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Parents charged with involuntary manslaughter after their child is struck and killed by a car (they let him walk home alone)


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Posted

This is pretty terrible, especially in a small town. My experience has been when kids are at grandmas house in small town this kind of thing is much more prevalent. Like the good old days. And It doesn’t really bother me when they tell me about it later. 

Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

They said he’d face no charges 

From what I can find, at 76 years old, all this driver has to do to prove he’s still capable is a vision test every 5 years.

The kids fucked up trying to go between cross walks, but I’d have a hard time not putting any blame on the driver. 

Edited by B00M
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Posted (edited)
17 minutes ago, B00M said:

From what I can find, at 76 years old, all this driver has to do to prove he’s still capable is a vision test every 5 years.

The kids fucked up trying to go between cross walks, but I’d have a hard time not putting any blame on the driver. 

I’d have to see the street. They said it was a 4 lane road man. My cul de sac is right off a busy 4 lane road that frequently has 18 wheelers barrelling down it, and a small median with trees, and no lights for at least a mile. If a kid jumped out behind one of those, I can easily see someone not being able to stop in time. 
 

and the article said “the 10 year old tried to hold him back.” To me that screams the car was fairly close. 

Edited by SydneyCarton
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Posted (edited)

Wasn't Gastonia a farm team for the Rangers years back?

Also, wondering about the race of the driver and of the parents.  I bet it's not arbitrary.  Maybe it is...

 

Edit:  Oh wait.  here we go.
killed-boy-parents-charged-1.jpg?quality

Edited by Iceman
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Posted
24 minutes ago, Hate said:

Jesus Christ. Why wouldn’t you let a 7 years old walk 2 blocks with a 10 year old. My son was fishing by himself at our neighborhood pond at 7. It’s ridiculous that these parents are being charged. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to lose a child, but to have this bullshit heaped on top?  

That's how our justice system works. Someone has to be punished. It's stupid, but that's how it works.

Posted
52 minutes ago, Hate said:

Jesus Christ. Why wouldn’t you let a 7 years old walk 2 blocks with a 10 year old. My son was fishing by himself at our neighborhood pond at 7. It’s ridiculous that these parents are being charged. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to lose a child, but to have this bullshit heaped on top?  

One summer at age 10 I was running around my grandparent’s little hometown (population 250) with a .22 shooting squirrels, birds, and assorted junk targets.

Nobody cared.

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Posted

Two blocks in a rural area is like next door. We lived in a suburb for a while and the grocery store was two miles away. Fucking absurd. I’ve been letting my daughter walk to the corner drug store for candy and whatever since she was 10. She’s 13 now and takes my 7 year old sometimes. Granted there’s no intersection to cross but still I can’t fathom how this horrible tragedy, even if a mistake by the kids, is in any way a criminal act.

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Posted

Damn. My parents and all of my friends parents were criminals and we did not even know it. 

At seven I would walk to - and back from - elementary school every day by myself.   This includes the days when it was snowing in Iowa.  Granted, it was only about a 10 minute walk.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Damn. My parents and all of my friends parents were criminals and we did not even know it. 

At seven I would walk to - and back from - elementary school every day by myself.   This includes the days when it was snowing in Iowa.  Granted, it was only about a 10 minute walk.

Was it uphill both ways?

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Posted
Just now, royiv said:

Was it uphill both ways?

Just one.  You had to walk up the hill to get to school - but coming home was easy peezy.   Except the day I got my brand new Schwinn bike that was a bit too big for me and on the way home the hill was steep enough that whatever the hell I weighed was not enough to bring the bike to a stop, so my runaway bike actually did not stop at the end of the street - but went through - and across - the street into a neighboring ball field.

Fortunately, while there was traffic coming in both directions I was untouched going through the intersection.   To be fair to long-ago prosecutors, I did come pretty close to dying that day.

Shit, a few years later when I was on safety patrol in Kansas during a blizzard the school let us stand out in the zero degree /high winds with my whistle and my buddy’s stop sign on a wooden pole.  by the time it dawned on them that maybe they should bring us back in we all had frostbite on our faces.

In a whole lot of ways, the good old days were moronic.    Everything is a balance, and the pendulum has swung too far the other side.   Letting us run around unsupervised during the summer from morning to when it got dark put me in several circumstances that could’ve been serious injury or fatality producing.  I fortunately missed that experience, but it was probably the golden age of pedophilia because nobody was watching the kids. 

Now, of course, the kids have all been taken and they are gone.

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Posted

The legal premise is that it is involuntary manslaughter to....let your 7 year old cross a street with his 10 year old sibling supervising/holding his hand.  That's it.  That's the legal factual scenario.

That's so breathtakingly asinine and stupid, I really don't know where to start.  Yeah, we Gen X types have all those stories, but FFS, we did similar with our kids.  At age 7 or so, they were crossing the PCH with their 10 yr old cousins.  They were taught to cross at crosswalks and use the signal.  Now, might they have disregarded that and crossed in between?  I don't know, I wasn't watching them do it.  But Jesus, it's not criminal to let a kid cross the street.

The icing on the cake?  A fucking $1.5 million bond.  What the fuck?  Are these people a fucking flight risk?  For a crime that LITERALLY doesn't even have intent as an element?  

This country fucking sucks.

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Posted

If anyone has a pool in gastonia, they better fill it up with cement.

At 7, genX was doing all sorts of shenanigans on the streets. Walking across a four lane road was merely foreplay.

Wife and I were in costa rica in 2003. We stopped for gas at a remote-ish place in the mountains. No tourists (except us). All locals. There was a group of 8 year old boys (at least 5 of them) greeting drivers, marshaling cars in and out, filling up tanks, taking money to the adult superintendent, and returning change to the driver. They worked for tips. I took a look at the superintendent, and the kids were working so fast, so efficient that the adult could barely keep up with handing out change. And, this gas station was at least a mile from the nearest village. I assume the kids walked there and back.

In summary, costa rican 8 year olds can run a gas station.

It’s a felony to let kids from gastonia, NC cross the street without an adult guardian.

Astounding.

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Posted

Among the myriad issues here, one that is often overlooked is how DAs often attack every police report like an issue-spotter law school exam. Combine that with a type A personality and a drive to "win," and you get really harmful and evil shit like this.

Posted
1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

The legal premise is that it is involuntary manslaughter to....let your 7 year old cross a street with his 10 year old sibling supervising/holding his hand.  That's it.  That's the legal factual scenario.

That's so breathtakingly asinine and stupid, I really don't know where to start.  Yeah, we Gen X types have all those stories, but FFS, we did similar with our kids.  At age 7 or so, they were crossing the PCH with their 10 yr old cousins.  They were taught to cross at crosswalks and use the signal.  Now, might they have disregarded that and crossed in between?  I don't know, I wasn't watching them do it.  But Jesus, it's not criminal to let a kid cross the street.

The icing on the cake?  A fucking $1.5 million bond.  What the fuck?  Are these people a fucking flight risk?  For a crime that LITERALLY doesn't even have intent as an element?  

This country fucking sucks.

meanwhile in austin....

https://www.fox7austin.com/news/austin-crime-stephon-morson-bond-increase-burton-drive-murder

Quote

A Travis County judge has increased the bond for a 19-year-old man accused of first-degree murder.

Stephon Morson's bond was previously reduced from $800,000 to just $100 with certain conditions after the Travis County District Attorney's office failed to meet a 90-day deadline to get the case to a grand jury.

The prosecutor who was in charge of the case has also resigned.

 

Posted
3 hours ago, Hate said:

Jesus Christ. Why wouldn’t you let a 7 years old walk 2 blocks with a 10 year old. My son was fishing by himself at our neighborhood pond at 7. It’s ridiculous that these parents are being charged. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to lose a child, but to have this bullshit heaped on top?  

They should be charged for naming the kid "Legend."

Posted
2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

The legal premise is that it is involuntary manslaughter to....let your 7 year old cross a street with his 10 year old sibling supervising/holding his hand.  That's it.  That's the legal factual scenario.

That's so breathtakingly asinine and stupid, I really don't know where to start.  Yeah, we Gen X types have all those stories, but FFS, we did similar with our kids.  At age 7 or so, they were crossing the PCH with their 10 yr old cousins.  They were taught to cross at crosswalks and use the signal.  Now, might they have disregarded that and crossed in between?  I don't know, I wasn't watching them do it.  But Jesus, it's not criminal to let a kid cross the street.

The icing on the cake?  A fucking $1.5 million bond.  What the fuck?  Are these people a fucking flight risk?  For a crime that LITERALLY doesn't even have intent as an element?  

This country fucking sucks.

America, where poor parents are criminals for letting kids cross the street, but no rich person sees any meaningful consequences for anything 

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Posted

I don't have a problem punishing parents when they're criminally negligent. I don't care if they're punishing themselves more than society can. We can do both.

I'm talking in generalities. I would need to know more about this tragedy.

Posted
4 hours ago, Armybrat said:

One summer at age 10 I was running around my grandparent’s little hometown (population 250) with a .22 shooting squirrels, birds, and assorted junk targets.

Nobody cared.

OG humblebrag.

IMG_9648.gif.95e6e052061a53afb8fb3fa4c2b1b485.gif

Posted (edited)

I was driving my passed out parents home from the bar while I smoked unfiltered Camels when I was 7.

Edited by Deej
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Posted

every GenXer:

image.gif.cc7e1dfa52b4f0efea9fdad40816cb80.gif

image.gif.553b6ba2eaff1e76bfde89320349b8ef.gif

hopefully they change their mind and drop the charges. 

14 minutes ago, Deej said:

I was driving my passed out parents home from the bar while I smoked unfiltered Camels when I was 7.

i was 14, but...yeah, basically. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, mchookem said:

every GenXer:

Not genx. The cops and DA can go fuck themselves. 

This isn't a crime and if it is it's on the driver. Unless they want to charge the surviving kid with jaywalking. 

It's a tragic accident. 

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Posted

WHy in this country does there always have to be responsibility and punishment for shit that just happens? These kids are riding the subways and buses alone or with other kids all the time in Germany. If something happened there's no way in hell they'd charge the parents. Shit just happens. I walked home from school every single day when I was 7-13 years old. And I got hit by a car when I was 13 in 7th grade not looking the other way as I crossed the street. Why would it be anyone else's fault but my own lol? Like every single person scolded me and knew it was my fault. When did society change when suddenly everyone else is responsible and they have to be punished if something happens?

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Foosters said:

There's this weird phenomenon where people reflexively jump to defend older generations as being above this stuff, when those generations are typically the ones in power making the stupid decisions in the first place.

Like the whole "participation trophies!" argument. Do we think the kids are awarding themselves the trophies?

Well, like gen x/millennial kids who had free reign grew up to become insane helicopter parents. However, what changed where parents became responsible and charged with crimes for shit no other generation was charged with? Like imagine the silent or greatest generation suddenly dealing with this? Lol cmon.

Posted
35 minutes ago, usmc0331horn said:

WHy in this country does there always have to be responsibility and punishment for shit that just happens? These kids are riding the subways and buses alone or with other kids all the time in Germany. If something happened there's no way in hell they'd charge the parents. Shit just happens. I walked home from school every single day when I was 7-13 years old. And I got hit by a car when I was 13 in 7th grade not looking the other way as I crossed the street. Why would it be anyone else's fault but my own lol? Like every single person scolded me and knew it was my fault. When did society change when suddenly everyone else is responsible and they have to be punished if something happens?

I mean, generally speaking if a driver hits and kills a kid the driver is and should probably legally be held responsible. I'll allow for the possibility that it could theoretically happen without the driver having been negligent, but that's not fucking likely. 

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Posted
Just now, wildcat09 said:

I mean, generally speaking if a driver hits and kills a kid the driver is and should probably legally be held responsible. I'll allow for the possibility that it could theoretically happen without the driver having been negligent, but that's not fucking likely. 

That's obviously not what I mean. Obviously the driver is responsible. But placing responsibility on the parents and charging them is such bs legal behavior that shows that this country is just an absolute shithole.

Posted (edited)

At 8 I walked to the grocery store in the hoodish part of Amarillo to buy my Grandma a carton of cigarettes. My payment was a 12 oz can of coke and a candy bar of my choice. 

At 20 I purchased a beer from about a 9 year old running a liquor store, while he watched Three's Company translated to Greek on Corfu. I went out after and drank it as I rode around on a scooter looking for a beach. 

But I never got run over so nobody had to get arrested.

 

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted

Nobody else sees this as the authorities leveraging  a black kid inconveniencing an older (white?) lady, in order to prosecute a black man in the South?

Surly be slippin...

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Posted
3 hours ago, usmc0331horn said:

When did society change when suddenly everyone else is responsible and they have to be punished if something happens?

Its in sync with increased law school graduation numbers.

Posted
7 hours ago, Deej said:

I was driving my passed out parents home from the bar while I smoked unfiltered Camels when I was 7.

Oh shit! I didn't realize my kid has an account on here. I should clean up my fucking language before I post.

Posted
8 hours ago, Deej said:

I was driving my passed out parents home from the bar while I smoked unfiltered Camels when I was 7.

Sadly, Ive seen this happen in real life at a dive bar in New Braunfels in the late 90s.

The bartender was trashed and passed out behind the bar, other bartender makes a phone call saying your mom did it again. A little a car pulls up and four young girls get out and come inside to drag her out. 

Me and a friend tried to help but they insisted they had it. The one driving had to be about 14 years old. 

 

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