GUILTY WA - Fifth-grade boys' plot to kill classmate thwarted, Colville, Feb 2013

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/14/justice/washington-school-murder-plot/index.html?hpt=hp_t3


Fifth-grade boys' plot to kill a classmate thwarted
By Michael Martinez and Carma Hassan
updated 9:58 PM EST, Thu February 14, 2013

(CNN) -- Two fifth-grade boys armed with a stolen semi-automatic gun, ammunition clip and knife plotted to kill a classmate in Washington state but were thwarted when another student informed a school employee, authorities said Thursday.

The two boys, who told police they considered the girl rude and annoying, won't be tried as adults and will be in court next Wednesday for a capacity hearing, said Tim Rasmussen, the Stevens County prosecuting attorney....

10 years old :banghead:

Monkeys see, Monkeys do. It doesn't take a great leap to see where they got the inspiration to do this. News broadcasts should carry a parental guidance warning!!!

Thankfully this pair were caught before anyone was hurt.

There are just no words sometimes.....

Does trying as adults mean they will not be ajudicated, but will go to a youth facility until age 18 if found guilty?

txsvicki said:

Does trying as adults mean they will not be ajudicated, but will go to a youth facility until age 18 if found guilty?

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I don't know, but prison time doesn't sound possible. What's scary is the one kid said he'll kill whoever told on them when he gets out. I'm sure that at least one kid is a psychopath. So he'll probably end up in some serious DV trouble or murdering someone or many people. JMO

Wow. Kids scare the bejesus out of me these days.

"The two boys, ages 10 and 11, told authorities that they were also going to kill, or "get," six more students at Fort Colville Elementary School in Colville, Washington, and even identified them from a class list provided by school employees, according to court documents.

The boys' plan called for the older to stab the girl off-campus with a 3.25-inch knife last week, and the younger boy would scare off any responders with a .45-caliber Remington 1911 semi-automatic handgun, court documents said.

The younger boy had been in "a short dating relationship" with the girl, but he told authorities that "she's rude and always made fun of me and my friends," court papers said.

"Yes, I just want her dead," the younger boy told authorities. He brought the gun and knife to school, documents said.

The older boy had been friends with the girl for several months, but he wanted to kill her because she picked on and annoyed him, court papers said.

"Yes, and I wanted to kill her alone at first," the older boy told a police officer.
The officer noticed in his interview with the older boy that he "did not display any emotion or remorse during the interview," court papers said.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/14/justice/washington

Hmm, strange resemblance at an early age to Christopher Dorner:
- Having specific targets (list of 7 classmates to kill)
- Holding grievances because of perceived disrespect (girl was "rude" to them)
- Premeditated murder plot (luring the victims off-campus, and killing them one-by-one)

Something needs to be done to teach these grudge-holders how to better cope with perceived wrongs. We should start a WS thread on Solutions to improve coping skills of kids and adults towards perceived injustices.

This is really scary! Who is responsible for these kids? They stole a stolen weapon?
There really doesn't seem to be any oversight here. WTH?

I'm sorry, but linking Dorner to this is tenuous to say the least.

Why not look at Eric Smith or the Jamie Bulger killers in the UK for comparisons to this case?
Yes, there's a difference to actually carry out the act than conspiring, but the issue here is fundamentally the same. What makes our children want to kill?

jellybeanz said:

I'm sorry, but linking Dorner to this is tenuous to say the least.

Why not look at Eric Smith or the Jamie Bulger killers in the UK for comparisons to this case?
Yes, there's a difference to actually carry out the act than conspiring, but the issue here is fundamentally the same. What makes our children want to kill?

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I don't believe so. Kids get their ideas from what they see on tv, from the media, in movies, etc. I don't think it's a reach that these kids saw the big hoopla about Dorner and decided hey, WTH, let me do the same to get my revenge on my classmates who wronged me.

bourne said:

I don't believe so. Kids get their ideas from what they see on tv, from the media, in movies, etc. I don't think it's a reach that these kids saw the big hoopla about Dorner and decided hey, WTH, let me do the same to get my revenge on my classmates who wronged me.

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That's what I said in my previous post on this thread. Monkey see, monkey do.

However, this was in the planning before Dorner became front page news so for me the point you are making is moot. :moo:

The two boys told another student two weeks earlier about the plot to kill the girl and were going to pay him $80 to keep it secret, the court filings said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/14/justice/washington-school-murder-plot/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

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jellybeanz said:

I'm sorry, but linking Dorner to this is tenuous to say the least.

Why not look at Eric Smith or the Jamie Bulger killers in the UK for comparisons to this case?
Yes, there's a difference to actually carry out the act than conspiring, but the issue here is fundamentally the same. What makes our children want to kill?

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Film, TV, Video Games....JMO

katydid23 said:

Film, TV, Video Games....JMO

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Parents, that's all I blame is parents. I have friends with teenage boys and they play games and watch movies and TV and they aren't like that. It's my belief that it's weak parenting. JMO

When I was a kid they used to blame dungeons and dragons for violence among teens and kids. of course, that's when they were talking about good suburban white kids being violent! No one cared about the kids in my city shooting each other, because, well, they were just gang banger minorities, and what else could you expect.

WHen my father was a kid in the city, youth violence was blamed on being from poor, shiftless immigrant families. Another for that.

It's not new, its not video games, and it might not even be parents. Children have poor impulse control. Couple that with easy access to weapons and it's a recipe for disaster. We only hear about all these thwarted attempts now due to past, highly covered events like Columbine, etc.

Thank goodness through, that these kids were found out before something happened.

Reading some of the articles posted on the 20th anniversary of James Bulger's murder, I saw that murders of children by children were recorded as far back as the mid 1700s. There were no violent video games and dungeons and dragons then. Poor parenting, poor impulse control, lack of supervision, physical abuse in the home, those are the kind of things you find in common among all cases. I don't think violent media has anything to do with it.

I don't know... I guess it is just like adults what makes them snap and kill..

Glad this was stopped. But so scary.

Records detail plot by fifth-graders to kill classmates

The 10-year-old explained that he stole the gun from his older brother. Interviews with the brother revealed that he had stolen the handgun from his late grandfather’s home a few months ago.

The brother “said that he kept the firearm in his bedroom and that his brother must have found his hidden key and removed the case and the gun,” Detective Ron Maxey wrote in court documents.

When Arms asked the 10-year-old if he knew what he was planning was dangerous and against the law, the boy replied: “Yes, I just wanted her dead.”

Kids plotting murder. wow. What sad times we live in.

Cappuccino said:

Reading some of the articles posted on the 20th anniversary of James Bulger's murder, I saw that murders of children by children were recorded as far back as the mid 1700s. There were no violent video games and dungeons and dragons then. Poor parenting, poor impulse control, lack of supervision, physical abuse in the home, those are the kind of things you find in common among all cases. I don't think violent media has anything to do with it.

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Aah, the age-old paradox: Chicken or the egg. Which comes first? Nature vs. nurture: Is violence learned or is it inate?

Yes, violence has been present from the age of time. But this form of violence -- making a list/manifesto of your victims, premeditation of specific weapons to use in your murders, the luring of victims to an ideal killing spot, how to escape detection, etc. These techniques are learned.

One can ask, philosophically, but what about the first human to commit such a methodical violent crime with these techniques? Where did he learn it?

Well, it only takes one to get the ball rolling.

One person in his own mind spontaneously comes up with the idea of a violent means to an end. He carries it out. Successfully. Others, who might not have thought of this idea on their own, sees/hears about the "violent means" and copies it. And the cycle repeats itself.

How does the media, video games, modern technology, etc. fit in?

Without such resources, the scope of reach of how to kill by that one person would not be so extensive. The violent means might have been confined to a specific, local region. It might even have perished along with that one person had he passed. But with the reach of the internet, youtube, newspapers, books, radio, etc. the violent means is passed on and spread exponentially throughout the world.

Art (media, video games, etc.) imitates life. Life imitates art. We know there are copycat killers. We also know one suicide often prompts other suiciders to take that leap too. Adults influence and mimic one other. And children and young adults, with unclear self-identities, are even more impressionable and prone towards being influenced by external factors such as art.

We can blame parents if we want. But it is the lack of impulse control and/or effective means of coping with negative emotions, that make certain adults and children alike, prone towards lashing out physically and harm others. And without appropriate guidance from support systems (caregivers, schools, community, media, etc.) teaching these people the proper coping mechanisms (e.g., venting via effective verbal communication, sports, music, blogging, etc.), the chances of these maladaptive people using physical violence on others magnify.

I think kids like that have personality disorder and/or mental illness. Some get hooked up with weaker minded troubled kids and form a plan and too much attachment. If they have bad parents then it's probably inherited, whether they've been abused or not. Seeing more violence on tv and video games, plus hearing the news couldn't help disordered people at all.