More reasons I don't like (some) teenage girls.

Jul 12, 2008 at 10:44 AM
5 comments

We have these things called traffic circles in Seattle neighborhoods. They are large, circular 'bumps in the road' so to speak, to slow down traffic at intersections. Many of them don't have stop signs at every single intersection, but the circles are big enough that you have to slow down and wind around the circle, then move on to the next one.

People in Seattle like to use the circles for gardening, and I guess the city lets them. The guy in the story below was one of them. He's dead now.

See, he put some orange cones up while he watered his plants. Some teenage girls didn't like that and got into a fight with him. So he sprayed them with water. They dumped water on him and pushed him. He pushed back.

Then some other guy got out of his car and punched the old man, and he dropped and hit his head. And now he's died, as a result of his injuries. The girls stayed and talked to police, the guy who punched him took off. They are looking for him now.

First off, I will point out that it was not cool for the old man to push one of the teenage girls. But spraying them with the hose when they were so disrespectful was classic. Since the whole thing started with those little brats, I think they should be charged with something. That man is dead in part because of the trouble they stirred up. I realize it happened in South Seattle, which is not what I would call the safest of neighborhoods, but they should be held accountable in some way.

It's just very sad that it even happened in the first place.

5 comments

Comments

[this is good]

I agree with you that the old man did help to escalate the situation, but that does not absolve the girls of guilt. I will give them some credit for staying to talk with the police. It shows some level of maturity and responsibility. But none of that changes the fact that the girls started the whole encounter and must be held accountable for the results. I wouldn't go so far as to charge them with manslaughter, but certainly something substantial.

I have mixed feelings about this. The old man was the adult in the situation and could have handled it much differently. I'm also thinking the guy who punched him was also an adult, but didn't act like one, and ought to be charged with manslaughter if not outright murder.

I have noticed however that teenaged girls have become much more like teenaged boys lately, more physically violent, more apt to engage in risky behavior (binge drinking, driving aggressively, picking fights with strangers). I've read some blogs and Facebook entries where the girls defend these as expressions of "girl power" and gender equality. But to me this is just more of that "I have no real power in this world, economic, social, or political, so I'll pick on people more vulnerable than me." Sad to think this may be a defining moment for those girls, who will probably have trouble now finding decent jobs or building lives of responsibility.

(Or maybe rehab and community service will put them on the right track. It depends on how much they own up to their own responsibility in this incident.)