They get bored. And when they’re bored (at least, so goes the narrative), they beat complete strangers nearly to death:
NORTH COLLEGE HILL, Ohio (AP) — Police say that six 13- and 14-year-old boys charged with robbing and badly beating a man told officers they were bored and looking for something to do.
The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that 45-year-old Pat Mahaney is back home after being hospitalized for four days with internal injuries and bleeding, cuts and bruises. Police in the northern Cincinnati suburb of North College Hill say he was found covered in blood last Saturday evening.
Witnesses reported he was “jumped by six children.”
Police say they arrested the sixth and final suspect Wednesday. They say the youths admitted the man had done nothing to provoke them, but they decided to attack him because they were bored.
Well, at least it wasn’t a hate crime. Nothing hateful about bored children, is there?
I have a lingering question, though. Had Mr. Mahaney been armed and had he defended himself against the mob by opening fire, as a practical matter would he actually be better off now? If given a choice between facing the consequences of leaving a pile of dead or wounded children in the street or spending four days in the hospital with all the accompanying pain and suffering, which would be the more rational one? Of course, if this were happening, you would have no way of knowing whether you would survive the attack, would you?
These things just keep getting uglier and uglier.
MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I learned that the police chief has concluded that this was not a hate crime:
“It was a heinous crime but it was not a hate crime,” North College Hill Police Chief Gary Foust said. Several residents called police, noting the suspects are black and inquiring whether Mahaney was specifically targeted because he is white. He was not, the chief said.
But police were struck by how cocky the boys were for their age.
“They were pretty arrogant in the interview with us,” Foust said. “It’s appalling. I think it’s despicable. This appears to be premeditated and there was no remorse on behalf of any of the assailants. Thirteen-year-olds ought to be playing basketball, not running the streets looking for ways to entertain themselves at the expense of somebody.”
Hmm… Does that mean the problem is a lack of basketball courts?
I’m skeptical.
Comments
6 responses to “The “children”!”
“which would be the more rational one?”
If you have a family that depends on you, then on a purely rational basis I would say take the chance of being beaten to death.
What do you want to bet at least one of these thugs had a history of pot use, so blame the prohibitionist I suppose.
What do you want to bet that all of the miscreants had a history of breathing air? I blame their mothers.
OTOH maybe it was pot. If their fathers got a conviction and were doing a long stretch in stir they were not at home to do even minimal fathering. So yeah. Maybe pot prohibition was at fault.
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Here is what the mother of the “twins” said to a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter.
“Mother of the Mizzell twins, Latasha Alford, 32, said that while not excusing her sons’ actions, they did feel peer pressure to go along with the other boys.
‘They are deeply sorry for what happened,’ she said. “They do feel bad. “They do realize what they did was wrong.”
I am from Cincinnati and my husband and I lived in College Hill from our marriage in 1974 to 1978. We moved to the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia in 1978 and it is paradise compared to the h—hole that Cincinnati is today.
My brother lives near College Hill, and he says Cincinnati is on its way to becoming the next Detroit. I hope he is mistaken, but the violence is wracking formerly safe neighborhoods.
My brother says Section 8 vouchers are to blame – the city tore down some housing projects and HUD gave the city housing vouchers for the project families who lost their apartments.
My brother’s neighborhood got a dozen of these families and that’s when old people started to get assaulted walking down the sidewalk and the car vandalism started.