Exactly, accidents happen. The kid(s) have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives... that's punishment enough.
Yeah, not to impressed with the Farmers Almanac. https://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange/OR/Portland "SEPTEMBER 2017: temperature 58° (3° below avg.); precipitation 2.5" (1" above avg.); Sep 1-8: Showers, then sunny, nice; Sep 9-15: Rainy periods, turning chilly; Sep 16-21: Showers, cold; Sep 22-30: Sunny, cool." Oops.
Looks like I was right... http://www.oregonlive.com/wildfires..._demands_consequences_fo.html#incart_breaking
I'm not sure any sane person believes this kid/group of kids should face prison time or die. I do think they should face consequences, as well as their parents. It's punishment enough that a 17 year old drunk driver hit a friend of mine(who was 4 at the time) fracturing his skull. Still has a noticeable scar. My friend was crossing the street with his teenage sister. The driver in a statement said he saw them crossing the road and mistook the break for the gas. He has to live with it for the rest of his life. Punishment enough. Nah, not at all. This kid/group of kids deserve to face punishment. Have them go help with the cleanup. Have him learn and spend his summers until he's 18 volunteering fighting fires. Once he's 18 he can earn a paycheck if he chooses to continue in that line of work. Until then it's all volunteer hours. Obviously his summers are free anyway and he needs something to do.
Plus colleges always like to see activities during the summer. Not sitting around doing nothing. Volunteering fighting fires could be a good way to show colleges he's responsible. Certainly throwing a smoke bomb in a canyon isn't showing responsibility.
My kid would be the one telling those kids they should stop, something bad is going to happen, and that they're gonna get in trouble. We've used this as a teaching moment about decision making.
And for those of you who don't know I have an update: My family has made it out safely from all three disasters. I've never been more scared and finally so relieved.
They haven't arrested the kid because they are still doing an investigation. He is a minor. They're treating this correctly. What happens when you shoplift and you're a minor? Your parents get called and you go into their custody. I don't think the kids will get charged with a felony because it's going to be hard to prove that they purposely tried to set the fire. I also never believe that children should be charged as adults. The bottom line for me is that I hope these kids lives aren't ruined because of being stupid when they were 15. I remember when I was 15 I was in Creston Park in broad daylight shooting at squirrels with a BB gun. You goddamn right I shouldn't have been doing that shit. The police came and drew their guns on me and everything. Had I done something stupid after the police came, I could have been killed that day. What did the police do? They took me home to my mother and I was grounded for over 2 months. The parents are going to pay enough for this already. I think the focus should be on what we should do to prevent forest fires because his smoke bomb could have easily been a lightning bolt.
That Oregonian article basically confirmed my thought. They don't want to release his name because people are still extremely emotional and upset about what's happening.
If he is arrested, it might become public record. I think it depends on whether they charge him as an adult.
I have talked to people who flat out want this kid's life ruined. People are really upset. I can understand why they don't want his name out there.
Which is why we have a legal system that is supposed to protect the identity of minors who are suspected of a crime. I'm not happy about the kid doing what he did and he definitely deserves a pretty stiff penalty (shit, his parents could effectively be bankrupted if they stick them with the bill), but this idiotic witch-hunt environment we live in now is completely out of hand.
Well, the other thing is that he might have been the one to throw, but the witnesses say it was a group of kids. To me, they're all complicit in the act. Would this kid have done it if he was out for a stroll in the woods by himself? No. I knew a lot of destructive kids in my youth, and none of them did destructive shit by themselves. It was always showing off in a group of friends.
