Tied to the tracks

[carnivalnights]

I swear to god...

A stakeout at an east-end bank ended dramatically yesterday when a lone youthful robber was wrestled to the ground as he walked out with a reported $150,000 stuffed in a backpack.

The 16-year-old suspect apparently had no idea as he methodically collected the cash that two Emergency Task Force teams with 20 officers, police dogs and an armoured vehicle were waiting outside, said police Const. Wendy Drummond.

But the 50 minutes it took him to collect his loot gave the police plenty of time to get their ducks in order.

The teen bank robber was tackled as he left the bank by an off-duty officer who happened to be inside the bank during the robbery.

Honestly, this sense of arrogance possessed by today's teenagers is just unbelievable. I will not exempt my generation either because I knew a lot of people in my teens who thought they could get away with plenty of illegal activity (and some did). But come on. 50 minutes to rob a bank?! Are you nuts?! How he thought he would get away with this is just beyond me. He did not even have a visible weapon... not that you should ignore a threat if not accompanied by a weapon, but it would have made people take him more seriously. He went in there blind and uneducated. If you are going to rob a bank, at least learn about how to commit a robbery properly! (A lot of teenagers think watching a couple of robbery films is doing their research.) I am obviously not condoning robbery but who the hell walks into a bank, intending to rob it, with no knowledge of panic buttons and silent alarms? And no visible weapon? Oy...

It just baffles me what kids think they can get away with these days. I suppose we have created an environment where a lot of people do get away with things though (especially if you are under age, which I personally think is insane). So let me rephrase that: It baffles me that kids think they can get away with even the sloppiest crimes. After all, the law is not completely useless. You cannot just put on your little black hoodie, fingerless gloves and backpack and go rob a bank. It is like this guy rolled out of bed, remembered he had drugs to pay for, and then decided to walk a block to CIBC and hold 'em up.

Unfortunately, these young crimes get so much worse than bank robberies...

It truly does scare me. The crimes teens and children are committing become worse and worse as the years go by. It was bad in the 60s and 70s, sure, but it is even worse now. I do not think people realized the extent of this "arrogance," as I call it, until Columbine. Here you have a couple of kids who thought they were so much better than everyone else, more powerful than all of their peers, that they decided it was perfectly acceptable to go and shoot a bunch of them for fun. Their peers were not like them, so therefore they deserved to die. Of course, we have seen endless repeats of Columbine all over the world ever since. These sick freaks inspire each other.

Some of the worst crimes are the ones committed by younger kids who think they will get away with it by claiming dumb, because of their age. Like you do not know what you are doing when you shoot your parents in the head. It is so bogus. That is why I think the Young Offenders Act we have here it utter bullshit and should be thrown in the trash. Some of you in the UK may remember the James Bulger case. Two 10-year-old boys abducted a 3-year-old boy, took him on a 2.5 mile walk, rubbed paint in his eyes, threw bricks at him, kicked the crap out of him, hit him with a 22lb iron bar, and then shoved some batteries in his mouth. They then laid him on train tracks, put some rubble over his face, and an oncoming train ran over him and sliced him up. The two 10-year-olds thought it would look like an accident since the boy's body was destroyed. They served eight years of their life setence before being released on a life license (like parole). The justice system did not think it would be unsafe to release these boys back into society. Their new identities and locations were never released to the public, so they're just out there in the UK (or maybe elsewhere) walkin' around. Real nice. The only thing that I heard about them after that was that one of the killer's was in the hospital for assault injuries, and the other was a herion addict (illegal activity is a violation of their life license but who knows what came of this, probably nothing).

I would just like to know what the hell causes this kind of behavior in young people--or anyone, for that matter. Movies and video games seem too easy to blame. Even in the late 90s, almost 20% of violent crimes were committed by kids aged 12-17 (in Canada). That was only 10% less than violent crimes committed by 25-34-year-olds, and 12% less than ones committed by people 35+. What the hell is wrong with the planet when kids are committing as many violent crimes as adults? And more to the point... if these kids are committing violent crimes at 10 years old, what the hell are they going to be like when they're 20 or 30? Especially considering they likely won't be in jail, thanks to the screwed up legal systems all over the world...