<p>Donna, I wonder if it’s possible for the parents to be protected from the information of what was done to their son indefinitely. The sign outside their door indicates that their neighbors do know. I would like to think they can be protected forever, but I’m not sure it’s possible, especially in such a populated area.</p>
<p>The boy did have some disability is what I have been told from a reliable source from the area who knows the situation personally. I did not ask what the specific issue was but it was not a severe disability. Sorry I don’t have an official news source. The parents are not going to be talking so I don’t know whether this will be something that makes its way out.</p>
<p>Did it make any difference in the situation at hand, given that he is a sheltered, young boy in his home neighborhood, meeting only helpful adults? I don’t know. How much of Levi Aron’s statement is true is unknown. There is doubt that it is all true. If he is to be believed, the boy got into the car with him willingly (that much is true), agreed to go to a wedding with him, stayed in the car while Aron made an appearance there, then agreed to stay the night with him because it was so late. I have met and worked with people who would find that all reasonable on either side of the exchange–as the adult or the child because their decision making mode works that way. Each step makes sense from the step before it.</p>
<p>Then the next morning, when Aron heads out to work, leaving the kid to watch tv, he finds out that there is a massive search out for the boy, and realizes that he is in trouble. Perhaps he has been warned to stay away from kids when a lone being a single male. He panics and wants to be out of the situation. Whether the boy was tied up at any point before the end is not known. It seems from the statement that Aron was hoping/expecting the boy would be gone when he returned from work. When he was not, he killed him. </p>
<p>How that transition to the solution of killing a child is what boggles my mind. What causes someone to consider that as a possibility? This guy does not seem to have a violent history. A bit odd, and a bit off, not seriously so. Not a hard core criminal up to this point, and yet, he kills an innocent little boy. Clearly he is someone dangerous to others, being capable of doing such a thing. Is there any way anyone could have predicted this?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think the parents and the children can be protected from the knowledge forever as there is always talk in any community, and someone is bound to say something sometime. Hopefully the rabbi and others in the community will have a quiet talk with the father, knowing that a leak is probable and could be even more painful. That he was dead before the cuts, hopefully makes it less horrible. </p>
<p>With today’s technology, there is so much out there, from the actual videos that one can see the child actually going with the man, being lost, go in the car, to the confession, the commentaries and the comments blaming this, that and the other, it can be even more painful for a family suffering a public tragedy. I have made no written comments about this outside of this forum for that reason, and the same goes for the Lauren Spierer tragedy which hit me hard because the family lives not far from me.</p>
<p>The Kletzky family is being gracious in their sorrow. My heart just hurts for them. I would not be able to be so gracious.</p>
<p>On the news today, they were saying that much of what Aron is saying is lies if you look at it closely and he can’t be believed. I really wonder about the whole scenario where he took the child to the wedding and left him in the car. I have trouble believing that. I think he either left the child at home tied up or had already killed him, but I have trouble buying this idea of two people hanging out until he got scared and decided to kill him. And then do more than kill him.</p>
<p>From what I’ve read, even if he did go to the wedding, the police don’t believe he took the boy with him. For all anyone knows, he had already killed him. That’s all just details, though.</p>
<p>just want to add, even if it turns out the child had cognitive issues as you say cpt, so what? why make a statement they both had cognitive issues. implying any responsibility on this innocent victim’s part is simply wrong.</p>
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<p>With all due respect, what on earth are you talking about? Actual constitutional rights? Apparently they afford you things like the freedom of speech you enjoy, and a host of protections that apply to <em>everyone</em>, not just some that you or another person decide in advance are not entitled to them. Frankly most of us actually feel safer in a country that gives us those rights before authority or within a justice system (though it may mean some ‘bad’ people benefit, more importantly, it protects the gigantic number of innocents who, in your favorite country, would probably be executed). Such innocents could be you or your loved ones. </p>
<p>And which country in particular are you thinking of that feels safer because of how much tougher they are on criminals? </p>
<p>In Canada for example, we are (compared to Americans) ridiculously “light” on crime; no capital punishment for many decades, even murderers often only get five years. If you find US style justice too soft, your head would explode if you lived here in Canada (or in Europe for that matter). But for the most part we feel incredibly safe compared to Americans. Ironic, don’t you think?</p>
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<p>Ellebud, I guess that technically speaking, I was a latchkey child from the age of 7, in the early 1960’s, when my mother went back to work as a NYC public school teacher – but never for very long. I would walk home a couple of blocks to where we lived, on 67th and Lexington, from my elementary school inside Hunter College on 69th between Lex and Park, and wait for her to get home. Which never took more than another 20 or 30 minutes, since she taught on 104th and Lex at the old PS 72 and would take the subway home. My 2-years older sister also would take a while to get home, since she went to PS 6 on 81st between Park Avenue and Madison, and would take the southbound Madison Avenue bus to get home. (People who aren’t as old as I am might not remember that Lexington, Madison, and Fifth were all two-way streets in those days and had buses going both ways.)</p>
<p>But I remember how upsetting it was for me to be alone in our apartment; I would stand at a window looking out onto Lexington Avenue, waiting to see my mother walking down from the 68th Street subway station. (I don’t think she would have trusted me with a key; I think she probably left it with the doorman for me and he would let me in.)</p>
<p>Still, by the age of 7, even though I wasn’t allowed to walk any farther by myself than the two blocks home from school, I certainly used to hang out with friends my age and walk around and go to Central Park without adult supervision, as long as I was with at least one other person. Pretty much unheard of now, even though the crime rate really isn’t so much higher now than it was in 1962.</p>
<p>And I do know that I was told not to talk to strangers, because I remember being aware of that back in the summer of 1960, when I was 5, and walked the 15 blocks between my summer day program at PS 6 on 81st and Park and my building on 67th and Lex, all by myself, one morning. I definitely wasn’t supposed to; I wasn’t even allowed to cross the street by myself back then because I was so tiny at 5 (not that much more than 3 feet tall, I think) that my mother was petrified that people in cars wouldn’t be able to see me walking in front of them and would run me over. But on that morning, my mother dropped my sister and me off a little late; my sister then walked me to my classroom and went on to hers. When I went in, the room was entirely empty; I guess everyone had gone off to somewhere else but I had no idea where. After looking in the hall and not seeing anyone (I didn’t know where my sister’s class was and was afraid to look for it), and waiting a few minutes, I sort of panicked and decided to go home. Which I did, walking down Park Avenue and then over to Lex. Park Avenue in that neighborhood was and is pretty quiet at that time of day, so there weren’t too many pedestrians. I remember seeing a number of grownups walking – mostly their legs, of course, from my point of view. And I tried to make myself invisible, because I didn’t want anyone to see me and try to talk to me, given what I’d been told about not talking to strangers. It would have taken a lot for me to ask a stranger for help at that age; I would have been too frightened. But the thing is, I didn’t think I needed help, because I wasn’t lost: I knew exactly where I was going. I have a vague memory of at least one person asking me if I was OK, and just mumbling something without stopping. When I finally got home (it seemed to take forever, of course), I rang the doorbell, my mother answered and said something like “what are you doing here?,” and I immediately burst into tears and said I was never going back. Which I didn’t.</p>
<p>At that point, my mother was curious about why the program hadn’t called, and decided to wait and see how long it took them. Eventually, the phone rang; it was my sister. The program had noticed my absence at some point, looked all over for me and hadn’t found me, and finally got my then 7-year old sister to make the call home for them. Cowards.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I suppose I was very lucky. Anything could have happened. I hadn’t thought about that day in forever. But it came back to mind because of this awful story.</p>
<p>Anyway, sorry for the digression. Schools and programs were obviously a little more cavalier back then about keeping track of children. But even then, at least some parents, in New York City anyway, raised their children to be wary of strangers.</p>
<p>If anything like this had ever happened to my son at 5, I would have plotzed, I think. He’s 21, and I still sometimes worry about him when he’s out late and takes the subway home well after midnight. I know it’s pretty safe, but still.</p>
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I find it very difficult to believe an eight y/o would voluntarily go with a stranger to a wedding, passively wait in a car while the stranger attended the wedding, then accompany the stranger home that evening, and remained quietly in the stranger’s house all of the following day watching TV. Any 8 y/o (even one cognitively slow, if that is the case) would start screaming to go home sometime during the first 10 minutes.</p>
<p>Oh it doesn’t matter that this little boy had any sort of cognitive issues. It doesn’t matter whether he sat in the car while Aron went to a wedding. It doesn’t matter that he got to watch tv while Aron went to work. What does matter is that this little, innocent kid was killed. It is so unimaginable, so horrific. How can anyone go from panic to killing and then to dismember. This little, innocent 9 year old boy.</p>
<p>This story has me absolutely heartsick for this poor boy’s parents. I can’t even begin to imagine the despair they must feel. I hope they have other children to focus on, because otherwise, if I were in their shoes, I’d simply see no reason to go on.</p>
<p>I have a hard time believing they aren’t aware of what was done to their child. Wouldn’t they have asked to see the boy’s body (might there even be some sort of religious ritual customarily performed over the body of a dead child by its parents?)? Wouldn’t the police have felt bound to tell them the truth if they’d asked to see their son? It’s scary to think that a man who had absolutely no history of violence could not only murder a small child, but then be so gruesome and bloody as to chop it to pieces. I don’t know if this man is legitimately mentally ill or not, but I do know he’s one sick SOB.</p>
<p>poetsheart, it truly is one of the worst stories I have heard. I don’t know how the parents go on. Just mentioning to clarify, they apparently have four daughters and this was the only son.</p>
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<p>The only “ritual” is to bury the body in its entirety, and to do so within 24 hours of death. In this case, both of those presented a challenge.</p>
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That almost makes you wonder if that concept had something to do with why the guy dismembered him. The religious aspect of it?</p>
<p>DonnaL, I too walked long distances alone to and from school and other places as a very young child as did many of my peers. Lucky? Yes, but statistically, what happened here to this little boy is a true rare exception to the usual. We’ve not yet come to the point where the chances of something like this, and even less severe, is a common thing.</p>
<p>I work a lot with children and adults who have slight cognitive disorders. Not enough that they cannot take care of themselves and cannot get through school; some are even successful college graduates of rigorous curriculums. Where they have issues is in dealing with social situations, and many of them have gotten into pretty severe legal problems as a result of this inability. I’ve yet to meet anyone in this spectrum who I consider even the least bit dangerous to anyone but themselves…and others who are like them when they are dealing with such. Even with the Disability Act, mainstreaming, and more tolerance being the battle cry, people who have problems socially seem to be having more trouble than ever as life has become more complex. </p>
<p>I know of a half dozen men who have gotten into trouble for inappropriate interaction with children when they did not do any harm to the kids but the perception was there because they did not use common sense and be careful, and because people are suspicious of them because they are a bit off. I know a number of kids who have caused terrible concern because they went off on some tangent without the awareness that they were off course. All kids do this to some degree but the number and severity of episodes with some kids with these kind of problems is far more. </p>
<p>Exasperated parents and authorities have resorted to threats of terrible consequences if they do these sort of things. What to do when your 24 year old son who loves kids and has always watched and played with kids is now considered persona non grata among children because at his age, he is a little bit off? He always cuddled with cousins and other little ones in the neighborhood he was growing up but now in that part of his life when there are not children in his life, his interactions with children are misinterpreted and, yes, he can get into trouble for it. And the parents are terrified of what can happen. </p>
<p>This case is a puzzle to the police as this man did not show the usual tendencies of someone who would do something like this. He had no major violent tendencies that they can find. What the heck happened that made him kill the kid? I truly can see a number of young men that I work with that would have foolishly done what this man did, right up to killing the kid. </p>
<p>I don’t have small children anymore, but I, too, worry about my kids who are out and about. They are all pretty much street savvy, but I still worry. If I had a weak heart, I would be dead by now from times that I was so worried. Still something like this, I think would have done me in. It physically pains me even though I do not know either party.</p>
<p>A reporter asked a member of the community why he thought Aron did this, and he said “I don’t know – I guess he just snapped.”</p>
<p>We’ve all heard that over and over as a reason to explain horrible behavior. When did it become part of our accepted truths that seemingly normal people “just snap” and are thus exempt from personal responsibility for their actions? </p>
<p>I don’t know what I expect from the eventual trial and sentencing, but one thing’s for sure – these poor parents are suffering and that sweet little boy suffered, and nothing is going to change that.</p>
<p>People do just snap when pushed into a corner with threat of imminent harm. In the heat of arguments, unlikely people have become violent. Sometimes justifiably as self preservation issues are there. But sometimes not. The ability to discern this and have control before that point can mean the difference of getting in trouble for assault and worse. </p>
<p>I believe that at some point Aron panicked when it hit him that he was going to be in trouble for having picked up the boy and kept him. When that point was, we can’t be for sure. The authorities do not seem to feel that he picked up the boy with the intent to kill him and no sign of sexual molestation has been reported. The police have admitted that they just don’t get this case. It is unusual in what is missing in the scenario. How could the realization that he might be charged and blamed for impropriety with a kid make the leap into killing the kid to avoid that from happening? That leap if there is what interests me.</p>
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<p>Even if the excuse in these cases is “he/she just snapped,” that does not mean the perpetrators of such crimes are exempt from personal responsibility. Often they are imprisoned as I believe this man will be. </p>
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<p>I feel the same. It is hard to even think about! And that is without even knowing the family.</p>
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<p>Right, and this is why the belief by another poster that if we just kill such criminals, it will deter others from committing murder doesn’t hold water in my view. This is a guy who was worried he was going to be in trouble for the discovery of the kidnapping (he saw the searches going on for the boy) and what does he do? He commits a far worse crime that will have much more severe consequences. He wasn’t deterred. Very sick minds are not thinking of the consequences and are not thinking rationally like many of us think.</p>
<p>He is a clear example of someone who has to be kept away from society because he is dangerous. Anyone who can panic and crack as he did and take such drastic, horrible action is dangerous.</p>