Quote:
Originally Posted by The Yen Man
You do understand there's levels of severity right? Yah, I'm sure we've all done stupid things as a teenager in the past, but I can guarantee 99% of us have never verbally and physically assaulted someone for 7 years. The "stupid things" this kid did is way way beyond normal teenager behavior. I'm honesty quite offended you'd lump them in the same category.
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And if he's not a normal teenager, it would take a truly terrible person to think he should be punished with the same level of severity as an adult.
What happened may be nearly as traumatic for the offender as it was the victim. This type of abnormal behaviour doesn't happen just because this kid chooses to be evil. He was a child with the brain of a child. He was heavily susceptible to his upbringing, parental guidance, abuse etc.
He may still be traumatized by his actions as an 18 year old and having that brought up again and again and again could be quite damaging for his mental health.
Does that absolve him of all responsibility? Well of course not, he ultimately did do these things and now he must live with them.
This thread is basically How Not to Handle Mental Health in Children 101. It's really quite sad how few people understand the psyche of a child and how much they are the product of their environment.
And people wonder why our justice system sucks at rehabilitation. It's because people don't want it. They want fire and brimstone justice. Eye for an eye. A world where you wear your transgressions for everyone to see and judge you on at all times.
This kid probably needs as much help as the victim does. His actions were anything but normal and he was 14, not 34.
Anyone saying "I knew right from wrong when I was 14" is completely tone deaf and missing the point here. This kid clearly didn't. He may have serious mental health issues that need attention.
But no, let's attack him, over and over and over and do our best to pressure the Coyotes to ruin his chances in the NHL.
We don't even know what kind of life he's lived since then. Maybe he's had to undergo years of therapy because even the prospect of an in person apology causes him to have complete mental breakdowns, maybe his parents were and still are abusive, maybe they don't know what's wrong with him and live every day hoping they can give their troubled kid the best life possible.
The idea that this is as simple as evil kid vs mentally disabled black teen is to completely disregard everything we as a society, and a lesser extent this forum, has been pushing for when it comes to mental health and compassion. It's quite disgusting and embarrassing, frankly.
And if I were the Coyotes, I'd make an effort to provide any and all help available for this kid and the victim. How about showing the world that we're not all terrible people and compassion does exist? I know it's a lot harder than just cutting this kid off and doesn't fulfill that need for base level vengeance but hey, maybe they have better control over their base emotions that most of us.