TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • Malicious intent

    Malicious intent

    In our view: Memorial shooting:

    Over the years on this site, there has been a lot of debate about trying juveniles as adults for school shootings and the like. The latest debate rages over Memorial Middle School shooter Thomas White. To refresh your memory, White brought his father’s MAC-90 assault rifle to school, firing one round into the ceiling before the gun jammed, preventing any bloodshed. A lot has been argued about his intent. I think this article should clear up his intent, yet I’m sure the debate will still go on. This is from an editorial in the Joplin Globe which favors trying White as an adult, but it reveals one fact that I didn’t know of until now…

    We will disagree in this case, though every instance must be looked at separately. If anyone doubts the intentions of this disturbed young man, they should re-examine testimony in last week’s hearing in which a juvenile detention officer reported a conversation between White and another boy on Oct. 10, the day after the incident.

    The boy remarked to White that he should have gone ahead and shot Principal Steven Gilbreth in the head.

    “I would have shot him in the head,” White reportedly replied, “but my f—— gun wouldn’t shoot.”

  • Patrick Armstrong pleads guilty to manslaughter

    Judge Accepts Plea Deal In Armstrong Case:

    It’s been almost a year since I’ve posted anything about Patrick Armstrong. The news out of Maine hasn’t been exactly forthcoming. With this story, we get a year’s worth of news all at once.

    For those of you who may have forgotten, Patrick Armstrong was 14 at the time he was arrested for the murder of 14-year-old Marlee Johnston. During the investigation, police found a website made by Armstrong where he professed his admiration for serial killers and the Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

    Today, Patrick Armstrong pleaded guilty to manslaughter. In return for his plea, he’ll serve 25 years with 9 years suspended.

    Tell me if this sounds like manslaughter to you…

    Armstrong is accused of brutally beating 14-year-old Marlee Johnston to death. In testimony Friday in Augusta, a state police detective testified Johnston was beaten repeatedly on the head with an aluminum baseball bat. The detective also said Armstrong told a fellow inmate that he “loved every minute of it.”

    Detective Adam Kelley testified Johnston went to Armstrong’s house to see if she wanted him to join her in walking her dogs. They were neighbors in the town of Fayette.

    So Marlee Johnston befriends Patrick Armstrong and in return, he bludgeoned her to death. And now he’ll be out when he’s 30, possibly sooner.

    It could be that the Johnston family may just want to put it all behind them. If that’s true, I respect them for that. However, in my opinion, not enough justice was served.

  • Douglas Russell

    Douglas Russell

    Man met alleged victim on Myspace:

    PEKIN – A Pekin man is being charged with committing criminal sex abuse three months after he is alleged to have had sex with the 14-year-old girl he met on the Internet.

    Douglas M. Russell, 18, was arrested in September for criminal sexual abuse.

    The charges were filed on Dec. 6, the same day police arrested Russell for allegedly having sex with the 14-year-old girl again.

    On Sept. 12, the Pekin Daily Times reported that Russell and the 14-year-old girl met through the popular networking Web site Myspace.com. According to police reports, the two spent hours chatting online before they finally decided to meet.

    Arrangements were made between Russell and the 14-year-old girl for him to come to her residence so he could crawl through her bedroom window, police said.

    Through their investigation, officers learned that Russell had been to another Pekin residence. Officers went to that house and spoke with a 14-year-old girl who told officers that Russell had recently left the house, Salmon said.

    The 14-year-old girl told police she heard a knock on her bedroom window, saw that it was Russell and let him into the house.

    Detective Dustin Salmon said police did not know if the two continued to communicate between the summer encounter and the most recent incident.

    Russell is charged with criminal sex abuse, a Class A misdemeanor, criminal trespass to private property, a Class 4 felony and obstructing justice, a Class 4 felony.

    I was unable to find a MySpace for Russell.

    And again I have to ask why these 18-year-olds are continually going after underage girls. Can’t you get girls your own age? If you have to tap on somebody’s bedroom window late at night, you know you’re doing something wrong.

  • The overlegislation of MySpace continues

    The overlegislation of MySpace continues

    And while we’re plugging other blogs (because you know, we were) Pat from BelchSpeak has a great post about new proposed legislation that would make it illegal for sex offenders to use fraudulent e-mails to sign up for MySpace…

    The danger in this is that the Federal government suddenly gains the power to monitor the email activity of everyone in order to enforce a law against a small portion of the population. Otherwise this law banning the use of non-registered email addresses is unenforceable. Are liberals going to be outraged over the civil rights of sex offenders being violated?

    Thank you, Charles Schumer and John McCain. Is there nothing you two won’t try to legislate?

  • More on the MySpace database

    More on the MySpace database

    Can MySpace Protect Its People?:

    This is basically an article from Internet News about MySpace’s declaration of their sexual offender database and how they’re going to keep sex offenders off MySpace and how that’s not going to work…

    “We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace chief security officer, said in a statement. The database is a “significant step to keep our members as safe as possible.”

    MySpace said Sentinal Safe resulted from talks with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. But in a statement, Blumenthal called the new measure “ineffective without age and identity verification.

    “Convicted sexual offenders” can swiftly circumvent these protections by using fake names,” he said. The tobacco and alcohol industries already employ age and identity verification on the Internet, he added.

    Nigam said a gap will still remain in the ability to keep sex offenders off social-networking sites until legislation is passed forcing convicted offenders to use registered e-mail addresses.

    How can you force anyone to continually use the same e-mail address? That sounds like a waste of taxpayer money to me. Just because you can legislate something doesn’t make it feasible.

    The article also quotes some really smart people…

    “If predators really want to get around [the barrier] they can easily do it,” Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, said. A blog titled MyCrimeSpace.com lists news items of adults meeting children on the social-networking site.

    Well, that’s not all I do here, but you get the point.

  • Thomas White to be tried as an adult

    Thomas White to be tried as an adult

    Seventh-grader to stand trial as adult in middle school incident:

    Thomas White will be tried as an adult. The 13-year-old who fired a MAC-90 assault rifle inside of Memorial Middle School in Joplin, Missouri has been certified by Jasper County Circuit Court Judge William Crawford to stand trial as an adult.

    Crawford said he based his decision on the seriousness of the offense and the apparent violent nature of the boy’s actions.

    Juvenile officer April Foulkes testified Wednesday that she recommended certification of White to stand trial as an adult because if he was tried in juvenile court, he could be released within six months to a year. She said if he was prosecuted as an adult and convicted, White could be sentenced to a dual-jurisdiction program of the state and placed at a secure-care center in Montgomery City until he turns 18.

    Now let’s hear from the “He’s old enough to fire a gun but not old enough to go to prison” crowd…

    White’s lawyer, Chuck Lonardo, argued at the hearing that the boy is too young to be certified for trial as an adult. He said while treatment of the boy is needed, such treatment could best be accomplished by adjudicating him as a juvenile.

    He also said the court could order that White be kept in custody until he turned 18.

    Lonardo called clinical psychologist Kevin Whisman to testify about a psychological evaluation of the boy that he conducted after the incident. Whisman said in the weeks leading up to the shooting, White was feeling increased pressure to improve his grades, mostly coming from his father, who the boy said had threatened to beat him with a belt if his grades did not improve.

    As we know now the father is no prize either but suck it up, kid. My dad threatened me with a belt all the time, and I was bullied too. But just because your dad and other kids at school are assclowns, it’s no reason to kill other people. Now you’ve basically thrown your life away, and you must be held responsible for your actions.

  • Teenybopper Killa’s lawyer says charges are an overreaction

    Teenybopper Killa’s lawyer says charges are an overreaction

    Lawyer: Threat charges ‘overreaction’:

    Remember Darren Thompson? He’s the self-proclaimed “teenybopper killa” who made threatening remarks on a fan site for teen celebrity Jesse McCartney. Well, in true criminal defense attorney fashion, his attorney is claiming that the charges against his client are an ‘overreaction’…

    Mr. Thompson appeared in court yesterday for a bail hearing with his lawyer, Anthony M. Salerno. Mr. Salerno said he appealed the bail amount and wants it reduced, because the case is an “overreaction and over-prosecution.”

    “After my initial review of the preliminary evidence, I would categorize this as a situation where it’s more about attention versus intention,” Mr. Salerno said. “He (Mr. Thompson) certainly got attention for it, but not the way he was seeking.”

    Mr. Thompson did not post threats to anyone in particular, Mr. Salerno said, and his Web postings were likely a call for attention. Mr. Thompson was not charged with threatening to commit a crime, which is a charge police can file if someone makes a verbal threat to kill or harm another person.

    “I assert that there is a strong difference and a bright line between intentions and someone looking for attention. There is absolutely no evidence that he harbored any specific intentions,” Mr. Salerno said. “I would not consider him dangerous to the point where he should be held on excessive bail.”

    Mr. Thompson has no prior record. Mr. Salerno would not allow his client to be subjected to a mental health evaluation, which was discussed at the initial hearing Friday. “I wouldn’t let them do that because at this time, no mental health defense has been raised,” Mr. Salerno said.

    Let me refresh your memory on some of Mr. Thompson’s threats…

    He even gives out his Whitehall Circle address and warns that he’ll be “waiting” with his SKS assault rifle, the same type of gun police confiscated from his home.

    “This anger I have towards the types of people I hate is only gonna get more intense as I get older,” he writes. “So yeah, I think I will hurt and kill at least one disgusting preppy teenybopper before the decade is over. I can only hope. Watch, I’ll be the guy at the top of the clock tower.”

    Just because a name wasn’t used in the threat doesn’t mean that Thompson isn’t a danger to himself and others.

    And let’s not forget the illegal weapons in his possession…

    Police searching Mr. Thompson’s bedroom closet Thursday recovered an SKS 7.62 x 39 mm rifle, 22 rounds of ammunition, and a nail-studded baseball bat Mr. Thompson called the “ugly stick,” according to court records.

    Mr. Thompson works at the Beechwood Hotel, according to court records. During the police interview, Mr. Thompson said he purchased the assault rifle for $200 from a friend at work, and the ammunition for it while on a hunting trip in Vermont in late October.

    And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his mutant tendencies…

    Police also recovered a diary from his bedroom in which he wrote of his admiration for Eric Harris, one of the two high school students involved in the Columbine High School massacre in Jefferson County, Colo., on April 20, 1999.

    When state and Shrewsbury police interviewed Mr. Thompson, he allegedly told state Trooper Matthew D. Murphy that he was picked on in elementary school and high school.

    Overreaction? Hardly. As a matter of fact, I believe the judge under-reacted by setting Thompson’s bail at $25,000.

  • New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    Keep kids’ photos off Web sites, state attorney general warns:

    The New Jersey State Attorney General thinks pictures are the problem…

    The playground isn’t the only place parents should watch over their children, state Attorney General Stuart Rabner says.

    Rabner said Web sites that let users put their picture online are unsafe and the owners of those sites should adopt a policy to make it easier for people to report harassment and crime online. He said he is mainly concerned with social networking sites, sites made up of picture profiles and descriptions of children and adult users who befriend each other and comment on each other’s pages.

    Rabner asked the chief financial officers of 10 social networking Web sites, such as Myspace, Xanga and Facebook, to consider installing a link that would appear on every page of their site, on which users could click if they felt bothered by another person.

    This link would alert not only site officials but also law enforcement officers in order to catch criminal activity, such as sexual harassment, he said.

    In a Nov. 16 letter to Web site owners, Raber expressed the need for such a policy.

    “The use of your service for illegal activity, and as a medium through which child predators identify, learn about and contact potential victims, poses a serious threat to the public safety of some of our most vulnerable citizens and creates significant risks for the positive reputation and continued operations of your business,” Rabner said.

    “I believe these goals can best be accomplished by making it easier for users to identify and report suspicious activity and illegal content, such as child pornography.”

    Yeah, that won’t cause a plethora of false alarms.

    I noticed that nowhere in his letter did Attorney General Rabner call for better parenting.

  • MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace tool to help block sex offenders:

    MySpace, the popular online hangout that has drawn complaints about sexual predators and other dangers to teens, said Tuesday it will develop technologies to help block convicted sex offenders.

    MySpace is partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding to build a database containing names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States. The News Corp. site, however, stopped short of adopting Sentinel’s technology for verifying the ages and identities of its users.

    The database, to be called Sentinel Safe, “will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, said in a statement.

    This is a major leap forward in the right direction in my opinion. However, I hope the database doesn’t return any false positives. Not only that, but that still doesn’t do anything to prevent first time offenders.

  • Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Cops: Teen coerced to expose herself over Web:

    BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – A 25-year-old man faces federal charges after police said he threatened a young teenage girl and coerced her into using a Web camera to take explicit images that he later posted on the online social network Myspace.com.

    Shaun Brown was arrested and arraigned Monday in federal court on charges that he coerced a minor to engage in a sexual act and that he coerced a minor over the Internet.

    Brown met the 13-year-old girl, who lives in Ohio, in an online chat room for cheerleaders, according to court documents.

    Police said he pursued her with sexually explicit instant messages and threatened to harm her and her family if she didn’t expose herself via the Web cam.

    The girl complied and didn’t tell her parents until after she found the images on Myspace.com. Brown opened an account on the social networking site in the teenager’s name and posted an image of the girl exposing herself and included her name and address, according to court documents.

    What a sick son of a bitch.

    I was unable to find a MySpace for Brown.

    Thanks to Mandy for the tip.