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?]
