[Signing] Bruins sign Mitchell Miller UPDATE: Rescinded

[ThePrince]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

He was still 14 at that time when the court case happened in Ohio.

14. YEARS. OLD.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be judged. I'm saying there shouldn't be some lifetime repercussions over something you do when you're 8-14 years old in grade 2 to grade 8.

I don’t know about you, but at 14 years old, I knew enough to not call people the N-word, make them eat something I dragged across a urinal, or physically abuse them. Maybe I was special though….

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You understand that what individuals here think actually doesn’t matter, right? It didn’t stop him from being signed? You’re just weirdly upset that it everyone is stoked about it or something? Why?

You understand that what individuals say about this case says a lot about the kind of people they are? And that some of you are saying some pretty sickening things?

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

I don’t know about you, but at 14 years old, I knew enough to not call people the N-word, make them eat something I dragged across a urinal, or physically abuse them. Maybe I was special though….

100%

But who's fault is that if he doesn't at 14. Is that on him or is that his surroundings and upbringing?

My point this entire time was that the focus should be on education, and making him understand why it was wrong.

I just don't think it's right to hold something that happens at 14 over somebody for the rest of their life. I don't think that does any good for society and think it actually just means it's more likely that he becomes resentful and hateful and then passes that on to his kids.

He was punished by Ohio courts. He lost his scholarship. He's had to answer to the court of public opinion. It's not like there have been no repercussions.

[ThePrince]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

100%

But who's fault is that if he doesn't at 14. Is that on him or is that his surroundings and upbringing?

My point this entire time was that the focus should be on education, and making him understand why it was wrong.

I just don't think it's right to hold something that happens at 14 over somebody for the rest of their life. I don't think that does any good for society and think it actually just means it's more likely that he becomes resentful and hateful and then passes that on to his kids.

I don’t disagree, but every single one of your posts has ignored the fact that no one else believes he is truly remorseful for his actions, and his actions since have not done anything to show his remorse. The same cannot be said of the other boy involved in the incident, so I don’t think it is fair to say that this is just biased.

The only time he started “apologizing” was when it became clear it was going to affect him.

I agree with your generalization. I also don’t believe it should be applicable in this case.

[Derek Sutton]

Much more well written and articulate many of us posters ever will be.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...CAA-Career.php

Of note. It should be noted, too, that Miller's agent is Eustace King. King, an African-American and former college hockey player at Miami, is a member of the NHL’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. King has thought enough of him to take him on, take him under his wing, and advocate for places to play.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

You know who's garbage? People who think that they can judge other people as garbage, and claim they are incapable of ever improving.

Look in the goddamn mirror.

Didn’t you just judge other people as garbage, too?

Are you calling yourself garbage? Cheer up, man. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

I don’t disagree, but every single one of your posts has ignored the fact that no one else believes he is truly remorseful for his actions, and his actions since have not done anything to show his remorse. The same cannot be said of the other boy involved in the incident, so I don’t think it is fair to say that this is just biased.

The only time he started “apologizing” was when it became clear it was going to affect him.

Personally I don't think I can accurately assess that. I've never talked to the victim, I've never talked to the accused. How can I sit here and act like I know if he's remorseful or not?

All I can do is state that generally I'm not comfortable with holding something that somebody did between the ages of 8-14 and grades 2-8 over the rest of their lives (unless it's like murder or something and even then that's likely a bigger mental health question).

The only people that have said he's not remorseful are the victim of the family, and supposedly the magistrate in the court case (as per the victims family). And as I did previously say there is clearly a justifiable bias there, so you do have to consider that. There is clearly history here that goes beyond just the incident we can read about in the media, and I think we need to understand what the intentions of the victims families posts are. This is beyond "remorse" and "Getting an apology" IMO, and there is hatred and anger there and we have to consider that as part of their bias.

But if you are going to take the victims families word for it does that hold more or less weight than the accused's family...in both cases there are going to be biases.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

I don’t disagree, but every single one of your posts has ignored the fact that no one else believes he is truly remorseful for his actions, and his actions since have not done anything to show his remorse.

To be clear: By ‘no one else’, you mean the victim's mother, plus a bunch of people who have never personally witnessed any of these actions and are going by her version of events?

She doesn't think he's shown remorse. She has also made it clear that she doesn't think he is capable of remorse, and that she will never accept anything he does from this day forward as evidence of remorse. There is literally nothing he can do that will change her feelings. Is that a reason to punish him for the rest of his life?

There's a reason why we don't let victims or their families sit on juries. And there's a reason why we don't allow convictions when one of the jurors is certain the accused is guilty.

Under our legal system, nobody has ever been sent to prison because the victim's mother wanted it to happen – but that's exactly what one poster has suggested. And in our society, ‘one strike and you're out’ is not and has never been the law – but that's how a lot of you want things to be done.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Didn’t you just judge other people as garbage, too?

I never said those people couldn't change, and I specifically called out people who claim that the ‘garbage’ people are incapable of ever changing. So no, I did not.

Are you calling yourself garbage? Cheer up, man. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

As usual for you, you ignore what I actually said and twist a selection of my words to use against me. You're very good at doing that to other posters, but you are fooling yourself if you think it gives them a good opinion of you.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

I don’t know about you, but at 14 years old, I knew enough to not call people the N-word, make them eat something I dragged across a urinal, or physically abuse them. Maybe I was special though….

That's all fine and good for you, however, we have no idea of his up bringing. There is a very good chance his parents used these words and this type of talk was common within the household, I know mine did. There are pockets of the USA where language like this is still common place.

[Jordan!]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

You know who's garbage? People who think that they can judge other people as garbage, and claim they are incapable of ever improving.

Look in the goddamn mirror.

You're probably someone who bullied kids in school that became born again nice guy as an adult and relate to Mitchell Miller judging by your posts in this thread.

The stuff he did goes beyond typical bullying and he did it at an age where he absolutely should've been conscious of it.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Much more well written and articulate many of us posters ever will be.
https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...CAA-Career.php

I'd like to quote a bit from that article, for those who may never click through to read it:

Miller's actions were obviously terrible. No one is saying otherwise. They deserve consequences. They deserve sincere apologies. They deserve time away for reflection. All those things happened. A major hockey league already recognized that his "sentence" was over. Last year. People at Tri-City, which includes highly-respected head coach Anthony Noreen, said Miller was a model citizen and model teammate last year.

At some point, you get another chance. Colleges, however, decided otherwise.

The Internet, of course, lacks the ability to discuss nuance, or do anything but take black-and-white militant positions.

Yet people who have never even met Miller have decided that he is ‘garbage’ and is incapable of ever being anything else, and should be punished for the rest of his life.

That's just plain wrong.

[Derek Sutton]

Originally Posted by Jordan!

You're probably someone who bullied kids in school that became born again nice guy as an adult and relate to Mitchell Miller judging by your posts in this thread.

The stuff he did goes beyond typical bullying and he did it at an age where he absolutely should've been conscious of it.

Please describe what is "typical bullying", and also, look up frontal lobe development.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Jordan!

You're probably someone who bullied kids in school that became born again nice guy as an adult and relate to Mitchell Miller judging by your posts in this thread.

You obviously know nothing about me – not that that ever stops you from talking.

In fact, I was regularly bullied as a kid. When I was 14, I was permanently expelled – not by the school, by the school district – because I got angry about it.

All the school bullies had food fights every day in the cafeteria. That day, for a change, they decided to throw all their lunches at me. I got angry enough to kick over a garbage can. Two days later, I was told that I could not return to school until I could promise that no such incident would ever happen again.

‘So you want me to guarantee that nobody will ever throw food at another person in the cafeteria again?’ I asked them. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

‘That's your problem,’ they said, and kicked me out.

I had to try to finish high school by correspondence courses, which had, in those pre-Internet days, a 98% failure rate. (Nobody told me that going in.) It took me more than twenty years to clear my academic record and get accepted by a university, because people who think like you decided that I was garbage and could never be anything else.

(I predict with great confidence that you will either ignore what I just said entirely or call me a liar. I don't expect you to believe me, because it might cause you to think that your own position is not 100% correct, and you don't appear to be the sort of person who does that. I usually don't talk at all about my private life on this board, but in this case I make an exception so that, I hope, some other people will understand what a colossally foolish accusation you have just made.)

The stuff he did goes beyond typical bullying and he did it at an age where he absolutely should've been conscious of it.

If he had killed someone at that age, he wouldn't have a criminal record today. But you want him punished forever and believe he is incapable of ever being anything but, in your own words, ‘garbage’. This in spite of his junior coach, his (Black) agent, and other people who actually know him and deal with him every day, saying that he has become a model teammate and a good citizen. No, you just see the 14-year-old kid and want him punished forever.

And apparently now you think I'm just like him. What punishment do you have in mind for me, O Master of the Fates of Man?

[ThePrince]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

To be clear: By ‘no one else’, you mean the victim's mother, plus a bunch of people who have never personally witnessed any of these actions and are going by her version of events?

She doesn't think he's shown remorse. She has also made it clear that she doesn't think he is capable of remorse, and that she will never accept anything he does from this day forward as evidence of remorse. There is literally nothing he can do that will change her feelings. Is that a reason to punish him for the rest of his life?

There's a reason why we don't let victims or their families sit on juries. And there's a reason why we don't allow convictions when one of the jurors is certain the accused is guilty.

Under our legal system, nobody has ever been sent to prison because the victim's mother wanted it to happen – but that's exactly what one poster has suggested. And in our society, ‘one strike and you're out’ is not and has never been the law – but that's how a lot of you want things to be done.

Wow, why did you cut my quote off directly when it contradicts your statement? That’s really sketchy.

Again, clearly they accepted the apology of the other boy implicated in the situation, so yes, I do believe in the years between the incident and when we was drafted, he had the opportunity to actually show remorse and apologize. And if he did so, the family wouldn’t be as outspoken as they are now. He did not do those things. Not until it was clear it was going to affect his future.

You intentionally cutting my quote off and misrepresenting what I’m saying isn’t changing that.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by ThePrince

Wow, why did you cut my quote off directly when it contradicts your statement? That’s really sketchy.

…

You intentionally cutting my quote off and misrepresenting what I’m saying isn’t changing that.

I didn't misrepresent what you said. You believe, based on third-party hearsay, that the other culprit showed remorse. You believe, based also on third-party hearsay, that Miller never showed remorse and is incapable of ever showing it.

What the other culprit said, and whether he was forgiven, has absolutely no relevance to the question whether a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the case should appoint themselves to judge Miller unfit to pursue a career that suits his talents. You choose to believe the victim's mother – and no one else – apparently because it allows you to feel virtuous while calling out for revenge against another human being. You choose to completely ignore the testimony of many other people as quoted in the article by Adam Wodon. This article was cited already in this thread, but here is the link again, for your benefit:

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...CAA-Career.php

[MikePatton]

Jay Random - thank you for sharing your story. I also think you have a point worth making in your posts, but won't persuade anyone without showing them respect.

We all have different frames of reference/worldviews from how we've been raised and what we've experienced. It doesn't make people awful if they've been molded to think a certain way. It could make them teachable, though. Yet no one will listen without being shown respect.

Also, the people saying he should not be in the NHL, etc. may not all be suggesting what you think they are (like he should be punished in perpetuity, for instance - so much is lost in translation over text).

I think these things are difficult to navigate. Restorative justice is frequently used for things like sexual violence, but it requires the victim/community to be part of the forgiveness process to work. There's harm to the individual, and there's harm to the community, and balancing both is difficult. In this case you might have to factor in harm to the public as well. I'm not sure where I land on this.

Just my 2c

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by MikePatton

Jay Random - thank you for sharing your story. I also think you have a point worth making in your posts, but won't persuade anyone without showing them respect.

I learned many years ago that nobody ever persuaded his opponent of anything in an Internet argument. The most I can hope for is that some of the neutrals will see this call for vengeance as what it is. It is very hard to make clear the seriousness of the harm that some posters are contributing to with their angry and callous rhetoric; doubly hard when my own emotions are involved. I apologize for failing to strike that balance.

I've seen people's lives and careers ruined by Twitter mobs and other online smear campaigns. This thread, and the calls for the Bruins to renege on their contract or for Mitchell to be banned from the NHL, are part of exactly that kind of campaign. Justice is never achieved by such methods.

Thank you for your kind words.

[Buzzard]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

This one always is a tough one to me.

I don't think anybody should have life opportunities taken away for something that happened in middle school, kids make mistakes at that age and I'd be lying if I said I never bullied anyone when I was 14. (Although what he did goes beyond just "bullying" he was still just a kid in middle school).

But it also doesn't seem like he's really learned why what he did was wrong, and doesn't seem remorseful about it. The family on the other side is adamant he never actually apologized either.

I don't know...don't think it's crazy to give him a contract to be honest.

You've pretty much summed up my thoughts. I guess you could almost look at it like he is still young and stupid. I know myself, I did some stupid things in my teens, and in all honesty wasn't feeling a whole lot of regret until passed the age he is at now. Mind you I also didn't lose lucrative opportunities over things I did, or have the entire hockey world reminding me of it either. That probably would've sped up recognition of my past transgressions I'm sure.

Really, I guess a lot does boil down to maturity. Racists are usually uneducated, immature, and always ignorant.

[ThePrince]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

I didn't misrepresent what you said. You believe, based on third-party hearsay, that the other culprit showed remorse. You believe, based also on third-party hearsay, that Miller never showed remorse and is incapable of ever showing it.

What the other culprit said, and whether he was forgiven, has absolutely no relevance to the question whether a bunch of people who had nothing to do with the case should appoint themselves to judge Miller unfit to pursue a career that suits his talents. You choose to believe the victim's mother – and no one else – apparently because it allows you to feel virtuous while calling out for revenge against another human being. You choose to completely ignore the testimony of many other people as quoted in the article by Adam Wodon. This article was cited already in this thread, but here is the link again, for your benefit:

https://www.collegehockeynews.com/ne...CAA-Career.php

I read that article already. Fully. It’s trash. Doesn’t say anything except that he should be good because he was young.

First of all, it’s not third party hearsay, it’s court and school record. Mitchell Miller was chastised by the magistrate for clearly showing no remorse in the case. The same was not said of the other boy. Mitchell Miller was also given a harsher punishment by the school for repeatedly lying about his involvement. None of this is hearsay and all contributes to the discussion that he felt no remorse until they actually affected his future.

I can see that you like to delete parts of people’s posts in your quotes and take them out of context. But I urge you to go back through my posts and show where I asked for “revenge” as you put it. I did not. I am merely stating that actions have consequences and if you refuse to actually believe that your actions are hurtful to others and only show “remorse” when it affects you, then you should continue to bear the consequences of your actions. Expecting that people face those consequences is not asking for revenge, nor is it so that I can “feel virtuous”. But by all means, continue to attack my character if it makes you feel like it justifies your beliefs.

Edit: Because I forgot to address this. Which quotes are you referring to in that article? It’s basically just an opinion piece. There are no quotes from others, other than the article saying “but he hired a black agent!”. Where is this testimony of many others you speak of?