Stupid Criminals

When looking for an idea for my post for today I found a news article from CNN in which they discusses an attempted robbery in front of Feris Jones, a police officer. In the article a 19 year old Winston Cox attempted to rob a a beauty parlor on Saturday when he walked in saying "'This is no joke, this is a robbery. I will kill you." to one of thee clerks. Cox ordered the customers and employees to go into the bathroom in which Jones identified herself as a officer and ordered him not to move. Cox fired four shots at Jones, narrowly missing her head with one of them and Jones retaliated and ended up hitting ox in both hands and proceeded to shoot the gun out of his hand.
This reminds me of how stupid people are especially some of the criminals that are present. I can't tell if the stupidity of these criminals are a good thing or a bad thing.

Copycat

I found the DVD we watched in class to be very informational but it was almost funny to me also. The idea of people copycatting movies and the actions in films is somewhat scary too. The idea of "monkey see monkey do" comes to mind when I think of this. It seems as if we are in some cases following the idea "do as i say not as i do"
Some of the examples given in the DVD are scary, the fact that people would become so obsessed with these ideas and films that they would act it out makes me fear for our future. The Scream murders are very disturbing to me because they committed the murder of the mom just because they wanted to buy something.
The Copycat phenomenon to me is a scapegoat. It is a easy way out for people to me. What scares me though is the fact some of these horror movies are really plausible and are so well thought out. When I first saw the movie vacancy I was shocked by how much I could see it happen.

Copycat

I remember when I was younger, about 10 years ago all these violent cartoons were becoming very popular and were getting such a big following me and a couple friends decided to copy some of the moves. We were practicing kicks and playing around when we got a little rough and I ended up kicking a kid's tooth out. A couple of us got so scared we ran and hid so we wouldn't get into trouble. Since then I really haven't done much in terms of copycatting things too much.

Suicide Post

For this post I decided to look at some current news articles that dealt with the reading for this week. The one reading that stuck out for me was the suicide reading and decided to look up article about that. I looked at three major news sites, FOX, CNN, and MSNBC and searched for suicide and was shocked by how many article popped up within the past few days. FOX had five article that dealt with suicide in the past week, MSNBC had over fifteen in the past week and CNN had over twenty.

One article that caught my eye was is the article titled "3 teens in Mass. bullying-suicide appear in court."  In the article it discusses how these girls forced another student to commit suicide. In Hadley Massachusetts three girls, Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez, and Flannery Mullins were accused of bullying their classmate Phoebe Prince till she hanged herself. Apparently the three girls were part of a group of six students that bullied her earlier in the year. The girls are expected to go to trial later in early 2011 and have been charged as youthful offenders with violation of civil rights resulting in bodily injury. Two of the girls, Mullins and Velazquez were charged with stalking and all three of them have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors believe that Mullins, Velazquez and Longe were angry over Prince's brief relationship with Austin Renaud, Mullins' on-and-off boyfriend which resulted with the bullying. Longe is apparently yelled crude comments, such as "Irish whore" and "stupid slut," at Prince in the school library a few hours before her suicide. Longe also threw an aluminum can at Prince and yelled insults again as the freshman walked home that afternoon, authorities said in court records. Mullins supposedly threatened to beat up Prince, cornering her in a school bathroom, and repeatedly called her an "Irish slut" and posting demeaning comments about her on Face book.

This article reminded me how cruel and unfeeling some people can be as well as how some people are very easily to broken down. This article was a reminder of what goes on in many of the school system and this could be a good place to focus on anti-suicide programs. While I was in high school I heard of 1 completed suicide and 4 attempted.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39334096

MisInformation

The riot last year is a perfect example of why there should be a Department of Information. There were so many different rumors floating around about what took place as well as how big it was that many people were freaking out. There were rumors floating about deaths, hundreds of arrests, anarchy, and calling in reinforcements from all over. While some of the rumors proved true there were some that were outright lies and they spread out and lasted for a long time when in reality it wasn't as big as it was made out to be.
The Idea of there being a Department of Information actually sounds appealing to me, mainly due to the reasons that the article listed. All of us have been made fools of when we spout what we believe factual information that we hear from different sources and this department would greatly help with the control of false information. The fact that so many people get away with lying to the public just to get ratings to go up and they tell others who believe them is very disconcerting. From a young age we are conditioned to believe people that are in a position of authority and when these people lie to us we take it as truth.
The idea of the Department of Information is a good one but would be unrealistic due to the fact that people sometimes don't want the truth to be known as well as the fact that the corporations would be completely against it.

Stabbing

For the post this week I decided to look for recent news article that has to deal with random violence and discuss the possible implications that it has on the public.

The article I found is about a eight year old boy who was stabbed multiple times with a knife in a restaurant. The boy and his family were at Dave & Buster's and while the boy was playing video games a 23 year old man, Evan Sachs, came up behind him and stabbed him with a 3.5 inch knife five times. some of the injuries acquired include a punctured lung as well as deep lacerations. The boy is now recovering in a hospital and Sachs is facing charges of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and possession of deadly weapon. The attack on the boy is supposedly random due to the fact that Sachs didn't know the child.

The fact that he attack is random and it received so much publicity due to it's randomness has led me to believe that there is going to be much more paranoia among parents in public places. It seems to me that this is going to be scaring people to do keep a closer eye on their kids and to not trust people in common areas.

 http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/09/new.york.boy.stabbed/index.html

Brianna Denison

The case I decided to look at is the Brianna Denison Case. Brianna Denison was abducted on January 20, 2008 from a friend's house in Reno, Nevada. Her body was discovered on February 15, 2008 in a field near a Reno business park after being murdered by a serial rapist.
Here are the facts.

• Brianna was last seen on January 20, 2008 at approximately 4 am at a friend's house
•  At 9 in the morning a friend decided to check on her and found a bloodstain on a pillow she used
• The Reno Police Department conducted a forensic investigation on the room where Brianna was sleeping and found DNA belonging to an unidentified male
• A massive search for Brianna began which involved over 1700 volunteers and searched within a 100 square mile area around the University of Nevada
• On February 15, 2008 a worker discovered a body in a field, partially covered in the snow, and later determined that it was Brianna's
• On January 29, 2008 a description was released to the public about the suspect.
• The person in question is also linked to at least 2 attempted sexual assault in November and December 2007, and the rape of a woman in October in the Whalen Parking Garage

• On Tuesday, November 25, 2008, James Michael Biela was arrested and charged of murder, 1st-degree kidnapping, and sexual assault
• On Thursday, May 27, 2010 James Michael Biela was found guilty and was sentence of death for the murder of Brianna Denison

The case received prominent national media attention, including coverage by national news services FOXNews, CNN, ABC News, MSNBC,and CBS News.

 The articles I found seem to play more on the emotions of people but was not in the form of entertainment but rather letting us know what happened. I didn't get the feeling that the story was being sensationalized too much but was rather letting us know what types of things have been happening and really happens.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/02/nevada.biela.sentenced/index.html?iref=allsearch