Kids thrown in jail for being kids
Today’s Oregonian has a lengthy story about kids being kids, and the power-mad prosecutors who want to throw them in jail: Two young boys at McMinnville’s Patton Middle School were sent to jail for five days for supposedly sexually harassing their classmates, by running through the halls swatting girls on the bottom. But that’s not all. They now face the prospect of 10 years in jail and a lifetime sentence on Oregon’s sex crime registry.
I don’t think it will go that far — thanks in part to the Oregonian’s coverage of this travesty, which underscores the irksome level of stupidity
surrounding this case — but you never know. Still, I have a strong suspicion that the more explaining officials have to do, the more likely these power-hungry morons will back off.
I mean, how can you justify something this ridiculous:
Several girls told Roache and Tillery the boys had swatted their behinds on what they declared to be “slap butt day,” according to the first police report. Some girls told police they did not like it and had asked the boys to stop. But a follow-up report filed four days later by Roache makes the situation seem much foggier.
All told, Roache interviewed 14 students besides Cornelison and Mashburn. Seven confessed to bottom-swatting, including one girl who described it as “a handshake we do.” Two of the alleged victims said they had swatted boys’ buttocks themselves.
“She will touch Cory after he touches her first,” Roache wrote in the report.
This second round of interviews took place while the boys were in detention. A day later, the juvenile court held a hearing on whether the boys should be released. The courtroom was packed with Patton students and families of both boys — many were crying. The boys were there, too, in shackles and jail outfits.
Are you kidding me? Other kids took part? Then why target these kids? There really isn’t much to say about this, except that this growing trend of treating overly rambunctious children like sex offenders is extremely disturbing. Maybe I’m alone here, but I don’t see what good it does to irreversibly and negatively alter a child’s life over an innocuous and likely non-sexualized butt slap. Everyone involved in this case, on the prosecutorial end, should be severely admonished — I mean Nifong-level admonishment.
[Addendum: It appears as if the father of one of the boys works for the McMinnville News-Register, the newspaper owned by the OC’s Ossie Bladine’s family. Is this correct?]
can anyone say Naifong
The cops really ought to learn to comport themselves with more dignity than that.
This comes from the same school district who ordered a fullout strip search of a 7th and 8th grade girls PE class in 1998 because some cash was stolen from the locker room. It was hilariously sad.
Yamhill County is one of the toughest on sexual crimes. One of my friends almost had to file as a sex offender for the rest of his life because he got a BJ from a 16-year-old when he was 20. It probably spawns for the large amount of tweaker perverts that rome the county looking for helpless girls and boys to fondle. This whole thing upsets me because the ass-slap high five is one of the best greetings I think humans can have.
And damn right that’s my paper. But we do not condone sexual assault, but do love giving a good ass slap.
Say what you will will about the tenets of zero tolerance, Dude, at least it’s an ethos…
d*:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “common sense” in this country has long since been replaced by an obsession with rules to keep everyone and everything “safe”, and the more laws and government agencies devoted to the cause, the better.
Common sense would require too much personal responsibility, and Americans have been learning for decades — starting with the Boomers, really — that personal responsibility is too hard.
You’re exactly right, Tyler. This is ridiculous. I guess McMinnville’s DA needed some media attention. When was the last time you thought of McMinnville before this?
THis is an outrage. I mean what has happend to commen sense. How does 10 years of prison and destroying a kids life over something so small. Will the girls lives be changed forever? NO! But the boys who are spending ten years in prison will have thiers destroyed. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/video/index.ssf?LC_11SPAN122
@Timbo
*whoosh*
@Vincent
At least the trains run on time.
Ironically, the mandatory minimum sentence for rape in Oregon is only 8 years, 4 months.
Nonsense. Zero-tolerance rules protect us all. These shitbags deserve whatever they get.
Well, if they weren’t going to grow up to become sexually repressed criminals before, they’ve certainly been shown the path now. Way to create your own demons, McMinnville!