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Teen held on $500,000 bail in 'vicious and utterly pointless' bus attack
By adamg on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 3:36pm
The Roxbury 16-year-old, not named because of his age, was ordered locked up in lieu of bail for a Tuesday-afternoon knife attack on another rider on a 23 bus at Ruggles and Tremont streets, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office says.
Even if the kid can raise the money, he'll remain behind bars because Boston Juvenile Court Judge Paul Lewis reovked his bail on outstanding drug and assault cases, according to the DA's office.
"From what we've gathered thus far, this was a vicious and utterly pointless attack," DA Dan Conley said. The Herald reports the teen and his victim, a 47-year-old man from Dorchester, got into "a heated exchange" over something as the bus pulled out of Ruggles station. The DA's office says the teen stabbed the man repeatedly before jumping off the bus and running down Whittier Street. He was captured by surveillance cameras on the bus.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Obviously
the guy on the bus said something about bicycles being motor vehicles and the kid took umbrage.
A vicious and pointless attack by a person
who already has outstanding drug and assault cases. And the police won't release his name to the public because of his age?!?
One word for this - pathetic!
Society needs to make up its mind
(note: not specific to Roadman's comment - just inspired by it)
A 16 year old is too young to drive. A 16 year old is too young to decide whether or not to have a beer. A 16 year old may not be old enough to consent to sexual activity, situation depending, and is not allowed to get medical care without adult authority.
Except when a 16 year old does something deplorable, that makes him an adult and suddenly fully responsible for his actions.
I think this kid is probably mental, certainly needs long-term lockup, and should not be in society at all. However, I think the dissonance in considering someone to be too irresponsible to do positive things while holding that same person responsible as an adult given negative behavior is well worth pointing out.
.... "given some negative
.... "given some negative behaviour".... the negative behaviour was not littering or refusing to pay his fare.... he tried to murder someone. So because 16 year olds can sometimes be regarded by the law as adults(like when they stab a stranger on a bus) they should legally be able to drink. I'm missing something in that logic. I guess laws are not only based on logic but also on experience.
Adulthood by Murder
But, hey, if you think that someone considered incapable of deciding whether it is a good or bad thing to have sex or get his/her ears pierced can become an instant adult through murder, I'm not sure it can be explained to you why that doesn't make any sense.
Are you really equating
Are you really equating having sex or getting one's ears pierced with stabbing someone multiple times? That is insane.
I think...
... we should outlaw 16 year-olds.
Problem solved.
Good points.
I think one of the things we as a society really need to make up our minds about here is whether or not, and under what circumstances, the name of a suspect should be released at all before their trial and conviction. It may be "public" information, but does the public really have a legitimate "need to know" in these cases?
Ideally, if a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, then logically their name shouldn't be released to the public until the guilty verdict is issued. This both protects the suspect should he/she later be found innocent of the charges, and eliminates the possibility for poisioning the jury pool.
On the other hand, if we decide that certain crimes are serious enough (such as murder, manslaughter, rape, arson) that it is deemed necessary to protect the public's interests by releasing the suspect's name prior to trial, then that decision should be made solely on the weight of the charges against that person, and should not be decided based on their age.
Stunned
that, given these recent events, the mayor and all candidates (D) for statewide office haven't taken this opportunity to denounce the knife industry and its cutthroat lobbyists at the National Cutlery Association. We need to get these knives off our streets and out of the hands of young people. We need to crack down on careless knife dealers. We need a police program that will ask mothers to turn in their children who own knives.
Or, y'know, maybe address the real economic and social drivers of crime, ensure swift and certain punishmet of serious offenders, and not merely rail against inanimate objects ...
Sorry. Maybe it's the heat.
It appears that people are
It appears that people are more likely to survive a knife attack than a gun attack.
So if efforts to reduce gun use in Boston has led to more knife violence....than Ill take that as a good thing.
Also, you don't usually get innocent bystanders stabbed...
nor do you get drive-by stabbings which kill little kids. And knives have plenty of other uses than to do damage to living things. Guns, not so much.
You may not like gun control laws, but they work to keep us all safer.
So, get inside where it's air conditioned and cool down, please!