What is wrong with our youth, today? Florida teens gang rape woman

What makes a group of young boys, from 14 to 16, turn into a pack of barbaric animals? We witness acts of barbarism in 3rd world countries almost on a daily basis, but when it happens in our own back yard, you have to question why? We live in a supposedly civilized society, all our children are privy to an education and yet some of those kids harbour, within themselves, the capacity to inflict such incomprehensible horrors on others, without any remorse, that you have to wonder what evil possesses them to do such vile things? I don't know if you read about the following absolutely horrifying act:

On the evening of June 18th, in the Dunbar Housing project in Palm Beach County, Florida a group of about 10 masked teens knocked on a woman's door and

According to police, the assailants tricked the woman into opening her door by saying her tires were flat, then forced her back into her home. They allegedly raped her repeatedly, smashed a plate over her son's head, poured household chemicals into his eyes and forced them at gunpoint to have sex with each other. Friends say both are still in physical pain from their injuries. [snip] The woman's father said the attackers poured ammonia on his daughter, a suffocating chemical whose gases alone can burn the eyes and lungs, in an attempt to destroy DNA evidence.

Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, have been arrested, and a 3rd, Jakaris Taylor, 15, was arrested on Thursday. Taylor actually smiled when reporters asked if he had participated in the gang-rape of the 35-year-old woman. As if this was something to be proud of. All the boys will be tried as adults, rightfully so, and they are still in the process of trying to find the others involved.

Mother and son have since moved out of the projects, and have been unwilling to let family and friends know where they are.

The woman is afraid because her attackers said they would find her and set her on fire if she told police what they did, her brother said.

I find it terribly sad what is happening in our poor, predominately black and Hispanic urban areas. Blacks (and Hispanics) in those areas live in constant fear, but the challenge with trying to eliminate black on black crime etc. is the whole culture of silence that pervades those communities. Like the situation with Muslims, good people are afraid of saying or doing anything for fear of retaliation. According to neighbours, who refused to be identified for obvious reasons, the raped woman kept to herself and did not allow her son to go out because of the dangers. And yet, look what happened.


West Palm Beach Mayor, Lois Frankel, invited Dunbar Village residents to discuss what might be done to prevent crime in those areas. Frankel felt there was some progress made with suggestions that residents start taking responsibility for their children and creating mentoring programmes.

But Dunbar resident Nakisha Smokes said nothing useful was discussed. "What they need to do is what they did in a community north of here: Tear it down and start over," Smokes said.

Sure, we can blame it on parents who take little or no responsibility for their children, but what about those parents who have supposedly raised their children in a loving, nurturing environment? Youth violence and crime has no color, class or creed. A rich, white kid is just as liable to rape and/or kill someone as a poor Black or Hispanic kid. Witness the Colombine Massacre and all the others that followed, the kids who kill their parents (usually white males), the date rapists. We're raising a generation of conscience-less kids, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason. Or is there?


According to Lt Col. Dave Grossman, a retired Army Ranger, West Point psychology professor, and an expert on the psychology of killing, there is a definite reason for all the violence. He has some very interesting articles on his website killology.com

In his article "Teaching Kids to Kill" A Virus of Violence he explains, in detail, how TV, Movie and Video Game violence is contributing to the increased violence in society today.

Something very similar is happening to our children through violence in the media. It begins at the age of 18 months, when a child can begin to understand and mimic what is on television. But up until they're six or seven years old they are developmentally, psychologically, physically unable to discern the difference between fantasy and reality. Thus, when a young child sees somebody on TV being shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered, to them it is real, and some of them embrace violence and accept it as a normal and essential survival skill in a brutal new world. [snip]

Today the data linking violence in the media to violence in society is superior to that linking cancer and tobacco. The American Psychological Association (APA), the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Surgeon General, and the Attorney General have all made definitive statements about this. When I presented a paper to the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual convention in May, 2000 (Grossman, 2000), the statement was made that: “The data is irrefutable. We have reached the point where we need to treat those who try to deny it, like we would treat Holocaust deniers.” Kids watch vivid images of human death and suffering and they learn to associate it with: laughter, cheers, popcorn, soda, and their girlfriend's perfume (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999)."

After the Jonesboro shootings, one of the high school teachers told me about her students' reaction when she told them that someone had shot a bunch of their little brothers, sisters, and cousins in the middle school. "They laughed," she told me with dismay, "they laughed." We have raised a generation of barbarians who have learned to associate human death and suffering with pleasure (Grossman & DeGaetano, 1999).

Simply put, we need to work toward “legislation” which outlaws violent video games for children. In July, 2000, the city of Indianapolis passed just such an ordinance, and every other city, country or state in America has the right to do the same. There is no Constitutional “right” to teach children to blow people’s heads off at the local video arcade. And we are very close to being able to do to the media, through “litigation,” what is being done to the tobacco industry, hotting them in the only place they understand--their wallets. Most of all, the American people need to be informed. Every parent must be warned of the impact of violent visual media on children, as we would warn them of some rampant carcinogen. Violence is not a game, it is not fun, it is not something that we let children do for entertainment. Violence kills."

Another potential catalyst for violence in our children is the amount of drugs we are pumping into them: from Ritalin to Xanax.

"Psychotic episodes and violent behavior are associated with chronic Ritalin abuse. Ritalin is the amphetamine-like drug widely prescribed to children for the contrived mental disease, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" (ADHD). Even Ritalin's manufacturer warns that "frank psychotic episodes can occur" with abusive use. And even the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists the major complication of Ritalin withdrawal is suicide.

Psychiatric drugs can cause violence; they can kill. These are facts that psychiatrists and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) are not comfortable with. Psychiatrists for obvious reasons-- they could and should be held liable for a crime committed by their drugged out patients -- and NAMI because it "is awash in money from drug companies" -- $3.2 million per year from nine such companies -- that manufacture these often crippling drugs."

I think parents need to take a closer look at what is influencing their children. It's as important to be cognizant of what you are feeding their minds as what you are feeding their stomachs. There are many holistic alternatives to the drugs we give our children that are safe and efficacious. It just takes work and research, but it's obviously worth the effort. We are over- drugging, overfeeding, overstimulating our kids and it's going to take its toll, at some point. Our children are our future. Make sure they are raised well.