8 year old intentionally shoots/kills caregiver:No charges will be filed!?!?

Originally posted by thesmokingman
Title pretty much sums it up. An eight year old boy intentionally (as concluded by police) shot and killed his elderly caregiver in the back of the head. At first, police believed it was an accident, however they later determined that the boy had done it intentionally right after playing the video game Grand theft auto. So I guess my question to you ATS, why would the police not charge him? Was it because of his age? Shouldnt they at least charge him with something, anything?
In my opinion, this is a tragic incident indeed, but should this boys age and the fact that he was subjected to a violent video game give him an excuse for doing this? I mean, there must be some kind of punishment right? Tell me I am being to hard on the lil guy, and I am crazy please! Oh wait, here is the official reason why:

However, authorities say they are unable to charge the boy with a crime because of a Louisiana law that protects children from criminal responsibility.

Excuse me?!? Does this mean children under the age of 18 are immune to criminal charges, and are free to kill at will in Louisiana? I may be overreacting but I have NEVER heard of this type of criminal immunity before!!!

www.theblaze.com...

The article clearly said that children under 10 years of age are not held responsible.

I think you need to read your article a bit better.

so......what do you want to do to kids who commit brutal crimes? the US is already viewed as being in the dark ages by the rest of the civilized world for our criminal justice system and how many people we execute....even putting retarded people on death row and minors in jail.


the fact is, we really dont care about rehabbing criminals....we care about punishment.....thats the american way....punishment.

Originally posted by sine.nomine
I don't think the child should be charged criminally. He should get some heavy therapy and counseling though, and the parents should be charged with murder. Its time to start holding parents responsible for allowing children to get a hold of firearms. Its getting out of control. He shouldn't even have been able to play GTA, as its way too mature for someone at that age.

You're right that the parents carry responsibility for both allowing, or rather not sufficiently preventing, their Son to get access to a weapon, and for playing violent computer games...but murder?

No, that's taking it too far.

And no, you cannot charge an 8 year old with murder. A child is classed as being unable to differentiate between what is a crime and what isn't, so effectively under law didn't know he was commiting a murder much less a crime.

Criminal responsibility doesn't start at the 'legal adult age' say 18 years, it is dependent on various factors, but usually in Britain once a child reaches between 10 - 12 they are reasonably expected to be able to know the difference between right and wrong at this stage, and can be tried for crimes in court...but not 8.

I don't know who i feel sorry for the most to be honest...the babysitter or the kid himself. The poor little boy is going to have to carry this around with him forever...he's going to need intensive therapy for years to come if he's going to stand any chance of a normal life.

But yeah, if the parents deliberately gave the boy access to either the violent games or indeed the weapon, they should be in court, charged with child neglect and possibly with constructive manslaughter or criminally negligent manslaughter.

WTF, charging an 8 year old, what am I reading? Children are not responsible for what they do. I know the US is prone to charging even kids but 8 year olds? No way. They dont have the mental capacity to control their actions.

And parents are not responsible either.

Stop trying to point fingers, there is nobody responsible for this. This kind of thing just happens.


He needs therapy, and if he is dangerous then lock him in a mental asylum.

I think age of consent and age of criminal responsibility should be defined as the same by law. Only then will some people realize how crazy it is to charge kids with crimes..

lol, how Id love to see "tough on crime" moral panic and "anti-pedophile" moral panic in such a tug of war.. keeping each other in check

This is an interesting - and very tragic case - but I'm surprised that so many Americans are unaware of the Defense of Infancy laws. Tragically it was spelled out very clearly here in the UK following the murder of Jamie Bulger in 1993. If you're unfamilar with that case, a 3 year old toddler was taken away from a mall by two ten year old boys and brutally murdered.

Had those boys been even a few weeks younger, they might not have been liable to be charged with any crime at all. Shocking stuff, I'm sure you'll agree - but I fullheartedly agree with age of criminal consent, because most crimes involving children are either coerced by an adult, or the result of youthful misunderstanding or naivity. Thankfully child crimes with the savagery of the Bulger murder are extremely rare indeed - and all the more shocking as a result.

Just as a sidenote - people worried about criminals using kids to commit crime, if the US legal framework is similar to the UK's, this isn't a problem - the adult would be responsible for the child's crime legally as they'd have solicited an action the child was not able to be legally responsible for.

Anyhow, in this case the stickler seems to be that the kid acted 'intentionally'. This might be true, but I think it's fair to say 'intentionally' in this case is ambiguous - it would be just as intentional for the kid to point the gun and think 'I wonder what will happen if I pull the trigger?' without considering the consequences as it would be for them to think 'I hate this old lady, and I can make her dead with this gun'. Obviously those two possibilities paint a very different view of the case and the child's motivation.

It's very sad, nonetheless.

Under most countries laws children are exempt from criminal prosecution on the basis of diminished responsibility. If a child commits a crime it is considered to be the fault of the parents for having failed in their duty to instill in that child any sense of right and wrong.

And I think this is fair enough. An 8 year old cannot knowingly be equipped with the moral responsibility to know what they were and were not doing. The parents however? Have a lot to answer for. And could be charged, at least under UK law. I think American law will let them off scott-free though.

Originally posted by tanda7
reply to post by StoutBroux

 

Could you provide a link stating it was HIS grandmother. So far I have only seen her refered to as A grandmother.

I think they don't want people to see this crime as horrible as it is and want to simply blame a video game. Granted the video game is bad but there's some much deeper issues here for an 8 year old to shoot his grandmother in the back of the head while she is in her living room watching the TV.

here's some links:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Boy, 8, shoots 87-year-old grandmother dead 'after playing Grand Theft Auto and tries to claim it was an accident'

news.sky.com...

An eight-year-old boy intentionally shot and killed his grandmother minutes after playing the violent video game Grand Theft Auto IV, US authorities said.

The town of Slaughter, Louisiana, is in shock after the child was able to access the family's gun and shoot the 90-year-old in the head while she was watching television.

The woman, (Marie Smothers) who was helping to look after the boy, was pronounced dead at the scene at the Country Breeze Mobile Home Park.

Sheriff's deputies have not revealed a motive but they pointed out the child was playing the video game before the fatal shooting.

Originally posted by StoutBroux
The town of Slaughter, Louisiana

and

The woman, (Marie Smothers)

That's unreal...town of slaughter? Seriously?

And the womans name...smothers?

I'm starting to wonder if this is a fake story TBH.

Originally posted by sine.nomine
I don't think the child should be charged criminally. He should get some heavy therapy and counseling though, and the parents should be charged with murder. Its time to start holding parents responsible for allowing children to get a hold of firearms. Its getting out of control. He shouldn't even have been able to play GTA, as its way too mature for someone at that age.

straight up Psychopath spawn.

All he derserves is euthanasia.

there is no need for a thing like that to cause any more terror or mayhem. Sometimes a rotten apple is just rotten, what happens when a rotten apple is around good apples? do the good apples turn the rotten one good? Or does that rotten one taint the whole basket

reply to post by thesmokingman


If children are killing at this age it is not the fault of that child. Something terrible is happening to our society and we need to address that issue and then the symptoms (children killing for one) will go away.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Seems to me like it was his legal guardians' fault for making the mistake of allowing him to play such a game with that amount of violence...If I were the one in charge of the investigation, I wouldn't necessarily charge him. I would definitely put the child into some kind of program. After all, the boy is 8, he really doesn't know any better.

Plenty of kids play violent video games and turn out fine. If you want to blame something, it is the fact that a kid has access to a loaded gun. That is dangerous, for him and for others.

This is a tragic case and due to the circumstances, obviously "blame" is not a very clear-cut thing here. It would seem that it's at least partly on the caretaker for not securing the firearm better.

However, to those who say the parents are not to blame, I will say this:


1- Who let the kid play Grand Theft Auto? Was it the caretaker? I'd assume it's more likely the parents. That doesn't quite seem right....

2- When I was an 8 year old child, I can guarantee you there is no way in the world I would have done this. And while I may not have played GTA, I did watch a lot of really violent horror movies, from a young age. So graphic violence and seeing people killed wasn't strange to me. However, here are things I had in my favor, that would have prevented me from doing something like this--

A- A very clear understanding of the distinction between fiction / fantasy, and reality.
B- A very strong, clear sense of morals -- "right and wrong."
C- Compassion for others


My family may have let me watch violent media-- but they also instilled in me points A, B, and C above. And any parent who hasn't done so already, needs to start with their child immediately. In this day and age, both qualities are invaluable and indispensable. And I would personally blame this kid's family, at least a little bit, for not accomplishing these things.

It's called being a parent and actually raising your kid. Not just letting them veg out in front of the TV or Xbox and hoping everything turns out okay.


For the record, I also never saw a weapon more powerful than a knife in my home before I was a teenager. But I sure would have respected it if I had. Also, an effect of parenting.

reply to post by thesmokingman


So... if a person were to move to Louisiana and start a group of ninja/assassin/mercenaries, you should make sure they are all under 10? What if there was some super-smart and intelligent evil 9 year old who wanted to start a gang out of stupid little kids?

It's not like I think that kid should be thrown in prison but, at the very least, he should live the rest of his minor life in state custody under psychiatric supervision and then evaluated before being let loose.

If all it takes is a video game to set him off, gods forbid he watch a zombie flick or the news.

The responsibility for this death lies in only two places. Allowing the kid to play GTA (a game I find offensive as an adult) and most specifically; Whoever allowed that gun to be accessible to an eight year old. I am a big fan of gun ownership. However when someone does not lock their firearm away from children THEY are responsible for what happens.

reply to post by thesmokingman


Never trust "theBlaze" - it's fundamentalist crapola spawned by Glenn Beck.

OBVIOUSLY, as the two members with multiple stars (each has one more, now) said - it is the caregiver's responsibility - AND the parents' responsibility - to ENSURE that an 8-year old child does NOT have access to a live, loaded firearm. For heaven's sake, people.

That child will need therapy probably for the duration of his young life. He has reached the "age of reason" - he will NEVER, EVER forget this. To have allowed an 8-yr-old to play Grand Theft Auto is asinine; to entrust a child to an "elderly" and irresponsible gun owner is likewise asinine.

Stupid. Stupid parents, stupid caregiver, and poorly educated, poorly parented, UNnurtured child.

Originally posted by Sharingan
reply to post by thesmokingman

 

Excuse me?!? Does this mean children under the age of 18 are immune to criminal charges, and are free to kill at will in Louisiana? I may be overreacting but I have NEVER heard of this type of criminal immunity before!!!

Nope. I guess you just read the first line or two because you left this part out.

The state law states that “those who have not reached the age of 10 years are exempt from criminal responsibility.”

Could be worse. In my country the legal age is 18 and the thugs that are under 18 are milking it (teenagers). They know they wont get in serious problem just a little pampering social service that tells the violent people they are miss understood. And if you kick their ass you go to jail for hitting a "kid". From my point of view people that are violent should be locked up in mental institutions until they have learned empathy.

This kid should probably be placed in another family. Even if it is the caregiver that makes all the mistakes still the parents should have been on top of what kind of caregiving the child received.

Under federal law the kid is liable for the actions made,

My 2cents

Children are not innocent. They manipulate from the cradle. This kid should be charged.