The Town is Stunned?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/08/child.charged.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

As it well should be…

In the name of all that is holy, how can anyone do this?

An eight year old child – a child most likely born in this new millennium – 8 years old…a child that was not even walking six or seven years ago, a child who has only had the capacity to make more than goo-goo gaa-gaa sounds for the past seven years, a little boy who doesn’t even have all his permanent teeth yet has been charged with premeditated murder. He supposedly shot his father and a boarder who lived at his home.

Note that this child has no record of bad behavior in his three or four year school history. Nor is there any record with the child protective services of any prior problem. It appears that a fairly normal child of a single parent with no apparent problems noted by anyone supposedly not only confessed but was questioned by police without a guardian or advocate with him.

Oh my gosh…I am so totally floored by the idea that some cockle-headed adult would automatically assume that a little boy not only shot and killed his father and another adult in two different rooms on two separate floors but thought about it long enough to plan it. I do not care what the evidence shows, this is not an idea that should just rush into anyone’s mind, pint size or otherwise.

I am even more amazed at the idea that someone would not know that most children would confess to anything after a siege of questioning by strange adults.

What have we come to that we can think of charging little children with premeditated murder? What kind of society can we claim to be if we put our children in jail when they appear guilty of a crime or even are guilty of one? How warped and jaded are we that we could even think that prison is an answer to children who commit violent crimes?

Children, people…I am talking about a little boy that is the age of my grandson and my granddaughter. I am talking about a little person who doesn’t even know (possibly) the product of 10 times 10 . I am talking about a baby who has only wiped his own behind for three years (maybe more, maybe less).

My God in Heaven, have mercy upon us…have mercy upon us.