Boy Charged With Murder in Baseball Death

[ClarkUSA]

Whatever happened to sportsmanship? Is winning everything when you are 13?

Photo slideshow is available: "Teased Teen Kills Friend with Baseball Bat"

LOS ANGELES - A 13-year-old pitcher was charged Thursday with murder for allegedly beating another boy to death with a baseball bat following his team's first loss of the season.
Ê
The alleged assailant is accused of striking 15-year-old Jeremy Rourke in the knee and again in the head after the youth league game Tuesday evening, said Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Ron Smalstig.

The 13-year-old and the older boy apparently had words in front of a concession stand at the Pony League park in Palmdale, about 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20050415/ap_on_re_us/baseball_killing

[leftofthedial]

1. welcome to post-Reagan Murka

greed is good

winning is everything

the ends justify the means

[redqueen]

22. Exactly.

He ushered in the age of acceptance of the IGMFU mindset.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. Whatever happened to playing for fun?

Maybe we eat too much meat or something...

[DBoon]

3. Too many people listen to too much hate radio

it affects their general moral outlook. "If you don't like someone, beat them to death"

[0007]

11. What "hate" programs are you referring too!

[DBoon]

19. The whole array of right wing talk hosts

that mock civility and verge on advocating physical violence

[0007]

21. For sure!

[Pinboy]

4. It just kept building up and building up and building up . . . n/t

[BlackVelvetElvis]

5. This story is sad for all involved.

The older I get, it seems the coping skills of the young reduce.
There's a bigger factor here, I wish I knew what the reason was.
Just sad.

[medeak]

6. indeed...

It wasn't a competitive ball league..strange and so sad for all. No pushy coaches or parents they say...

Violent video games?

[Yupster]

7. So many young boys

now medicated.

I think that has to have bad long term implications. I guess we'll find out eventually.

[jus_the_facts]

8. TV is a major factor....the violence portrayed all over the idiot box....

....it's about all they show anymore. :nopity:

[Voltaire99]

9. Village of the Damned?

This week alone, we have the gang rape in the Ohio school and now this...

[0007]

10. Accordingly.......

"This is a good kid that made a bad decision. He was a good athlete, a good student."

[grumpy old fart]

18. "a bad decision"?

don't ya just love the disconnect. The palliative language. Hmmm, I lost a baseball game, do I a.) practice harder, b.) cry, c.) talk to my parents, coach, team mates...no I'm REALLY upset..so do I a.)yell at the guys on the other team, b.) start a fist fight or c.) KILL SOMEONE.....kill someone??? This is a reaction just off the charts, not just some "bad decision". This is a kid who needed to be in therapy somewhere....

[mbperrin]

12. It's in everything, and the tone is set at the national level.

Have a problem with another country? Bomb them, kill their people. Have a problem with people who say things you don't like? Arrest them and keep them in jail forever with no charges and no chance to reply. Have a problem with judges you don't like? Advocate murdering them.

After all, the underlying story line is: They all hate us because we're so neat, so we are justified in whatever we do to them. They're all wanting to kill us all at any minute, so we are completely justified in hitting them first.

Unlike tax cuts, attitudes and actions do trickle down. Young people watch very closely and their hypocrisy meters work well. Whatever's good for adults is good for them, no?

[Jacobin]

13. Will the RW fundies be upset they can't give him the death penalty?

Because of those librul SCOTUS justices?

[Binka]

14. Nope I'm Betting This Kid Is A White Product Of A Fundie Family

Palmdale is VERY white and conservative (read Fundie Rwers.) There is going to be a new set of rules written for this asshole kid.

[CarefullyLiberal]

16. Palmdale is NOT very white...

According to:

Palmdale Demographic Information

Races in Palmdale:
White Non-Hispanic (41.0%)
Hispanic (37.7%)
Other race (20.4%)
Black (14.5%)
Two or more races (5.2%)
Filipino (2.1%)
American Indian (1.9%)
(Total can be greater than 100% because Hispanics could be counted in other races)

Now, with that said, I have never been to Palmdale, California. My disagreement with your statement is only based on the demographic information provided in the above mentioned website. The website's information could be wrong.

-Fergus

[Binka]

23. The Whites RULE The Other Races Are There For Farm Work

Palmdale is a WHITE HAVEN. Sorry I've been there. It is an upscale and smaller Bakersfield.

[thingsarelookingup]

28. tragic for everyone

I was in Palmdale last week and it is like most suburban areas but yes, more "white" than my So.Ca. town. The mother of the victim has said not to portray her son's attacker as a monster. With 3 kids in sports I see alot of anger at games but it is usually from the parents either yelling at their own kids, someone elses kids or the ref/ump. Kids tend to not put as much importance on it as adults. Rather than point fingers we might start at setting good examples for our children.

[CarefullyLiberal]

30. Okay, fair enough, your word is good enough for me.

Not having ever been there I'll bow to your experience. :)

Peace

-Fergus

[Pinboy]

31. Farm work? It's high desert; we don't have much farm work.

And Palmdale hasn't been a "white haven" for decades.

[Jimbo S]

35. Guess again

The original article listed the victum white and the suspect black.

[deutsey]

15. Well, if the victim only had a gun...

:eyes:

[colonel odis]

17. exactly .... if that kid had been packing heat like the nra suggests,

woulda been no problem to waste a shitty pitcher who probably wasn't contributing to his team.

[DoNotRefill]

20. And if we had just banned baseball bats....

this would have never have happened....

[deutsey]

25. Baseball bats don't kill people etc...

[Psephos]

24. This has nothing to do with politics

I hate it when people try to bend stories like this to fit some political dogma. Here on DU it's all fundie-jeebus-repressive-evil GOP's fault. I guarantee that over on the freeper site they're blaming it all on donks.

Clue: politics is a religion. Subject to the same limitations. I.e., don't use it as the universal lens through which to view the world. In many cases, it's the wrong tool for the job.

This is a story about an unstable kid, possibly with unstable parents, too. Unless you are proud to be ignorant of history, then you know stuff like this is not limited to modern times. We carry a lot of violence in our genes, a biological inheritance from when people had to club each other if they wanted a chunk of the antelope carcass.

Try reading something like Herbert Asbury's The Gangs of New York or Tyler Anbinder's Five Points for can't-put-it-down perspectives of 19th Century New York. Riveting, and eye-opening.

Peace.

[Fleshdancer]

26. My heart goes out to the family of the victim

Losing a child would be torture, but to find out that he was beaten to death? May his parents have the strength to survive this. I think I would literally go insane. :cry:

[Psephos]

27. Amen n/t

[pie]

33. That has to be the saddest part of the tale

I cannot imagine the pain

[ernstbass]

29. It is my understanding that others were present

when this took place. Why didn't anyone intervene after he whacked the kid on the knee?

[Pinboy]

32. Links to local newspaper reports

Bat attack rates murder chargeSuspect scheduled to face murder charge today
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Friday, April 15, 2005.
By NICOLE JACOB
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - A 13-year-old Pony League baseball player has been charged with murder in the death of a 15-year-old after a game Tuesday.
(snip)

Witnesses said the boys began pushing each other, and Harris pulled a bat out of his bag and hit Rourke in the knees. As Rourke doubled over, Harris allegedly swung again, delivering the fatal blow to the 15-year-old's head. Rourke died two hours later at Antelope Valley Hospital.

MORE:
http://www.avpress.com/n/15/0415_s1.hts


Parent: 'Something's going to happen'
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Friday, April 15, 2005.
By JAMES C. LOUGHRIE
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - As he was driving home a week ago, after his son's Lancaster baseball team played a Palmdale Pony League team, Adolph Goodman said he looked at the boy and remarked, "Something's going to happen."
(snip)

Goodman, a longtime baseball coach in the Antelope Valley, charged that the overly competitive nature of sports at the Palmdale Pony League fields made for a volatile environment - an environment in which he said players have lost respect for other players, coaches and even parents.
It's a game that's gotten away from letting the kids simply have fun, he said.
"It's not about winning and losing," he said. "You're not going to get drafted (by a professional team) tomorrow."

MORE:
http://www.avpress.com/n/15/0415_s2.hts

[genieroze]

34. Two families ruined.

:cry: