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Posted
9 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

I saw a new story or an exposé on that a few months ago. It seemed like a pretty good deal but you would need some dedicated men to be involved and also some serious safeguards and training in place. 

Very true

especially the safe guards

  • 3 months later...
Posted

I don’t know it’s getting worse or we just get videos of them now.  I remember us standing around watching fights once in awhile when I was in school.  This one sounded pretty brutal, though.  

Posted
8 hours ago, bullets13 said:

I don’t know it’s getting worse or we just get videos of them now.  I remember us standing around watching fights once in awhile when I was in school.  This one sounded pretty brutal, though.  

Yeah, kids were fighting in school 200 years ago.

I think this is different in recent years where people gang up and commit aggravated assault or robbery. Sometimes it is probably race based.

I never saw any fight that wasn’t 1 on 1. 

Posted

Teenager arrested following video of 'horrific incident' at West Brook High School, Councilman Mike Getz says

“A student was brutally beaten in one of the boy's restrooms while other students watched,” Getz said.  The watchers should some-how be punished also.  This would maybe stop the trend of "see something -- say nothing!"

This is the hidden content, please

Posted
On 9/10/2022 at 4:57 PM, tvc184 said:

Yeah, kids were fighting in school 200 years ago.

I think this is different in recent years where people gang up and commit aggravated assault or robbery. Sometimes it is probably race based.

I never saw any fight that wasn’t 1 on 1. 

Yep

Posted
2 hours ago, Reagan said:

Teenager arrested following video of 'horrific incident' at West Brook High School, Councilman Mike Getz says

“A student was brutally beaten in one of the boy's restrooms while other students watched,” Getz said.  The watchers should some-how be punished also.  This would maybe stop the trend of "see something -- say nothing!"

This is the hidden content, please

Two counterpoints:

1. students have been standing around watching other students fight since there have been fights in school. 
 

2. While I think it’s great if a kid wants to jump in and break up a fight, I don’t feel like it’s an obligation for them to do so.  I don’t know the details of this fight, but would we punish a 135 lb freshman for not jumping in to stop a 300 lb senior offensive lineman from beating somebody up?  What about a female student?  Are they to be punished for only watching a male beat up another male instead of jumping in to stop it? Even by going and bringing a teacher back they risk being retaliated against in the future.  

Posted

Back in the “old days”, when one went down it was usually over.  Today once someone goes down the other jumps on him/her and pounds & kicks.  IMO, that’s where criminal charges should come into play.

Based on what’s going on today, I’m so far out of touch with our society/laws.  Criminals are instantly released.  The victim will probably be sued if him/her defends himself.  My world has been turned upside down.  Common sense is no longer common.  

Posted

The criminal put into custody has been on the radar of the police for the past three years. He was allowed back into the general population of Westbrook.  Those that allow this cannot escape culpability!  

Posted
2 hours ago, Reagan said:

The criminal put into custody has been on the radar of the police for the past three years. He was allowed back into the general population of Westbrook.  Those that allow this cannot escape culpability!  

Leadership has failed.

no child left behind is a croc.

corporal punishment stillexisted in bisd until Allen took over(I know it’s more than just reinstating CP, but it’s a start)

RIP Jackie Cotton , but we miss ya.

Posted

I second this... I can remember once when a couple of guys hopped on one kid at a party and they were considered the biggest losers in the whole wide world.  Only a coward would gang up on someone.  Square up an do it, or don't.  Kids today look up to other kids who gang up and jump on a single kid.  "Oh, they snaked him!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" 

It just feels like a general decay in our social fabric and it's worse in some communities than in others. 

 

Posted
6 hours ago, Reagan said:

The criminal put into custody has been on the radar of the police for the past three years. He was allowed back into the general population of Westbrook.  Those that allow this cannot escape culpability!  

Sometimes I think it may be required by law. I am not familiar with the state and federal laws on student admissions but like the police, sometimes a school administrators hands might be tired.

I don’t know that and maybe someone in the school administration will speak up. I mean, look at Illinois, where they are about to start a new law where some rapists and murderer suspects will be allowed to walk the streets, being released on their own recognizance. There a time when it is not the officials’ fault, but the elected legislators who cannot be sued 

Posted

I’m confused here & perhaps some of you can explain the situation.  Several days ago Ch 6 reported Tucker Carlson of FOX News had reported the story about the fight but showed the wrong video.  According to Ch 6 & West Brook officials, the film Carlson showed, and was chastised for, wasn’t even at West Brook and was from a fight several years ago.  Now the reporting “indicates” that the film was spot on.  I never heard Ch 6 retract the Carlson story.  So here’s the deal - was it the right video?  Was Carlson right and someone lied about it & tried to cover it up?  That would be a major faux pas.  I’d just like to know the truth. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Hagar said:

I’m confused here & perhaps some of you can explain the situation.  Several days ago Ch 6 reported Tucker Carlson of FOX News had reported the story about the fight but showed the wrong video.  According to Ch 6 & West Brook officials, the film Carlson showed, and was chastised for, wasn’t even at West Brook and was from a fight several years ago.  Now the reporting “indicates” that the film was spot on.  I never heard Ch 6 retract the Carlson story.  So here’s the deal - was it the right video?  Was Carlson right and someone lied about it & tried to cover it up?  That would be a major faux pas.  I’d just like to know the truth. 

I thought the same thing... I have a feeling that Fox got the right film and Klein had the wrong one... Mostly because he mentioned the Fox piece but didn't mention the wrong clip being used.  

Posted
42 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

I thought the same thing... I have a feeling that Fox got the right film and Klein had the wrong one... Mostly because he mentioned the Fox piece but didn't mention the wrong clip being used.  

That opens a can of worms - first & foremost, who lied to cover up this incident?  And secondly, why didn’t Ch 6 admit they were duped by whomever they got their info from?  As I said before, I want to know the truth.  And if someone lied about it, as it appears, how about revealing the culprit so he/she can be placed in stocks outside city hall.  Oh for the good old days.

Posted
On 5/13/2022 at 7:02 PM, Hagar said:

Just heard on Ch 6 there’s been another fight at West Brook.  The way it was reported, it’s not the first recently.  Hard enough for kids to get an education without this type of behavior going on.  Anyone have an idea how to curtail this?

So I know a lot of people in this forum are going to blame a lot of things that are only peripherally relevant to the question your asking. 

The answer is a lot of schools have had a lot of fighting for a very long time. However, the number of fights seem to have drastically increased since the return to school post-pandemic. Students social emotional growth is lower than it was for students of the same age 3 years ago. Maturity levels are down, standards decreased, and a lot of that has to do with student not preforming well when they weren't physically in the buildings. They also solidified their friend groups more. Even at good schools we saw increases in fighting, and more important multiple/groups of people fighting. When you take 16 year old kids with hormones and they are social/emotionally underdeveloped you get negative outcomes. 

What we learned is just how much school matters for social/emotional development and just how little of that is occurring at home.  

There are ofc outliers some kids are as mature as they should be but they also tended to be the kids involved in a lot of activities that promote social/emotional growth. Team sports, clubs, honor societies, UIL academics, etc. 

Posted
13 minutes ago, Cougtalk said:

So I know a lot of people in this forum are going to blame a lot of things that are only peripherally relevant to the question your asking. 

The answer is a lot of schools have had a lot of fighting for a very long time. However, the number of fights seem to have drastically increased since the return to school post-pandemic. Students social emotional growth is lower than it was for students of the same age 3 years ago. Maturity levels are down, standards decreased, and a lot of that has to do with student not preforming well when they weren't physically in the buildings. They also solidified their friend groups more. Even at good schools we saw increases in fighting, and more important multiple/groups of people fighting. When you take 16 year old kids with hormones and they are social/emotionally underdeveloped you get negative outcomes. 

What we learned is just how much school matters for social/emotional development and just how little of that is occurring at home.  

There are ofc outliers some kids are as mature as they should be but they also tended to be the kids involved in a lot of activities that promote social/emotional growth. Team sports, clubs, honor societies, UIL academics, etc. 

Sure, there’s been fights since Cain & Able.  What concerns me is two major things (Imo).  First, two, three or more attacking one.  That used to be a no-no.  Second is the ferocity of the attacks.  Kicking and pounding of the beaten by the winner when it’s obvious the fight is won.

Btw, you do make some valid points and I agree with most.  Thanks for the input.

Posted
27 minutes ago, Hagar said:

Sure, there’s been fights since Cain & Able.  What concerns me is two major things (Imo).  First, two, three or more attacking one.  That used to be a no-no.  Second is the ferocity of the attacks.  Kicking and pounding of the beaten by the winner when it’s obvious the fight is won.

Btw, you do make some valid points and I agree with most.  Thanks for the input.

Multiple on one

Jumping (multiple on one) has been a thing for a very long time, it just used to not occur on the school grounds. I knew kids that got jumped in high school.

Ferocity

Ferocity is I think tied to social emotional growth. When you or I was 16 we could get angry but had the maturity to know when enough was enough. I remember when younger kids used to get into a fight they would not know when to stop. What you're seeing is someone with the physicality of a 16-17 year old but with the emotional awareness of a 13-14 year old. They don't know when to stop.

Discipline 

Add to it that getting in a fight is zero tolerance thus if you're in it the only thing worse that's going to happen to you if you keep wailing on someone is slightly worse than what's going to happen to you if you get wailed on and why not finish the fight. 

Used to be if you got in a fight and no one ended up with a bloody lip people would talk to you and you might get a day suspension. Now days your getting multiple day suspension and possibly a ticket. Punishment as the only outcome doesn't work when it's applied equally, it only works when applied equitably. 

One observation: 

The multiple on one fights I've seen and had information about tend to be within friend groups. I think that the friend groups tend to be retaliating for a perceived or real grievance. It is in my opinion because in groups are way more solidified because you could only really hang around with the people you lived next to during the pandemic. Thus groups of kids have started to become more directly linked to their living conditions, and less linked to the school house. School house was the place you could go from having all crappy friends to having good influence friends by making a decision. 2 years of Covid took that from a lot of kids. 

Posted

The problem in my opinion is that many or maybe most of these “fights” aren’t fights. That is a cop out and a convenient explanation. 

They are assaults, sex assaults, robberies, probably kidnappings, etc.

Everybody knows and has said that fights at school have been around since there were schools.  How many times did I hear at school, meet me at the bicycle rack after third period or what became popular for a time, let’s meet behind the church. That was across the street from the school and not on school property so we thought we were exempt from consequences.

 But the theme was the same. A couple of guys had a score to settle and they did, often not a spur of the moment burst of testosterone but a planned event with the aforementioned, meet me at……

Luring kids into a restroom for a robbery, having a pre planned beat down of a timid kid by a gang of bullies is not part of, “there have always been fights”.

So yeah, covid might have played a part if it was just tempers flaring. I don’t buy it though. Kids were in school together for 9 years and being out of school for a year all of a sudden they don’t know how to act? Sometimes? Sure. But again, this isn’t tempers running high.

 If it is a result of covid, shouldn’t every school be suffering the same consequences?

 There are two major emotional or logical motivating factors in behavior. Those are incentives and consequences.

Incentives. Why do some people go to college? Why do some people volunteer for overtime? Why do some people choose one profession over another? It is the personal desire to achieve money, status, a desired profession and so on. Most of the time it is a combination of the and other factors.

Consequences. If it were not for laws, social status, etc, and if there were no consequences, would any of us act differently? If Texas retains the 5 speckled trout limit but then says, we will no longer all out game wardens to enforce that law, how many otherwise upstanding people would always stop at legal but unenforced limit? If the speed limits remained the same but the police were told to no longer in force them, how many people would speed or how high would they go?

When you take away incentives to work, is there any shock that many people won’t work?

 When you take away consequences, is there any shock that bad behavior increases, sometimes dramatically?

I believe that some people will always be bums. They existed long before any welfare system came into play. I believe that there will always be and has been criminals no matter how severe the law.  But what are the percentages?

We have probably all heard the 10-80-10 (15-70-15, 20-60-20, etc) management concept. It is like 10% of the people will always do the right thing, 10% will always do the wrong thing but the 80% in the middle will go which way they are led.

 Which way has our country (and the world ) been led on incentives and consequences?

Posted
25 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

The problem in my opinion is that many or maybe most of these “fights” aren’t fights. That is a cop out and a convenient explanation. 

They are assaults, sex assaults, robberies, probably kidnappings, etc.

Everybody knows and has said that fights at school have been around since there were schools.  How many times did I hear at school, meet me at the bicycle rack after third period or what became popular for a time, let’s meet behind the church. That was across the street from the school and not on school property so we thought we were exempt from consequences.

 But the theme was the same. A couple of guys had a score to settle and they did, often not a spur of the moment burst of testosterone but a planned event with the aforementioned, meet me at……

Luring kids into a restroom for a robbery, having a pre planned beat down of a timid kid by a gang of bullies is not part of, “there have always been fights”.

So yeah, covid might have played a part if it was just tempers flaring. I don’t buy it though. Kids were in school together for 9 years and being out of school for a year all of a sudden they don’t know how to act? Sometimes? Sure. But again, this isn’t tempers running high.

 If it is a result of covid, shouldn’t every school be suffering the same consequences?

 There are two major emotional or logical motivating factors in behavior. Those are incentives and consequences.

Incentives. Why do some people go to college? Why do some people volunteer for overtime? Why do some people choose one profession over another? It is the personal desire to achieve money, status, a desired profession and so on. Most of the time it is a combination of the and other factors.

Consequences. If it were not for laws, social status, etc, and if there were no consequences, would any of us act differently? If Texas retains the 5 speckled trout limit but then says, we will no longer all out game wardens to enforce that law, how many otherwise upstanding people would always stop at legal but unenforced limit? If the speed limits remained the same but the police were told to no longer in force them, how many people would speed or how high would they go?

When you take away incentives to work, is there any shock that many people won’t work?

 When you take away consequences, is there any shock that bad behavior increases, sometimes dramatically?

I believe that some people will always be bums. They existed long before any welfare system came into play. I believe that there will always be and has been criminals no matter how severe the law.  But what are the percentages?

We have probably all heard the 10-80-10 (15-70-15, 20-60-20, etc) management concept. It is like 10% of the people will always do the right thing, 10% will always do the wrong thing but the 80% in the middle will go which way they are led.

 Which way has our country (and the world ) been led on incentives and consequences?

You're not wrong.... I don't think you can point at a single cause for what we're seeing.   And it was in motion before COVID, too.  I'm a big MMA fan, but I think that it has also desensitized people white a bit.  When I was a kid, boxing was king on TV and when somebody went down, the other guy was sent to a neutral corner.  If you watch fights on TV today, it's gonna be MMA and they're in mount raining down elbows... except there's no ref to save you in the school bathroom.  

 

When I see those beatdowns in schools or whatever, I always think "that's nothing that 10 years in the pen won't fix."  So often today fights aren't about setting differences or besting someone physically.  It's purely an assault done to inflict maximum damage.  It's not mutual combat.  MOST of the time in these videos it's one of more kids piling on someone that doesn't want to participate.  

Posted
41 minutes ago, CardinalBacker said:

You're not wrong.... I don't think you can point at a single cause for what we're seeing.   And it was in motion before COVID, too.  I'm a big MMA fan, but I think that it has also desensitized people white a bit.  When I was a kid, boxing was king on TV and when somebody went down, the other guy was sent to a neutral corner.  If you watch fights on TV today, it's gonna be MMA and they're in mount raining down elbows... except there's no ref to save you in the school bathroom.  

 

When I see those beatdowns in schools or whatever, I always think "that's nothing that 10 years in the pen won't fix."  So often today fights aren't about setting differences or besting someone physically.  It's purely an assault done to inflict maximum damage.  It's not mutual combat.  MOST of the time in these videos it's one of more kids piling on someone that doesn't want to participate.  

That’s it.

It is either misunderstood or intentionally misleading to call this fights. It is violent crime, period and should be dealt with as such.

 It appears from the WB video, if it is authentic, at least one and possibly more students could be facing several felony charges up to 99 years in prison, according to what injures and other actions may be involved.

I have read that the kid was possibly lured into the restroom.

Let’s go out on a limb here and say that at least two other students, along with the one that did the beating, were involved in someway in setting this up. That means no matter the felony, it would be one degree higher under organized crime. If the kids suffered serious, bodily injury, and they stole something such as a cell phone or wallet as has been claimed, it is a first-degree felony not of a 5-99 year possible sentence but (I think and we’ll look it up later) it goes to 25-99. 

  • 2 months later...
Posted

I believe most of us kind of thought that was coming.

He now moves over to big boy jail and is likely facing up to 20 years or up to 99 years, according to the evidence.

I hope they go for prison time but if indicted for Aggravated Robbery (99 years max, depending on injuries and attempted theft), it would probably be an easy plea bargain to drop it to Robbery (20 years max). The DA has the option to go to trial and go for the maximum sentence in front of a jury.  They could also offer like 5 years and he would have the possibly be out in a couple of years on parole. So before he is 20, he would potentially be out but have a major violent felony permanently attached to him. If he continues, the next sentence won’t be so gentle. The DA could even offer 10 years and possibly out in 5. According to the evidence that can be brought to trial and shown to a jury, he and his attorney might be seriously interested in a plea.

Of course he could roll the dice and take his chances with a jury and hope the horribly violent video doesn’t get him a major hit from a jury.

Everything depends on what evidence can be brought to trial. Video? Confession? Witness statements? Medical records?

If the DA has a solid case, the defendant better have a good attorney and hope for a good offer. Heck, the DA might even go for probation. With the new DA (DA Elect Kieth Giblin)?taking office in January, who knows? 

Posted
9 hours ago, tvc184 said:

I believe most of us kind of thought that was coming.

He now moves over to big boy jail and is likely facing up to 20 years or up to 99 years, according to the evidence.

I hope they go for prison time but if indicted for Aggravated Robbery (99 years max, depending on injuries and attempted theft), it would probably be an easy plea bargain to drop it to Robbery (20 years max). The DA has the option to go to trial and go for the maximum sentence in front of a jury.  They could also offer like 5 years and he would have the possibly be out in a couple of years on parole. So before he is 20, he would potentially be out but have a major violent felony permanently attached to him. If he continues, the next sentence won’t be so gentle. The DA could even offer 10 years and possibly out in 5. According to the evidence that can be brought to trial and shown to a jury, he and his attorney might be seriously interested in a plea.

Of course he could roll the dice and take his chances with a jury and hope the horribly violent video doesn’t get him a major hit from a jury.

Everything depends on what evidence can be brought to trial. Video? Confession? Witness statements? Medical records?

If the DA has a solid case, the defendant better have a good attorney and hope for a good offer. Heck, the DA might even go for probation. With the new DA (DA Elect Kieth Giblin)?taking office in January, who knows? 

“Can”

so evidence can be left out?

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