Blaming the school in CA, another teen romance apparently turned violent, & Agassi’s example
If you watched me on Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell Thursday night, you saw us discussing the California gang-rape case (see my last two posts), and you heard some on the panel indicting the school for not having better security on school grounds. I think it’s a little too early for that. There was security in and around the building where students were supposed to be that night, the building where the dance was held, and nothing happened there. So, I need more information about the geography of the school’s campus before I conclude that an assault of a student elsewhere on the grounds was reasonably foreseeable and that school officials therefore were negligent for not having security personnel and/or cameras in the area where the rape occurred. Of course I join everyone on the panel in wishing that such measures had been taken and that the crime had been prevented, but just because something in hindsight could’ve been prevented doesn’t necessarily mean that someone was negligent for failing to prevent it.
Also tonight, it sounds like we have, here in the Kansas City area, yet another high school girl who’s missing and believed to have been abducted by an abusive ex-boyfriend who recently threatened to harm her. Just a few weeks ago, there was a case like this in the Kansas City area in which the victim, sadly, was found dead, and her long-abusive ex-boyfriend and two of his friends are now in custody. At that time, I wrote a post (dated 10/8/09) about the need for adults to do better jobs of helping young women to extricate themselves from abusive relationships before things escalate to life-threatening levels. Domestic violence between teenagers is a bigger problem than I think many adults realize, not just in the Kansas City area, but all across the country. I just hope that this current local incident has a happier ending than the last one.
Finally tonight, tennis star Andre Agassi reportedly has admitted to using crystal meth during his professional tennis career. Great, yet another sports figure setting a horrible example for kids the world over. This is why it’s imperative for parents to teach their children that they should generally strive to emulate a guy like Agassi, if at all, on the tennis court and nowhere else, a guy like Michael Phelps in the swimming pool and nowhere else, etc., etc., etc.
