Friends don't let Friends kill Friends

[Occhidiangela]

Wandering around the internet, I followed a few links to a sad story where some Lavtian boys allegedly beat up and then threw into a river one of their acquaintances, who of course died. Guess they were trying to be more like teenagers in their new NATO ally, America, who do this sort of stuff all the time. (For those whose coffee is still brewing: sarcasm intended in that last bit.)

These fine lads were portrayed as the dead boy's friends.

Friends.

The TV show made from this group of friends is right up Wes Craven's alley, or maybe Quentin Tarantino's. The Latvian export version of GTA/San Andreas could be renamed GTA/Valmiera. 'Twould probably sell better with that packaging.

A 14-year-old schoolboy has been brutally killed in Latvia's north-eastern town of Valmiera by friends who say they were inspired by a video game, a spokeswoman for the police in Riga said Tuesday.

Let's put aside disdain for those who blame a video game, rock and roll show, movie, TV show, D & D, what have you for various arseholiness. Something in this story stinks.

The lackwit who wrote it, or who translated it from Latvian.

Friends don't beat the snot out of you, five on one, try to break your neck in emulation of Mortal Combat or Tekken or Street Fighter, and then throw you in the river. Latvian rivers in March are EFFING COLD!

The boys described how they beat up their friend, Marcis, born in 1991, and threw his body in the nearby Gauja river, according to the head of Valmiera police department Juris Andersons.

Friend, huh? Someone needs to advise the alleged journalist who wrote this article, if the baseline facts are indeed as depicted (I wonder at that) what means friend. Amico. Amigo. Freund. Pan-yo. Compañero.

How about "fellow juvenile gang members?" May be a reach, but given what I know about how kids get "beat into" gangs in San Diego County, California, the facts as depicted (again, possibly in error) smack of a gang initiation gone fatal . . . or possibly a murder gone well. Or, a typical idiocy induced FUBAR. Maybe they were dorking around and the neck breaking trick worked, so in a panic they threw him into the river to hide the evidence of their FUBAR. Eventually one of the boys could not hold it in. Possible.

Makes me wonder: Was this the kid who hung out with them, even though they usually played all the practical jokes on him? Is he the one who was the gang "biznatch?" Was he the newbie?

Friend. Tovarich. (Wonder what the Latvian word is for friend.)

With friends like that, I'd be inviting Kim Jong Il over to the house first . . .

And now for the "so what."

Three teenagers aged between 14 and 16, were still in police detention, but two boys aged 13 had been freed Monday, as legal responsibility for a criminal offence under the Latvian law comes into force only from age 14.

Joy. And in America, if you are under 18 and plot a gruesome murder, as would a sick adult, last week our Supreme Court ruled that it ain't Constitutional to execute you as an adult, even though you were trying "to act as one." BAH. This, on a case where the perp bragged to his buddies that he could pull it off and not hang. (Hmmmmm, are there woodchippers in prison?)

"It is difficult for me to explain the motivation of this brutal crime," said Rudite Markus, the headmaster of Valmiera high school where Marcis was a pupil.  "You can blame the video games for some influence, and you cannot fail to notice the onslaught of violence on TV screens."

You can blame the games, but I'd look a little deeper than that, Mr. Headmaster. A motive of kicks from violence is not out of the question. Or a FUBAR as noted above.

A year ago a pupil, addicted to videogames, killed a video saloon attendant in downtown Riga to get a few lats (dollars) to continue the game, which ended in tragedy.

The game ended in tragedy, I guess. As written, it appears that the death of the saloon attendant preceded the REAL tragedy. Is life so cheap, in Latvia, if you are a video game attendant? I doubt it. Just a crappy journalist.

Here is a thought: An addict, like a speed or heroin addict, killing someone for some money for his next "hit?" Might that be where the psychologists investigate motivation? Compulsive behaviour? We here at the Lounge all understand what a Game addiction can do to our judgment, eh? :blink: Uh, no, there are no bodies in my back yard! :angry:

If proved guilty, the detained boys could get a life sentence or imprisonment up to 20 years.

If the facts are as alleged, and they killed him on purpose, may these potential rocket scientists enjoy no less than 20 years in the Latvian version of "a federal pound me in the arse prison."

Or, make them enlist in the UN Army, for life, and be forced to serve as UN peacekeepers forever. Oh, wait, the UN does not have an Army, does it?

Does it?

Occhi

EDIT: Starbucks wept.

http://komonews.com/stories/35494.htm

Can someone please stop with "the devil made me do it" crap? Please? That was a joke on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In TV show, not a finding of Jung and Freud.

*runs to the bathroom, the breakfast is rising at the thought of this idiocy run amok . . .*