Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Kid died in hallway fight, a difficult case goes to the jury.

Canyon High School up in New Braunfels ain't by any stretch of the imagination a "hood" school. November 2013, one 15 year old waits for another outside the door after class and decks him with a two punch combination, only problem is the kid dies on the spot from a torn artery in the neck.

http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Canyon-High-School-death-case-goes-to-jury-6241200.php

Cut and dried maybe, except that trial testimony has it that the dead kid was a habitual bully who had been provoking the other kid for some time, calling him a pu$$y and throwing sch$dt at him in class. FWIW Facebook accounts by other students have it that he also ragged on the other kid's recently deceased mom.

Neither kid had been in trouble before.

I will say the teacher in that class shoulda been all over that kid doing the bullying.

How to call this one? I dunno.

If my own kid had been provoking someone (which prior bullying does not seem to have been argued by the prosecution) and got decked for his trouble I'd have no objection, and clearly death weren't the intended result at the time.

Birdwatcher

Problem with a bully, is it takes a bigger one to settle him down. A teacher should be able to do it, but then, if the teacher is bigger and older, he gets blamed.

In 9th grade there was a student who had a bit of a reckless side.

He left the science lab and on his way out the door, he opened a gas burner on the table and let it hiss away.

The science teacher, Mr. Webber, discovered who it was, and came into social studies, walked up to Tommy B, calmly took off Tommy's glasses and set them on the table, and proceeded to slap Tommy a couple of times, once forehand and once backhand. Then he walked out. Never said a word.

Neither did Tommy's parents.

We need to go back to those days.

http://www.ksat.com/content/pns/ksa...stifies-in-canyon-hs-punching-death.html

The dead kid was warned to knock it off, or he'd get hit back. He didn't, and he got hit back.

"Murder"? That's ridiculous. Murder requires intent or such depraved indifference to overcome a lack of intent.

A bit more, and the deceased's mother even gives some indications that he was an instigator of this kind of crap.

http://herald-zeitung.com/community_alert/article_f4da25a6-e23c-11e4-b19f-7f76b7befba8.html

Nope, you gum 'em down, like they walked into deep mud.....

...you bring the offender out to the hallway and warn him, give him detention when he does it again, call his parents, document everything. Write him up, send him to the office if he doesn't quit.

The point of all that is that it becomes a hassle for both him and his parents and his parents get PO'd double on account of their kid is at fault, NOT what yer average 15 year old is wanting. What yer average 15 year-old wants to do is do their thing at school, and then go home and play video games. Having to deal with all this time-consuming crap with Mr. Birdwatcher ain't in the plan.

Birdwatcher

Birdie. You really think detention is a hassle? You've gotta be kidding me

Murder, man slaughter? Seriously?

That is [bleep] up.

I hate the kid died, but the defendant here took a stand that many should, IMO.


Hell, anymore, its the "in thing" to get bullied and not stand up for yourself.

Then you can talk about your feelings and receive favoritism, accolades, and notoriety for being a fragile victim.

Twenty five years in a 'hood school talking here .......


Ya, surprisingly enough, detention usually is a hassle to a 15 year old who has but little perspective on life.

Doesn't matter how BIG the hassle is, just that its in place, the point being that unacceptable behavior has consequences from day one.

Establish the precedent that you'll react to such things early on and 90% of the problems go away. Just as important, it starts the paperwork trail of recorded offenses that comprises a school record on that kid which can be critical if they eventually stand before a judge for some serious school-related offense.

Even more than the detention, getting the PARENTS involved gets the kid's attention. Next step after a detention or two is in school suspension, wherein parents have to come in and talk. If they are good parents the kid has more to fear from THEM than anything the school can do, but even bad parents hate it when they have to take time out from their day to deal with hassles caused by Junior's bad actions at school.

I'm gonna add too the role of coaches. The kid in this case was on the football team, we had a coach where if one kid was acting like that in some class, all the REST of the football team EXCEPT the offender had to run extra laps.

Kids would BEG you not to tell the coach

Birdwatcher

Murder (Texas)
A person commits an offense if he:
(1) intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual;
(2) intends to cause serious bodily injury and commits an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.

the kid walks.

Maybe. The guy that's not dead always has a better line of communication with the media.

But the school gets sued for not keeping the vicious bully safe.

Doesn't ØbamaCare cover exams to make sure you can take a punch?

From the teacher's handbook:

In any dispute between two children, you don't look to identify which child was the aggressor.

You look at which child is the more privileged and had the greater number of advantages starting out in life.

Upon that analysis, you assign the roles of oppressor and oppressed.

Sounds like the Prosecutor's cross-examination of the suspect might have backfired....

The boy put his hand on his head and began to look in his lap as Hearrell directed pointed questions at him. The ADA queried whether the boy punched Davidson as hard as he could, whether he knew he knocked out Davidson and whether he knew the punches caused Davidson’s death.

As he began to cry, the respondent replied “I don’t know” and broke down, leading Judge Charles A Stephens II to give the boy a chance to compose himself by calling a 10 minutes recess.


Not mentioned here but at least one other witness for the defense testified as to the bullying behavior of the deceased upon her too.

Obviously, nobody deserves to be dead here but what can seem inconsequential to us adults sure is a big deal to those fifteen year-olds on the scene. Sounds like the deceased had already escalated things to a physical level before class and continued to instigate by making comments and throwing objects during class, that kid who did the punching likely was totally hyped-up with rage by the time class got over.

Again, the teacher shoulda seen it coming, if you're watching at all these things are obvious, one thing your typical high school kid ain't is subtle.

Birdwatcher

(sorry)



Edited in to add, while I expect that happens, I haven't seen it around here.

Might be significant that when the Judge offered the jury Simple Assault as an option the Prosecution objected and had him overruled.

Based on what I have read I hope the kid walks.

He needs to be tried and/or sentenced as a juvenile.

Lots of kids do stuff that would screw up the rest of their life when they are that age.

If he is institutionalized for a long period for an adult crime, then it is a guarantee that there are 2 lives lost over this incident.

He may have a chance to come out of this and lead a normal life with the right support.

It's quite obvious you know next to nothing about how most schools work. IOW you're probably a board member or administrator.