Credit where it’s due to WW reporter James Pitkin for this scoop: Beanbag girl was re-arrested last night after setting her bedroom on fire while watching TV footage of her sentencing yesterday afternoon.
You go, beanbag girl! Or at least, I understand why she did it. Listening to the trial proceedings yesterday I was struck repeatedly by how little chance this girl has of succeeding in life. Her mother was sentenced for delivery of cocaine in 2007, she was raped at the age of 7. At the end of the trial I was thinking, frankly, thank God I was born white and affluent. I’ve been spared a lot of bad luck in my life, I’m unlikely to be profiled by police, and there are a few socially acceptable outlets for my anger. What does this girl’s future hold?
I also want to stress that I found the judge’s decision to try the case herself, instead of proceed with a jury trial, abhorrent. We, as a community, were charging this girl with adult crimes—felonies that will stay on her record—and yet she’s not entitled to a jury trial? While the judge wasn’t swayed by any of the defense’s arguments about the cops lying in their reports, breaking escalation procedures and essentially causing the outcome that they did, I feel certain that a jury would have been. It’s not the judge’s place to make rulings like this—it’s a jury’s. And if the judge was thinking that by finding the girl guilty, she could use the justice system to keep a closer eye on her, well, that’s not true. From the girl’s perspective, or at least from mine, the judge was just out to protect the rogue officers from justice.
It’s enough to make me want to set something on fire, too.
Thank you, my sentiments exactly.
BURN BABY BURN!!!!!!!!!
What basis do you always have to classify people in these situations by race?
Why do you continue to judge by color of skin?
@D I don’t know. Probably the same basis that the police bureau does when it’s profiling unarmed black men during its “threat assessments.”
Haha. Attacking the police officers wasn’t her fault, and now her own bedroom on fire isn’t her fault either? Your complete disbelief in any sort of personal responsibility may be severe enough to count as a learning disability.
OK, aside from the fact that has NOTHING to do with this case (proving my point),
Point out the source for this = ‘profiling unarmed black men during its “threat assessments.”‘
And show me where the police use ‘black’ as justification or specific indicator.
If we don’t stop getting past race, we’ll never get past race.
Maybe she was just smoking crack.
Damn well put Matt. I agree on all points.
Matt’s spot on with this assessment. This case is a shameful failing of the criminal justice system, and suggests those in charge are far more interested in protecting its own than helping the vulnerable.
In a previous life, I worked with kids who set fires. As a group, they are usually deeply troubled, and mostly male. The very small number of girls who set fires tend to very damaged, even more so than the boys, and almost always have suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, which leaves them virtually incapable of forming healthy attachments with anyone.
This kid is exactly the kind the cops and the judge are supposed to help. They deserve society’s pity not our wrath.
The cops and judge, acting on our behalf, have done this girl no favors. An arson conviction, which looks all but inevitable, will put her on a one-way path that’s all by irreconcilable with a healthy productive life.
This situation makes me sick, and leaves me wondering what it will take to restore a proper sense of justice within our community.
Maybe parents and society need to stop relying on the ‘system’ to raise children and be the absolvers of responsibility.
You all expect the government solutions to work and then complain when they NEVER do.
Never will.
What’s really heartbreaking is not just the multiple traumas this girl has experienced in her lifetime, but that she likely received no preparation for or support around what she was likely to feel in response to hearing all of her past drug up and displayed so publicly. Of course she acted out. It’s not an excuse for her behavior, but it was about as predictable as a sunrise. Steps should have been made to see she had the emotional support she needed
Who, then, D? Obviously her parents failed. And if the government, which (in your fantasy) never works, they what are we left with?
Society’s still got to deal with people who are fucked up, for whatever reason. It’s an unpleasant business but we probably shouldn’t be going out of out way to make things worse. I guess the cops think it’s cool to shoot weapons at abused children, and I guess the “system” thinks it’s cool to charge them as adults too. Great. Way to take the cycle of abuse and pay it forward.
Really D??? Chunty nailed it on the head. There are people who are unable to take care of themselves through no fault of their own. Should we also let the mentally and physically handicapped fend for themselves? This girl has no one in her corner. Have some compassion!!!!!!!!
@Abusive – Don’t set shit on fire!!!!!!!!
why is it always white people who just want to “get past” race. I don’t even know what that means, but it’s a great idea–let’s all just “get past” it so we can go back to being racist without feeling guilty!
Jesus tap-dancing Christ. Several things are true:
1) This girl has had a shitty, shitty life, and by all indicators, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
2) Number 1 blows.
3) The cops who tackled and beanbagged her had no idea of (1) when the girl PUNCHED HIM IN THE MOUTH for having the temerity to arrest her friend, and then grab her upper arm (which had some of her hair in it).
4) Regardless of how fucked up this girl is, so she doesn’t become a danger to society she has to learn that she can’t punch cops in the mouth because she doesn’t like what they are doing. If she doesn’t even have this boundary, what’s she going to do next? Start a fire in her own bedroom?
5) Cops and judges AREN’T society’s mental health counselors. Their job is to enforce public order. Just because people with mental problems or shitty childhoods or both cause a disproportionate amount of problems doesn’t change that fact.
Unless we as a society want to PAY for cops to be Harvard-trained kick-ass mercenaries who ALSO have a heart of gold, we’re going to be stuck with what we’ve got, and I think they do a pretty decent job almost all of the time – we only HEAR about it when something goes wrong, not the 99% of times where a crime is punished appropriately, or deterred entirely just by the presence of the “system.”
As a white American male, I don’t see why we need to focus on race so much. Didn’t we get past all of this once we elected a Negro president?
Did I mention that I some friends who are “The Black”?
#huhwat
The most publicized stories may have a debatable “race” factor. Yet, Oregonlive (!?) had a highly unusual incidence of thorough reportage a few weeks ago when they covered a black college student assaulted by police for Being Black. She simply would not have had the encounter she did if she was white. The justice system sets non-whites up to hate the system. That’s not liberal paranoia–that’s called stepping out of the house. This was in my neighborhood. I’ve taken classes at the same campus.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.s…
If you want to feel dirty, read THEIR messageboard.
@Colin – Haha! You finally wrote it all out! Of course that’s all totally correct, but people like Matt Davis and Gonetorio aren’t interested in reality.
They assign unwarranted responsibilities to the police because they WANT the police to fail. It gives them a wonderful “evil villain” that they can cry about. They’ll never agree to base their expectations on reality OR to set the police up for success, because then they’d lose that crutch, and maybe have to accept some personal responsibility.
Sorry, Commenty Colin, but the facts contradict your assertion #3. By their own admission, the cops did know #1 was true when they confronted her and provoked the confrontation. If we’re to make your assertions #4 and #5 correct, we need the help of politicians and judges. Neither have stepped up to do anything about #1 or #3 in this case. That’s the shameful part, and yes it blows. So, I do agree doubly with #2.
I didn’t say let her fend for herself.
Obviously I don’t think she’s had a decent upbringing and of course that sucks, wherever that blame may lie.
But there is a line where compassion meets the greater need of protecting society.
@Ha Jude, where do the arresting officers say they knew that if they confronted the girl, she would definitely respond violently because of her shitty past?
Now don’t all of you NIMBY anti-Planned Parenthood black and white evangelical Christians step to immediately offer your loving homes, selves and unconditional love to this PRECIOUS child and her struggling mother.
(You know, like the great white hype of the Sandra Bullock character in the 2010 Oscar-nominated film The Blindside.)
Uh-huh. Y’all turn yer backs and look away now from this example ‘tough love, AKA ’ the show trial conspiracy AND institutionalized re-victimization of black women and girl children by the criminal justice system.
Don’t you on fire for Christ folks come too close to the horrific human tragedy.
This is what a real biblical abomination LOOKS LIKE !
Its so much more dogmatically expedient and profitable for the smug protesting religionists from MLK Jr. Boulevard to enslave the wombs of impoverished black women. (Reproducing modern-day gender slavery amongst their own race.)
Rather than to stand unfinchingly by them for 12- 15 years (what it takes a village to raise a child) when their lives – and the lives of the neglected and abused children who these women were coerced into birthing – collapses in the momentum of a downward spiral to hell set in motion by police racial animus aided and abetted by a runaway vindictive judicial farce.
I weep for her.
Who will Strand With and For The Children?
What a miscarriage of justice.
WTF is up with you Matt Davis? This is a juvenile adjudication and is not a “felon[y] that will stay on her record.” Her record is sealed and will not follow her when she becomes an adult.
Also, juveniles are not entitled to jury trials, for the very reason that they are not ‘convicted’ of crimes. In addition, in the criminal world, judges do not make the decision as to whether or not a defendant gets a jury trial – the defendant gets to choose whether or not he/she wants a jury or, instead, a judge.
Are you seriously a crime reporter? How is it you don’t know any of this?
12 YEARS OLD.
The judge didnt make the decision to try her…that decision is made by the defendant and the defense attorney..and as I have said…putting people on probation often ends up being a long process of them being in and out of the justice system for probation vilolations, etc…Its just ridiculous to put some people on probation, they cant complete the requirements, they dont know the system, the prob officer or office is not equipped or trained to deal with mentally challenged people…its a mess
The judge did not make the decision to try the case herself. That request is made by the defense and the defendant. The problem with putting people on probation is that most of them cannot meet the minimum standards of compliance…and when they are mentally challenged, mentally ill, cant read, etc etc. they end up in the system being put in jail numerous times for failure to comply with prob requirements…its a viscious cycle that can last years longer than the original probation, sometimes with new charges….its a mess
@Klaatu: The judge did make the decision. The girl and her defense attorney made a motion for the jury trial, which the judge denied.
@Daisy: That’s wrong. If she is convicted of another felony later, they will look to her past record when it comes to sentencing.
On the whole, I’d thank everyone for the civility of their tone here. This is an emotional subject, obviously.