A boy was locked up in a small dog cage when he was being punished and while his father used drugs, and he sometimes had to wear a shock collar, authorities said.
His parents appeared briefly in court Thursday on charges of child endangerment and making or selling drugs in front of the boy, 10, and his 5-year-old brother.
Jessica Botzko, 28, and John Westover, 37, were arrested Wednesday, a day after the boys were left alone at home and ran away. They were found on a neighbor’s porch.
The older boy told officers that he left because he was tired of being locked up, Carroll said.
The cage was less than 2 feet high and 2 feet wide, and had a chain across the top with two locks on each end, he said.
“He had to tuck his knees into his chest, and he fell asleep in there on a couple occasions,” Carroll said. “It wasn’t continuous. It was probably on and off for punishment.”
Court documents say the 10-year-old boy was repeatedly shocked at the family’s home through a remote-controlled collar meant as a training device for animals. [Full story]
It’s not young + stupid = criminal, it’s young + not white. Or, in this case, young, Korean American, and a victim of bullying.
This has to be the most outrageous case of backlash to come out of the last two weeks, hands down.
The 12-year-old girl was surprised when she was ordered to the Voorhees Middle School office last week - and more surprised when she found out why.
Other students had accused her of “threatening to kill everyone,” said her mother, South Korean-born Jennifer Um.
…
In the Voorhees incident, five students allegedly approached the sixth-grade girl at her locker and - in an apparent reference to Virginia Tech - asked, “Are you going to kill us?” according an account provided by the Rev. Philip Lee, vice director of the New Vision Youth Community Center in Glenside.
Lee worked with the Um family after the trouble. The center provides counseling for Korean young people having problems with school, alcohol or drugs.
The Voorhees students told school officials that the 12-year-old girl had made a threat. She was summoned to the school office, where police later questioned her.
“Anybody can say bad words; nobody can believe it,” said Jennifer Um, 49, who said she believes her daughter was accused because of her race. “At that age, they can be cruel.”
She said school officials “treated my daughter like a terrorist. . . . Her only weapons were a pencil and eraser.”
Because of the ordeal, Um said, she and her husband plan to sell their house and have enrolled their daughter in a private school in Moorestown.
…
Lee said he had heard stories of other young Koreans having recent problems in school - including a Lansdale student who was suspended from school for a week for drawing a bomb. [Full story; hat tip to QuakerDave, and glad to see him back in action]
In trouble for being 12, picked on, and Korean American. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.
And people were asking why we were all so upset that Cho was Asian American. When Ted Bundy kills a bunch of white girls, no one starts looking at their white, male, Young Republican neighbor as a potential threat. When Seung Cho kills his classmates, a 12-year-old girl gets busted for being bullied, because she’s Asian and might kill everyone. Backlash. That’s why everyone was worried. (Not so) nice to see white America proving us right.
The first time I heard this sung (to the tune of “Yellow Submarine”) was Feb. 15, 2003. I was in a group of thousands of protesters, bullpenned a block away from the anti-war protest in NYC. There were a ton of us, POC, holdover hippies, college kids, etc., facing off with the NYPD in riot gear. Eventually, though people were prepping for tear gas with watered down bandanas and scarfs, the police a few blocks up decided to let people through. The protest went on, peacefully.
That wasn’t what happened at MacArthur Park in L.A. on Tuesday. Instead, the police not only refused to back down, they fired tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed men, women and children. They manhandled reporters and cameramen, and they followed the protesters into the streets, firing rubber bullets into crowds that included shoppers.
Of course this is bullshit. And of course there will be people who argue that the police were right, that the protesters deserved it, and that it would never happen to “good” citizens (i.e., them). Also bullshit. Who keeps the police in check? Other police? The government? Yeah right. Why would they check the police when the cops are doing exactly what they want, keeping the uppity [insert race/class/gender here] down?
I’d make the connections to the police setting dogs and turning fire hoses on Civil Rights protesters, the Mexican police stomping through Oaxaca, and the rest, but all these folks have already done it and better. Please check them out.
EDIT: And holy shit, a mainstream feminist blogger FINALLY noticed that hey, immigrant women have vaginas too. I almost pinched myself when this hit my feed reader. The entry actually talks about children imprisoned in Hutto; no new info (hell, this is stuff I know most of the folks on my blogroll posted about back in January and February), but, well, it’s a start.
EDIT 2: An activist told CNN that the LAPD division who “cleared” MacArthur Park is trained to handle riots and terrorists, and that they may have provoked the violence in an excuse to use their training. [Source]
Apparently, young + stupid DOES = criminal. Otherwise, why are the cops arresting young Asian men for writing inappropriate, unfunny, but uncriminal jokes about school shootings and designing video game levels that look like their high schools?
A high school student was placed in an alternative school because of a video game that simulated a school shooting, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.
Fort Bend County school district officials said the videogame Counter Strike is a shoot-to-kill game that allows players to create their own scenes.
A Clements High School senior created a scene that looked very similar to Clements, located at 4200 Elkins Drive, according to authorities.
Word of the game spread through the school shortly after the Virginia Tech shooting.
The senior who created it was expelled.
I am so completely unsurprised by powerandpolitics’ description of Masi Oka’s appearance on The View. It’s like that book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” only replace “mouse” with “group of dumbasses” and “cookie” with “model minority myth.”
And … that’s really all I have to say about it. We all know Rosie O’Donnell is an unintentionally racist asshat, so finding out that the rest of the View-ians are as well isn’t much of a shocker.
