People encouraging violence against these kids should be ashamed, you can get them permanently injured or worse.

Trying 14 and 15 year-old girls “as adults” for MISDEMEANOR battery is simply child abuse and the reasons are purely political — the sheriff is running for re-election in the fall.

There are still many more lies and a lot of misinformation about this case out there.

The girls do deserve a fair punishment for their misdemeanor battery, but they do not deserve a deluge of death threats, massive encouragement of violence against them on the Internet (conveniently ignored by the media and bloggers), biased judicial system that cowes to public outrage (the bail amounts and house arrests were ludicrously harsh and absolutely without precedent in Florida), and being shut silent by the judge while law enforcement saturates the media with lies about them.

Those girls went way too far trying to get back for whatever wrong, real or imagined, the victim did to them. Now people with power have gone way too far in exploiting this for their own benefit.

It’s poetic justice, but it is NOT justice. And the difference is those people are adults and they are trying to outright destroy the children’s lives. And the entire world cheers. Hypocrisy is alive and well.

I realize that 10 years from now these girls might be completely different people and may have learned why what they did was wrong and they deserve a second chance. They shouldn’t only be judged by this one event, but shouldn’t their actions here still be part of that judgment?

Steven Bradley’s last blog post..How Does $25,000 In Prizes Sound?

What the videos fail to portray is the long term mental damage that an assault causes. The bruises heal, the memories might not.

[comment edited by Andy]

I went to a school district that was and still is, one of the top districts int he state of Texas. But it was also had a high rate of violence. I had a classmate get attacked at lunch, from two other kids, FROM ANOTHER SCHOOL!!! He ended up having major knee surgery from getting stomped repeatedly on it.

This happened in 1989. Twenty years ago.

I am tired of hearing stories like this, bullying is getting worse by the day.

VOTED for you at:
http://www.newsdots.com/worldnews/bullying-teens-are-already-sentenced -to-a-life-of-reputation-incarceration/

If you watched the news over the weekend, you probably couldn’t escape news of eight teenagers accused of viciously beating ……

Perhaps this new desire for fame, will do some good and help parents, teachers, and the world, know that bullying needs to be stopped.

@rishil – no, I had left, but I have seen it on TV. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, but some are willing to risk 15 months of prison time to get it.

Sometimes its funny to see the tables turned though http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZRV5OTgHtSQ

They *did* kidnap someone.

They *did* beat someone.

They *should* be convicted.

And the fact that they *wanted* their crimes videotaped and posted online for posterity makes that fact that they will be that much more appropriate.

This isn’t a teen-aged prank gone wrong; this isn’t even a crime of passion that’s made it onto the public record – this is a premeditated criminal act that needs to be punished – harshly and publicly.

Many online social networking sites have terms and conditions that state ‘not for business or professional use’ yet many potential employers do search these sites as they ‘research’ prospective candidates. Whether they use the information they find to discard a potential candidate would be hard to prove. Best that there’s nothing damaging there in the first place. The internet never forgets.