This story is horrifying on so many levels to me as a parent (from CNN).
The video shows a brutal scene: The 16-year-old victim is punched, kneed and slapped by other girls. She huddles in the fetal position, or stands and screams at her attackers, but the assault continues. Authorities say the eight teens said they were retaliating for insults posted on the Internet by the attack victim.
I couldn’t watch the video clips for more than a minute or two, and I’m not going to post them here.
Why bother? They’ve gone viral anyway — but not because the girls posted their sick production online. Although reports say they recorded their brutality so they could upload it to You Tube, the sheriff’s department “secured” it before that happened… and then the idiots released it.
The suspects didn’t have a chance to post the video online before police moved in and seized it, Judd said. The Sheriff’s Department made it public, and it wound up on YouTube anyway. Judd recognizes the irony.
“In a perverted sense, we were feeding into exactly what the kids wanted,” he said. “But according to Florida law, [the video] is public record, and it’s going to be in the public domain whether we agree with that or not.”
Perverted. Ironic. Yup. Thank goodness for that public need to know. (A judge has belatedly issued a gag order.)
But what’s really stuck in my mind about this story is what the girls said when they were charged:
“They were laughing and joking about, ‘I guess we won’t get to go to the beach during spring break.’ And one … asked whether she could go to cheerleading practice,” he said.
The level of disconnect in those statements just blows me away.
Empathy? These kids haven’t got the first clue.
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