Here's a gem from the better of the two local daily papers:

http://starbulletin.com/2001/08/08/news/story7.html

Go ahead. Take a moment to read it.

Now, somebody explain to me why the parents are so incredulous that "nobody called" them to say that their son was dead, when he carried no identification and no one had really missed him all that much.

Their son, for whatever reason, was living with his grandparents. The grandparents hadn't seen him since Tuesday, and were just kind of "wondering" why they hadn't seen him in a few days. The boy's cousins covered for his absence -- and I hope they rot in hell if they knew that he was dead when they told the family that he was with friends. The parents just had an "inkling" that something might be wrong when friends asked if the police had been to the house. Some grandparents. Some cousins. Some parents. Some friends.

This is obviously a family who had completely lost control of this kid, which is evident even without considering that he died when he smashed up a stolen car after a high-speed police chase. At 17. They don't seem particularly concerned when he goes missing for a couple of days. At 17.

My first instinct was to think that the kid got what he deserved, being a teenage troublemaker, stealing cars and leading police on a high-speed chase through a residential neighborhood. But the more I look at it, the more I have to think that this kid's so-called support system completely failed him. Now, I don't know them, or anything about them other than what I've read in the newspapers the last few days. Maybe the kid was just a bad apple, beyond anyone's control through no fault of their own. Those kids are out there. But here we have four layers of support -- grandparents, cousins, parents, friends -- none of which expressed much concern about the well-being of this kid.

Shame on all of them.
- posted by Lori @ 5:10:00 PM | permanent link | |