<p>They arrested 3 young men in connection with the Alabama church fires, and my prediction came true. Guys out, probably drinking, that hasn’t been discussed yet, thought they would do something stupid, got out of hand, churches completely burn down. Then, again stupid, they thought it might throw people off the trail if they went across the state and did other churches. I didn’t predict the across the state part, but I said after the first few that it sounded like stupid thrill seeking kids. If it had been purely racially motivated here, they wouldn’t have started with 4 white churches, and one black, AND there would have been some sort of sign left - KKK, etc. </p>
<p>The sad part is they are going to turn out to be fairly well-off kids, they attend (2/3) a good LAC, that will be tarnished by this incident - unfairly. I’m reading between the lines, based on what I know about the LAC, but again… can you spell STUPID!!!</p>
<p>Looks like the LAC is moving to not only head off bad publicity, but to also do a good thing. They are pledging to help financially and physically with the rebuilding of those churches. How horrified they must have been to find out that two of their own were responsible.</p>
<p>I’m relieved to find out officially that stupidity was at play and not hatred. I would love to know the history of these three students. I can’t believe that this is the first time they’ve done something destructive as well as stupid. Too many times, I have seen drunken and/or destructive behavior dismissed as kids being kids while mom and dad pay for the damages and all is swept under the carpet. (After all, they’re really good kids.) It just makes me wonder if there were warning signs earlier on in their lives that they were capable of creating such heartache.</p>
<p>I’m a Methodist, and both conferences in Alabama had already begun a campaign to help with supplies, labor and money for the burned churches about 2 weeks ago.</p>
<p>I don’t know these kids at all, but I know a number of students at this LAC, and the vast majority are like the kids on this forum - but the stereotype of too much money and too much time on their hands may well fit.</p>
<p>They are in deep trouble now, the talk is of 5 year maximum mandatory prison PER church. A lot will depend what Along astutely observed.</p>
<p>It is getting a lot of coverage in New York area papers now too, even more than the original church burnings did. I know people will say it is at least in part their parents’ fault but I feel sorry for their parents (not sure about the kids themselves–it seems like too many fires to be purely impulse resulting from fear of discovery). It is such an awful feeling to realize your kid has done something awful and stupid and that there is nothing you can do to fix it. And it is so easy to let yourself believe your kid when he tells you what he’s been doing and it sounds innocent, so you don’t look beneath the story to find out what really was going on. I can just imagine the conversation between the boy and his mother who owned the SUV, and the reasons he gave her for the extra mileage and so on. It sounds as though the churches will recover, and that funds will be forthcoming from many sources, which is good, and it was always a relief that no one had been injured in the fires. But it is frightening lesson in the difficulties of parenting. It does sound from the article I just read as though there were clues on facebook.com that things were not quite right. but then again, facebook entries aren’t necessarily the whole truth either.</p>
<p>As someone whose son has done his share of stupid things on a smaller and more personal scale (and not necessarily because he had an excess of spending money, too much free time, or lazy parents), I feel a painful sympathy for the families of the perpetrators as well as for the church members whose lives have been disrupted. The churches and their congregations will be able to rebuild and move on in a positive way, maybe even strengthened by the knowledge of how much support they have from people all over the country. But these boys’ families will probably never be able to overcome this series of destructive acts.</p>
<p>Since I live in Birmingham, Alabama I have followed this story with the news and the papers ever since it broke. I was shocked to see that it was students from BSC and UAB involved. The three kids all graduated from suburban high schools in this area. There was a huge spread in the Birmingham News about it this morning giving information about each of the suspects. All three were students who excelled in high school and were extremely involved in a variety of activities. It really makes you wonder how three seemingly bright kids who grew up with every advantage could make such a dumb decision!!!</p>
<p>I would prefer to call the crime what it is–a wicked decision/act. </p>
<p>Being from a “good” family, or more accurately, middle-class family, neither removes or mitigates any of the “corruption” of this criminal act. </p>
<p>For some time, many believed these atrocities were motivated by race, even a few may have thought there was an anti-religious bias (very few), some, myopically, saw the criminality as a metaphysical extension of the Bush administration (CGM, et al) but even if it was no more than pure recklessness and disregard for others, the offense was wicked and corrupt, not unfortunate and dumb. The latter implies ignorance and innocence; there is no innocence in burning down ten houses of worship over a period of weeks. </p>
<p>Throw the book at the crooks, they deserve everything they get.</p>
<p>Since it has been reported on our news that they said they did it “as a joke,” I felt that dumb was the most appropriate word. No one in this area thought it was racially motivated because the first groups of churches were an equal number of white and black congregations. The people who thought it was racially motivated were those who think everything in Alabama and the south is racially motivated.</p>
<p>I didnt mean to single you out in my remarks. </p>
<p>The consensus of those posting seems to be that this was a dumb or stupid act; their may even be some of a more generous mind who find such tomfoolery as no more than regrettable; a prank of some sortperhaps bored drunk boys being drunk-boys on an off-night. Our sympathies turn to the perpetrators or, by extension, the families of the perpetratorsI mean silly rapscallions . Youre in good company.</p>
<p>Still, I beg to differ. </p>
<p>The crime was evil; pure and simple, and the domestic lives of the parents of the perpetrators are of no concern to those terrorized by such terrorizing and inhumane acts-- as it should be of no concern to the justice system. </p>
<p>Would we be as forgiving if the perpetrators were members of the Nation of Islam, or the Klu Klux Klan; or crack-addicts from broken homes rather than drunkards from the burbs? I doubt it. </p>
<p>Say goodbye to the good life boys: You are no different or better than any other arsonists.</p>
<p>FS: I agree with you, and was going to post similarly! (and after your kind comment on the other thread, this is getting a little scary. )</p>
<p>I also believe that dumb or stupid are entirely wrong words to use to describe this. A bunch of kids who make a fire to toast marshmallows and it gets out of hand and causes a major fire–that’s “dumb.”</p>
<p>Walking into nine churches and setting fires on nine altars is deliberately malevolent. It takes a level of mean-ness which I find breathtaking. It is not a prank that got out of hand. I feel for these kids’ parents, but I also would be surprised if there were no signs of this level of malice earlier.</p>
<p>FS, when you are fifty and one of your children does something that you think is unimaginably stupid or just plain bad, you will perhaps have more perspective on all this. Of course what the boys did was inexcusable, and people can use whattever adjectives they want–stupid, bad, all mean different degrees of negative to different people. But as a parent and an adult, I don’t believe that the parents are necessarily the perpetrators; from the perspective of late middle age and and having observed my own two children who are now out of their teens, yes, I do have sympathy for the families, and I don’t feel a need to excuse that human sentiment to you or anyone else. And no, I would not have the same sympathy were it a clearcut hate crime motivated by whatever extreme belief. However bad these acts were, and they were very bad, they are not on the scale of the murderous fanatics who destroyed the World Trade Center or even the people who think they should set fire to abortion clinics in their narrowly focused determination to save lives.</p>
<p>*Being from a “good” family, or more accurately, middle-class family, neither removes or mitigates any of the “corruption” of this criminal act. *
See any pigs flying? I am agreeing with you.
I find it troubling that on another thread- a former student is being sanctioned for using the “N” word when he was in school, even though he now regrets his actions, and posters feel he should still be “punished”, but on this thread, students caused not just one incident of property damage and possible loss of life but NINE! Nine seperate incidents of arson.
I think that has gone way beyond" impulsive" behavior, and I hope they get time in jail to think about it</p>
<p>One positive thing that may come out of this as I think about it is that Birmingham Southern seems to be handling it in a very constructive way. While I realize that this is partly a matter of self-interest, I just heard a brief excerpt of the college president’s speech on NPR, and he sounded both impressive and sincere. Perhaps a very bad thing like this will lead to reflection and good works on the part of people far away who might otherwise not be involved or concerned.</p>
<p>…please! Are the “victims” always the parents of the criminals who committed the violent crime? or, can we agree that the parents are most often irrelevant to the crime, unless they themselves either participated in it, or actively worked to prevent it.</p>
<p>If there are real mitigating factors, fine, but simply being bored theatre majors behind the wheel of daddys SUV between acting gigs at a Liberal Arts College will not cut it for me.</p>
<p>FS, I hardly think I suggested that the parents were victims. I said simple human decency and maturity suggested sympathy for them. One feeels sorry for people who are involved in a train wreck unless they deliberately caused the wreck.</p>
<p>You are, I think, too new to Hanover to remember the terrible case of the two professors who were murdered by two young men who came over the Connecticut River from the very pretty little village of Chelsea, Vermont, several years ago. the murders were premeditated and gruesome. The town of Chelsea was collectively shocked, and reasonable person might have thought the parents of the two boys should be condemned for raising monsters who had deliberately and with clear malice aforethought taken two lives (and veryproductive lives at that). But for all the horror and self-questioning, as far as I know the town of Chelsea did not pillory the families of these two truly criminal boys who had done something that no amount of money could even begin to repair (not the case, I might point out, in the Alabama church burnings).</p>
<p>Sometimes it is a good idea to take a step back from the pleasures of being able to express yourself fluently and instead think about what constitutes tragedy and what true evil really is–and how it effects both good people and bad people.</p>
<p>As far as I understand these things, Alabamians are capable of the same rationale feelings previously exhibited by Vermonters. Cangel could perhaps shed more light on this. Moreover, I do not believe any reputable source has suggested acts of retaliation or intimidation on the parents of the thespian-arsonists. </p>
<p>And although I find your sympathies for their parents admirable I am a bit more empathetic towards the parishioners of churches torched and of the parishioners of churches yet to be set ablaze but nonetheless worried and scared.</p>
<p>Such retaliation or intimidation against the parents of the thespian-arsonist would, of course, also be immoral and likely criminal. In such a case, I would condemn this behavior as well; although such sentiments would hardly rise to the level of malicious arson it would still be very bad acting.</p>
<p>I have a theory…that they are calling it a prank because that seems less awful than a hate crime…hate crimes can carry tougher sentences, and consequences, if these men are claiming a simple college prank that got out of hand, maybe they are thinking they will be treated with a lighter sentence, who knows what is going on in their minds…pretty warped either way</p>
<p>I can understand the sympathy for the parents…having sympathy for the parents does not take away sympathy for the church member, or the community, it doesn’t have to be one or the other</p>
<p>I don’t know the parents, so at this point, I reserve my opinion, but they may have done everything right, and their kids messed up badly. It does happen. But these were adult males who claimed the fires were a coverup for the first one. Who really knows. Apparently they talked about it so…</p>
<p>I think they picked the wrong state to misbehave- just have been checking the sentencing for Alabama.
The average sentence for drgs for example is 8 years in prison- rest of country- 4 &1/2 years.
Alabamas prisons are at 200% of capacity.
People could spend more time in prison on a first offense drug charge, than on a 4th DUI conviction.
59% of men imprisoned for marijuana possession are black while 75% of those who have been convicted 4 times for felony driving while drunk are white. The crime of arson, which has an exceptionally low probability of apprehension, has the highest average sentence length. But “long prison sentences for arsonists may have more to do with the great potential for social damage created by arson,” the researchers concede.
Sounds like they could indeed be locked up for a long long time.</p>
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