents are responsible. or rather, the pathetic excuses for parents that these little monsters have.
I'm with nivek on this one. Just because some people can have kids, doesn't mean they should have kids.
I usually err on the side of letting people raise their own kid rather than getting the government involved, but in cases like this, the parents are not doing a damn thing for their children or society.
Penalties should be raised for juveniles. Lock them up for longer times. Let them be the "new fish" in a penal system. If that doesn't straighten them out, then they need to be in there longer so that society can move on.
Of course, I'm sure I'm not breaking new ground here.
I wish The Punisher were a real person. Then we'd have some good Onion-style headlines, like 'Area Wagon: Fixed'. Dang whippersnappers.
The problem here is the absentee, drug-addled "parents" who have abdicated their parental responsibilities and neglected to instill any values in their offspring greater than the accrual of peer "street cred" gained through acts of violence against random strangers.
Whats going on with kids? Uh... nothing.
Just take the civil war as an example. According to the Photographic History of the Civil War:
More than 2,000,000 Federal soldiers were twenty-one or under (of a total of some 2,700,000)-
More than 1,000,000 were eighteen or under.
About 800,000 were seventeen or under.
About 200,000 were sixteen or under.
About 100,000 were fifteen or under.
Three hundred were thirteen or under-most of these fifers or drummers, but regularly enrolled, and sometimes fighters.
And thats looking at one example from the US, when the population was very small.
My point: Don't act like kids have been angels throughout history or that they've never been exposed to horiffic violence.
Shame on Jen Chung for baiting this one. This happens all the time. Surprise a few "bad apples" among over a million kids.
What's your point, sensible?
How does the civil war stats (or any war stats) have anything to do with the total stupidity these kids are showing? Yes war is horrible and sensless but it's not the same thing as random violence just for the fun of it as these morons have shown.
Yo, Yo, Yo, If a guy says to you - yo burn him, you gotts to commence with the burning yo, or yous look like a biatch, can't have that, mad props to this cat for pulling the trigger and keepin it real, listen these cats they juvies, they not gonna see real time, they be out by 21 yo, with a rep yo, when theys hit the street, everybody will say they goes the killaz, nobody will mess with them, they be ghetto supastaz yo, they could have a phat myspace page, youtube videos, they'll be the bomb when theys get out, all the biatchs will be after them, lucky mofos.
How about we send these kids over seas to Egypt or Jordan to be interrogated?
Egypitian interrogation has written a whole new chapter in violence.
I love it when people bring in historical stats that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Kids were not angels before, that does not permit senseless violence now.
<whiteboy>...and mad props to JCBra for keepin' us in check...{ahem} yo.</whiteboy>
In their own way, JenChungsBra is totally on the money. The kids involved in these incidents mostly likely come from underprivileged family's with parents that have had less of an education than the kids. It's the system people! If you lived in a project with little hope of improving your station in life, much less the self awareness of the possibility to do so, your humanity would regress to near animal behavior too.
Someone has to fly over these projects and spray some temporary sterilization fluid. That way the inhabitants can fuck as much as they want without having shallow brained pieces of crap. When they finally mature at the age of 55, or get a real life, they can receive an anti sterility serum.
Snoopy for President!
And if elected...
I don't know why I visit this place. Every day the racist idiot infestation gets worse. These forums just need to go. Or at least, make one have to opt in to read them.
Gothamist --you need to stop baiting the trolls as well.
May I ask what is racist about realizing that a bunch of stupid individuals keep raping their own community and breed out from there to rape other communities?
Go out and buy a scanner and turn it on and then you will realize that most of the suspected perps (over 75%) fit a certain profile. How can you deny that? It's what is reported and relayed to the cop on the beat.
Why are they from that certain profile? Because they don't have good upbringing. And that has nothing to do with race or economic background. It's because the progenitors of those pieces of crap are also pieces of crap. Get real. And it's not the color of their skin. It's the lack of color in their brains.
Punks come in all races. It's a matter of upbringing or lack thereof in these cases.
How come does quido's kids don't get in know trouble?
Talk about a lack of getting it together as parents. As a son of Italian American's I can't believe those assholes are still in the old country mentality.