LaFollette mayor charged with gambling:
How’s this for an interesting story? Kenny Michael Bartley, the father of Campbell County High School shooter Kenneth Bartley Jr., was indicted in an illegal gambling scheme along with the mayor of LaFollette, Tenn. I guess the criminal apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
Dyleskis ex-roommate finds disturbing checklist:
I get a lot of comments from people who say that Scott Dyleski is a great kid and couldn’t possibly be capable of killing Pam Vitale. Oh yeah? Well, what do you have to say about this?
It was in late January that David Curiel — who lived with Dyleski and two other families in a Hunsaker Canyon home about a mile down the road from Vitales — found a number of index cards that included detailed personal and financial information about other Hunsaker Canyon residents who were victims of credit card fraud. The handwritten cards included the dates of birth, frequent flier numbers and passwords to eBay and Amazon.com accounts.
And prosecutors say one of the cards included this checklist:
– Knock out/kidnap
– Question
– Keep captive to confirm PINS (personal identification numbers)
– Dirty work
– Dispose of evidence
– Cut up and bury
Things that make you go hmmm?
Romeo school stabber’s sentence increased after escape:
Eric Schorling, the 17-year-old who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years for stabbing Nicole Lambert in the middle of Romeo High School in Michigan, was sentenced yesterday for his attempt to escape. He was sentenced for one year for the escape. Unfortunately, he will serve this sentence concurrently with his 10-year sentence for the stabbing.
Man arrested in school-threat case:
Submitted for your approval, one 23-year-old man from Hilton Head, South Carolina by the name of Michael Hatcher Cochrane.
Mr. Cochrane was arrested for a month-long of phone calls threatening violence against Hilton Head Middle School. Authorities have charged him with five counts of threatening the use of a destructive device and three counts each of threatening the life of a teacher or principal and disturbing schools, even though it appears that Mr. Cochrane never intended to carry out the threats.
Authorities allege that Mr. Cochrane made the threatening phone calls to foster a better relationship with one of his family members.
Is Mr. Cochrane just one of those people who can’t find their own friends and must try to impress the friends of younger relatives in order to appear cool? Or is he just trailer trash with nothing better to do? Or is it some third possibility incomprehensible to the rational mind. The answers lie ahead, as the signpost up ahead reads…
The Dumbass Zone
Apologies to the late Rod Serling.
Another high school athletic hazing incident has been reported. This time it’s from Sierra Vista High School in Las Vegas, Nevada…
The incident, which took place about 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the school’s gymnasium, involved members of Sierra Vista’s boys varsity basketball team. Six or more players jumped a newcomer to the squad and took him to the floor. One or more of the attackers inserted fingers into the victim’s rectum, sources said.
And once again there are allegations of a cover-up…
Sources familiar with the incident also are raising questions about the conduct of a Sierra Vista administrator. Educators are required by law to report abuse involving minors. In this incident, sources said that the victim was reluctant to step forward. His mother first called police.
“This administrator tried to dissuade the (victim’s) mother from reporting it,” one source said. “He also asked Metro (police) to postpone the investigation until after the game.”
A school administrator trying to cover up a crime by an athletic team. Go figure.
I will give the school this much credit, the athletes involved have been suspended and face expulsion. Police are also saying that those involved may be looking at felony charges.
I wonder how long it will be before someone defends this instance of sexual sadism as “boys being boys”.
Link via Bad Jocks.
Friend casts suspicion on Dyleski:
It turns out that it was Scott Dyleski’s close friend and partner in the alleged credit card fraud/marijuana growing scheme that tipped off investigators to Dyleski in the brutal slaying of Pam Vitale…
According to sources close to the case, a teenage friend of Dyleski saw him hours after the killing with scratches on his face. Dyleski told his friend he got scratched while walking in the woods.
A few days later, as the case attracted media attention, Dyleski told his friend he was worried investigators might find his own DNA on Vitale. He told his friend that Vitale saw him in the woods and grabbed him.
The story made the friend suspicious about Dyleski. He also was worried because he and Dyleski were involved in a scheme to use fraudulent credit cards to purchase marijuana-growing lights and have them sent to the homes of neighbors.
Originally, it was thought that Dyleski killed Pam Vitale because he was caught having the marijuana growing equipment sent to Vitale’s house, but that has since been abandoned since no evidence has been found substantiating that.
The friend will testify against Dyleski in exchange for credit card fraud charges being dropped.
It’s been a while since I pissed on the mutants’ cornflakes and there’s nothing that caught my eye in the news today, so I thought I’d give everyone another little taste of what is going on in the minds of mutants.
Every once in a while, I get a tip from someone who peruses message boards and websites that pay homage to the Columbine killers, scumbags Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Today I got two good tips.
The first one is from someone who claims that they might have had a “spiritual” encounter with Dylan Klebold…
Last night at around 2 AM i was sitting on my arse at my computer brushing upon my facts of the 2 lovely boys. When i was thinking, what if dylan and eric’s spirits were still around? And i just starting thinking to myself how awesome that would be if Dylan were a ghost..and my friend. Yes call me weird. haha but anywho…the really weird part is…is a few minutes after i was thinking these things…my teevee turns off on its own. And when i get up to turn it back on….i go back and sit at my computer…and it turns off again. Then i unplugged it and it never turned back on. But i started talking as if Dylan was in my room.
i dont know…i can tell you one thing though, i slept like a baby last night with the fact that MAYBE he was there :]
Lovely boys? I’d hate to see what their definition of atrocious is. You know, maybe if you didn’t romanticize about mass murderers, you could get a real friend instead of your imaginary killer ghost friend.
The second one comes from a thread started by someone who can’t seem to quit me. My name was brought up in vain, as usual, and when one of the newer mutants asked who I was, this the reply that was posted…
Hates Eric and Dylan. Refuses to believe they were bullied even though hordes of facts has been presented to him stating they were. Thinks they were “cowardly psychopaths” Basically he’s a narrow-minded arrogant asshole who refuses to admit he’s wrong.
Hordes of facts? The only fact I saw was that some kid teased one of them in gym class. Like I keep asking if they were bullied, give me the names of their bullies and not just the ever-generic “jocks”.
I’ve presented facts that state they were bullies rather than the bullied, and the mutants can’t admit they’re wrong yet I’m the narrow-minded arrogant asshole. And don’t forget they weren’t just “cowardly psychopaths” they’re also lowlife scumbags that are rotting in hell. But hey, it’s a free country. If you want to spend the rest of your days with your bitterness and hate, then, by all means, go ahead. The rest of us will be over here living well-adjusted lives.
Columbine families polled on records:
Sheriff Ted Mink of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s department is dragging his feet once again over releasing the videotapes and writings seized from the houses of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
He is now polling the families of a dozen students who were either killed or injured during the attack to see if they think the records should be released. It seems like that he’s gambling on the families saying they shouldn’t be released and disguising it as some great service to the victims’ families. The article states opinions vary between families, but the quotes say otherwise.
From the families that want the records released…
“My feeling is that all of this information needs to be released,” said Brian Rohrbough, whose son, Dan, died on a sidewalk outside the school.
“There’s been a long battle. It should have been released years ago.”
Rohrbough, a longtime critic of the sheriff’s office, said he believes that the only reason the tapes and writings have been withheld is because they reflect negatively on the department.
The sheriff’s office had been given information about the killers more than a year before the attacks, and a detective had drafted an affidavit for a search warrant for Harris’ home.
It was never taken to a judge or executed.
That document was withheld from the public for two years and was, according to a grand jury, apparently the subject of an elaborate cover-up involving a former sheriff’s official.
Releasing the material, Rohrbough said, will help people understand more about the killers and the warning signs that were missed.
“I think it sheds a lot of light on what was going on in the year leading up to the attack,” he said. “I think it tells a lot about the two households. And I think it’s absolutely necessary.”
Dale Todd, whose son, Evan, was wounded in the school library, also said the material “most definitely” should be released.
“I’ve been wanting it public from the day I saw it,” he said.
“The behavior experts need to be studying that. . . . I think if they go public, people will watch them and go, ‘Oh, my God, that could be our kid.’ “
And from the families that aren’t sure…
Less certain is Connie Michalik, whose son, Richard Castaldo, was wounded in the first flurry of gunfire outside the school and is now paralyzed.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” she said.
“I asked Richard how he felt about it, and he’s not sure how he feels about it, either.”
She said she can see reasons to make the material public.
But she said she also can see some reasons not to, such as feeding morbid curiosity, rather than serving as a tool to learn how to prevent future violence.
“If it’s just so people can go, ‘Oh wow, what a shame, how terrible’ – what’s the point of that?” she said. “You really get into some gray areas.”
So, from what I can gather, it’s not that the families don’t want the records released per se, but that they’re undecided on whether or not they should be. I can see Ms. Michalik’s point about morbid curiosity. The last thing I want to see is these tapes get in the hands of the mutants, but unfortunately, I think it’s a necessary evil.
It’s been almost 7 years since Columbine. Why has it taken this long to get the records released? The only reason I can see not to release them is if there is an ongoing investigation. And since I doubt there’s an investigation ongoing that the Jeff Co. Sheriff’s Department has been keeping from us. One can’t help but think that they’re hiding something.
Macomb Co. crackdown on young suspects raises issues:
Macomb County, Michigan is like the Bermuda triangle of school violence. Just on my site alone, I’ve discussed the cases of Andrew Osantowski and Eric Schorling.
Both were or are being prosecuted by Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith. He’s also prosecuting the case of Courtney Hood…
Courtney Hood, 14, of Warren was charged as an adult with attempted murder for allegedly holding a classmate underwater. She faces up to life in prison, if convicted, and is due in circuit court Monday for a pretrial conference.
…among others. In the cases of Osantowski, Schorling, and Hood, they were all teens that were tried or going to be tried as adults. The article asks if Prosecutor Smith is going overboard by trying these kids as adults and in some cases using Michigan’s terrorism law to charge these teens…
Juvenile advocates counter that get-tough prosecution is short-sighted and deprives youthful offenders of counseling, education, and other rehabilitative services. And while some residents applaud his actions, others say they think his office has been too aggressive in charging juveniles.
Glenn Stutzky, a clinical instructor at Michigan State University’s School of Social Work, said children need guidance — not punishment — to become productive and law-abiding adults.
“We need to get around to asking children why they are in such a state that they committed an act of violence against themselves or someone else,” Stutzky said. “Charging students with felonies isn’t rehabilitation.”
Youthful offenders are often victims of harassment at school or abuse at home, said Robert Shepherd, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Richmond in Virginia who focuses on juvenile crime.
Shepherd said studies show therapy is more effective than punishment at reducing subsequent offenses.
“A lot of the risky behaviors of kids are very legitimate and natural, and we need to develop programs that deal with what we know about the characteristics of adolescents,” Shepherd said. “The part of the brain that controls impulse and judgment is the last to mature in adolescents.”
In Oakland County, where 11-year-old Nathaniel Abraham was charged in 1997 as an adult with first-degree murder, prosecutors now tend to opt for therapy and education over punishment, said Deborah Carley, chief deputy prosecutor.
“We don’t look at our juvenile system as a punishment system,” Carley said.
What does Eric Smith himself have to say about this?…
Smith said pursuing rehabilitation “is not our job.” He said his job is to prove the elements of a crime, and it is up to a judge to decide if therapy should be part of the punishment for young offenders.
Three months before Smith took office, violence crept into local schools. Sixteen-year-old Eric Schorling stabbed his ex-girlfriend in the back in a hallway at Romeo High School.
Two weeks before that, police found a cache of weapons and Nazi paraphernalia at the home of Clinton Township teen Andrew Osantowski, who threatened to carry out a Columbine-style attack at Chippewa Valley High School.
Smith acknowledges that the 12-year-old accused of threatening to bomb her middle school was likely “joking” and was a good student, but added, “I have to let other kids know that we take that seriously.”
Eric Schooling failed to kill his victim, fortunately. Andrew Osantowski was apprehended before he had the chance to kill anyone. But what if Schorling and Osantowski had been successful? Would we still be having this conversation? Would people still say they only need counseling? Light sentencing for juveniles charged with serious crimes sends out the wrong message. If all they receive is counseling, then any kid who is a would-be school shooter could think that they could just walk into their school, pop off a few rounds, kill a few people, and just have to go to a counselor once a week, and it doesn’t take much to fool a counselor.
Eric Smith should be lauded as a hero for prosecuting criminals. Not vilified for not being sensitive enough.
