What's deadlier than spraypaint? Electoral Politics Friday
I've been missing my electoral politics Fridays
But I have been meaning to say how incensed I was that John Key & Helen Clark both went ahead with their speeches of the dangers of young people, when an old businessman had just murdered a young tagger.
You would think, from the way the media reacted, that possibly it was the other way round. 20/20 has advertisement for a segment they're doing where they say to a woman "Your oldest son is a [dramatic pause] tagger" with all the seriousness as if if the oldest son in question had been a rapist.*
The murderer had decided that his property was worth more than that boy's life. Right now by joining in the tut-tuting about tagging and youth crime a lot of people are indicating that they agree with him
*Actually far more seriousness, unfortunately.
I cannot so easily condemn this poor man who found himself out of his depth in confronting someone vandalising his property.
ReplyDeleteHe would have known full well that the Police would be unlikely to effect an arrest (even if they did respond in a timely fashion) and the courts would do nothing to stop continued offending.
It is reasonable to believe that confronting a vandal could put your life in peril and beyond that I don't know what exactly happened at the scene.
Without further significant proof the property owner is a risk to innocent people, I could not find him guilty of murder if I was on the Jury.
Would you rather that we all just hid under the bed until the vandals went away?
Why is there no effective sanction against those who's crime costs the country millions while demanding we feed, clothe and protect them.