My thoughts on…those three bum-beating punks
January 19th 2006 -
Picture this. You’re homeless, dirty and smelly. And to make matters worse, you’re black. Life is not easy. Then while you’re chillin’ at that patch of concrete you call home, two white teens suddenly appear and begin clobbering you mercilessly with baseball bats. You’re thinking “Is it because I’m black?”, but that thought is quickly pushed aside as you try to fend off the blows. Then they leave as suddenly as they arrived, leaving you battered and bruised.
Well, Norris Gaynor didn’t have to imagine it. He experienced it, when Brian Hooks, William Ammons and Thomas Daugherty brutally attacked him. Ammons shot Gaynor with a paintball gun, and the others beat him. They also attacked Jacques Pierre and Raymond Perez. They were the lucky ones, as Gaynor succumbed to his injuries. What would cause them to do such a thing? They were described as good students, never displaying any signs of being violent (They never do, do they?). Hooks was even an athlete (So? Hitler was a choirboy and look how he turned out). People are desperate for answers as to why this happened. Some blame videogames - I know Jack Thompson does. Some blame the parents, and others blame the decline of morals in society.
I tend to agree with the latter. Values have been pushed aside in pursuit of material gain, producing a generation without restraint. When the teens were caught, authorities say they seemed “disconnected from reality.” When 17 year-old Daugherty showed up at court, he broke down in tears (Reality hurts huh?). I wonder what they were thinking to commit such a crime? Maybe they wanted to rebel, as teens often do, taking out some of their aggressions in the process. Maybe they wanted a thrill, or perhaps live out a GTA fantasy of unbridled lawlessness. And what better target than the homeless. They’re human refuse, no one will care. Plus they’re defenseless. Easy prey.
Well that line of reasoning led them to where they are now, facing jail time. And it was all caught on tape, thanks to their brilliant planning (If you’re going to commit a crime, at least try to cover your tracks). Plus this incident will haunt them for the rest of their lives. All for a cheap thrill.
Abeni Says:
January 19th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
That is crazy stuff.Who knows what goes through the minds of persons who do these crimes.I saw something on A&E where teens (A Students)killed someone but one of them said they never meant it to go that far.Apparently,the idea was to drive around and stir up some mischief and at the end of it a person was dead.Insane!
Jumper Bailey Says:
January 20th, 2006 at 2:52 am
Ugly stuff. This sort of thing tends to get especially bad when you’ve got a couple of people together who feed off of each other’s need to impress the other with their own bravado. They escalate and get in this weird dynamic where each one tries to outdo the other.
And the homeless…sigh. We seem to have come to a place where we’ve become insensitized to them. It’s a shame. Some of them are ill. Some of them are addicts. Some of them are just down on their luck.
I’ve met homeless people who for whatever reason were in a mode where they were going to remain homeless for whatever reason. But I also met a guy who was homeless and addicted to crack. He wanted to change.
He changed. It wasn’t easy for him (and it wasn’t easy for me, either, I can tell you that…he was a handful somtimes). But he is now back home in his hometown, working at a job he loves, decorating the heck out of his new apartment, and has been clean and sober for almost six months now. He now text messages me dirty jokes from his cell phone. A year ago, that cell phone would have been in the hands of a crack dealer.
So it can change. There is hope.
Plus, the dirty jokes are funny.
(Side note: I had to de-lurk after getting your shout-out in my shout box. Do you have any idea how cool it is to see the Jamaican flag in my Sitemeter report?)
AnthonyLemons Says:
January 20th, 2006 at 4:46 am
Hey Leon, great blog. Thanks for blogmarking me. I really like your insight, it resembles my own. Two different countries, but we share the same outlook. Come back and check me out, I’ll keep an eye on yours as well. IRIE!!!
Mad Bull Says:
January 20th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Respect, Leon. First time coming thru the place still… as for those nice looking yutes, well, sounds like they got off easy (jail). Sometimes I think that the justice of the old testament is required and this is such a case.
I wonder if they’ll enjoy being somebody’s bitch in prison? They probably will… bummer.
prying1 Says:
January 22nd, 2006 at 1:43 am
I don’t really care why they did it as long as they are caught and punished. Max sentences. Without TV and a rec/weight room. - Feed ‘em beans and bread. Trot them out once a year for the cameras to show forlorn emaciated punks. Use them as examples to other ‘teens’ who might consider this sort of mischief…