Held to answer

The identity of the shooter in the Sparks, Nev., school killings hadn’t been released before a popular excuse was quickly invoked: He had been bullied.

“There has to be an end to this bullying. It is the responsibility not only of the parents but also the schools have to put a stop to this. Bullying has got to be stopped!!” said Jean Forbes of West Reno.

“I am only guessing but (I) would bet a million dollars that the shooter was being bullied and had enough and felt that this was the only way to make it stop. What I believe is that the law and schools need to start holding parents accountable for the actions of (their) kids!” added Dina Lein.

Perhaps there’s another alternative at work: The shooter, feeling put-upon, and hearing so many stories about bullied people being driven to extreme behavior, imagined himself a tragic hero. Classmates – even adults – would cry, feel guilty and think, “I should’ve been nicer … I should’ve done this … I should’ve done that.”

Except there’s nothing heroic about caving into a bully. We’ve all been bullied at sometime in our lives, perhaps many times. And the bully himself, or herself, probably feels bullied by somebody else. (Ever work for a corporation?) Bullying is perpetual and never-ending.

But is it criminal?

If a bully puts his hands on someone else, there are laws against assault and battery. If a bully harasses or stalks someone, there are already laws against those specific crimes.

If someone is deemed a bully because he or she personally dislikes, rejects or ridicules another, is that a crime?

In Polk County, Fla., Sheriff Grady Judd last week arrested two middle school girls on suspicion of felony aggravated stalking for “bullying” a 12-year-old girl into killing herself.

Rebecca Sedwick jumped to her death from the top of a cement plant. After her death, one of the girls accused of being responsible posted a note on Facebook saying she bullied Rebecca and the girl killed herself “but IDGAF (I don’t give a fuck).”

At one time, the girls had been friends then later had a falling out over a boy.

According to an interview with WBUR radio, Sheriff Judd said Rebecca had been tormented for almost a year – online, in person and in school.

If what these two girls did was felony aggravated stalking, why did the sheriff call it bullying? The interviewer at WBUR didn’t ask. Judd was allowed to ramble.

“If there is anything that I can do to make sure that that never happens to another child, not just in my county but across the state and across the nation and around my world, I want to do that. Bullying shouldn’t be a law enforcement issue. The first line of defense are the parents. The second line of defense are the friends and the neighbors.”

How odd that at the same time we are going after this amorphous crime of “bullying,” we are being urged to offer sympathy to offenders who rob, steal and assault – even kill.

Here in Oregon, like many other states, there are efforts under way to make it more difficult to prosecute juveniles.

Last year when the Oregon legislature held hearings for a proposed law to lessen punishment for robbery, sexual abuse and assault, there was testimony from various experts about how the human brain does not stop developing until about age 25.

The suggestion seemed to be that anyone under age 25 shouldn’t be held to the same standards as adults.

While a watered-down version of the law finally passed the Oregon legislature, supporters made it clear that they would try again. Their next likely target will be removing juveniles from all prosecution under Measure 11 crimes, which requires minimum-mandatory sentences for violent felonies.

At the same time, there is a national movement to make it easier for convicted criminals to expunge their records or seal them. This is supposed to help them re-enter society by making it easier for them to get good jobs and find housing.

Expungement is asking us to engage in willful ignorance, to pretend that something didn’t happen when, in fact, it did happen. We already do that in our criminal justice system when we let offenders plead to lesser crimes than the ones they actually committed.

Giving thieves, burglars, robbers – even killers – permission to lie about their criminal histories is hardly the route to true rehabilitation. It’s already hard enough to track someone’s criminal history – particularly if they have a common name or multiple aliases and if their crime has received little publicity.

And, no, the answer isn’t always quickly found on Google.

Several state legislatures have been trying to make it more difficult for the popular mug-shot Websites to exist. Google officials said they have changed their site’s algorithms so mug shots are not displayed so quickly and prominently on searches.

Likewise, PayPal and credit card companies have announced they want to part company with these mug-shot businesses, which demand money (or proof of acquittal or dismissal) to remove a mug shot.

Now go back and look Judd’s admonition to parents, friends and neighbors to be the first and second lines of defense. That’s good advice. It’s hard to be on the defense, though, if you don’t really know your neighbors and associates.

More than three years ago, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville pulled a gun out of her handbag at a faculty meeting and opened fire, shooting six people, and killing three.

As mass shootings go, this was unusual because the killer – Amy Bishop – was female. She also held a Ph.D. from Harvard and, it appeared, had no criminal record.

Later it turned out that Bishop shared a similarity with many common violent felons:  She did indeed have a criminal history. Twenty-four years earlier at the age of 21, Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother. There was no record because it was deemed “accidental.”

As a story in the New Yorker noted, even pointing a loaded weapon at someone is grounds for a felony charge. Yet, Bishop wasn’t charged with anything. Family, friends, neighbors –  even the local police chief – hovered in sympathy over the family to help them move on.

In the Sparks, Nev., shooting the police chief announced that he is not going to release the name of the 12-year-old shooter out of respect for the boy’s grieving family. Yet, the boy apparently obtained the firearm from his family’s home. Was the gun properly locked up? If not, will charges be filed? Are there other children in the family, and what are their stories?

In this case, secrecy won’t last. Names eventually will be released.

Even so, with the passage of time, we will be expected to forget. To do anything less, might be considered bullying.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

Erasing the Past