From: johnt@meaddata.com (John Townsend)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show
Subject: Re: A Stolen Life, A Dying Soul
Followup-To: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show
Date: 28 Dec 1992 16:45:19 GMT
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: skibum.meaddata.com

In article <nate.990@psygate.psych.indiana.edu>, nate@psygate.psych.indiana.edu (Nathan Engle) writes:
|> sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) writes:
|> >I read this and was sickened by it.  All I've got to say is that's what
|> >the death penalty is for.  I honestly hope those three killers get the
|> >gas chamber, no appeals.
|> 
|>     I read the original post, but my reaction was merely to be saddened. 
|> Perhaps my study of history has inured me to violence, but it's difficult 
|> for me to get too overwrought about individual cases like this one.

This is not so much an individual case as an example of a continuing (and
worsening) trend in our society.  Even here, in the relatively quiet midwestern
town of Dayton, Ohio, there has just recently been a rash of assaults by teens
on other young people merely for the clothes they were wearing.  One man was
shot in the back by a teenager after he complied with demands for his jacket
and shoes.  I did a Nexis search, and found the following ABC news transcript
of a November 24 story about Melvin's murder:

   PETER JENNINGS: From San Jose, California, tonight, one example of an
   alarming rise in teenaged violence.  Consider this: nationwide, the number
   of juveniles arrested for murder has nearly doubled in the past decade.  In
   San Jose, this week, an 18 year old boy pleaded not guilty to charges that
   he and two companions murdered an eight year old.  ABC's Tom Foreman is in
   San Jose.

   TOM FOREMAN: {POLICE / PHOTO} Even police were shocked when they arrived at
   the apartment where  Melvin Ancheta  had been left home alone with a cold.
   The eight year old boy was lying on the floor, his mouth taped shut.  He had
   been stabbed, hacked with a meat cleaver and strangled to death.

   SARGEANT DENNIS LUCA: They had a hard time killing him.  They thought they
   killed him upstairs.  They brought him downstairs and they had to finish
   killing him downstairs.

   DENISE THORP / NEIGHBOR: Everybody's been crying.  It's just something you
   don't expect to happen to an eight year old.

   TOM FOREMAN: {NEWSPAPER ARTICLES} But the bigger shock was yet to come.
   Police charged three teenaged friends of the victim in the murder - a 15
   year old, a 16 year old and an 18 year old.  {SUSPECT} Police say Melvin
   trusted them enough to let them in the front door, then they stole 100
   dollars worth of property and killed him because he was a witness.  For San
   Jose, it is a horrifying example of growing teenaged violence.

   MARC BULLER / DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: We never used to call juveniles
   sociopaths.  Now that word's coming up all the time.

   TOM FOREMAN: {KIDS' BASKETBALL GAME} Melvin's murder was not an isolated
   incident.  Violent crimes committed by teenagers increased 25 percent here
   in the past year.  Many blame gangs.

   TEENAGE BOY: I think it's getting worse every day because everyone wants to
   be like someone that's bigger than them.  They want to be like those gangs.

   TOM FOREMAN: {GIRL WITH MOM} But even nongang members, like the suspects in
   this case, are being swept into the violence.  Now, Melvin's playmates dream
   of killers outside their doors.

   ROSA RAMIREZ / NINE YEARS OLD: Like, he's out there and we're going out to
   play and he's right there at the door and he's just, like, trying to stab us
   with a knife.

   TOM FOREMAN: {FUNERAL} It will be a long time before this town comes to terms
   with Melvin's murder.  Few here have any clue how to deal with the kind of
   teen violence that killed him.  Tom Foreman, ABC News, San Jose.

By the way, it was not the 18-year-old who actually killed Melvin.  It was the
15-year-old.  Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 18-year-old,
and to try the 16-year-old (who was the lookout and had posession of the stolen
items) as an adult, but the worst that can happen to the 15-year-old is that he
will be held in a juvenile center until he is 25.

What strikes me about this story is the common theme it shares with the Bob
Greene article.  The closing line, "Few here have any clue how to deal with the
kind of teen violence that killed him," hauntingly echoes Greene's statement
that "unless we can figure out a way to cure the dying national soul, we might
as well just turn out the lights and say a prayer on our way out, because it's
over."  Personally, I think Rush hit the nail on the head in his monologue
about this:  life has been cheapened in our culture for the sake of such things
as entertainment and choice, and this is only the logical result.

|> >Call me crude, but something must be done.
|> 
|>     I think that your gut reaction may lead you to wish for something less 
|> than purely poetic justice. IMHO the most appropriate thing that could be 
|> done would be to throw those three guys and a case of A1 sauce into a cell 
|> with Jeffery Dalhmer. (There you go, Simon, you weren't nearly as crude 
|> as me)

Mega-dittos.

-- 
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