Althouse: 9-year-old boy thrown off a 5-story building, hits the pavement and survives...

February 3, 2013

9-year-old boy thrown off a 5-story building, hits the pavement and survives...

... and names his assailant.

25 comments:

Ann Althouse said...: Statement from the victim's grandmother: "“He has problems. The boy has had problems ever since he was born,” said Ortencia Perez, describing her grandson as a “nervous” child who takes at least four different types of medication daily."

Nervous... before getting thrown off the 5-story building. Imagine living and going forward.; 2/3/13, 8:12 AM
Wince said...: Seems like it's always the story that when a child is able to defy the odds arrayed against him by his environment, and becomes even just a decent kid, some asshole comes along and throws him off the roof or some other depredation.; 2/3/13, 8:47 AM
m11_9 said...: and he has to live in a likely "stop-snitching" culture as a snitch. not going to be easy for this child.; 2/3/13, 8:50 AM
Anonymous said...: I live with stuff and people like this everday at work. Ho-hum....; 2/3/13, 8:51 AM
Leland said...: NY apparently manages violent crime just well without any firearms or 32oz drinks. At least the victim can look forward to Bloomberg restricting his dosage of painkillers.; 2/3/13, 8:53 AM
Matt Sablan said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/3/13, 8:59 AM
Matt Sablan said...: If it will save one child, we need to have a national conversation about tall buildings.

On a more serious note: The kid is very lucky to be alive, and I hope he fully recovers. I think this is a time I can get behind charging someone under 18 as an adult.; 2/3/13, 9:00 AM
KCFleming said...: This is another one of those traps, right?; 2/3/13, 9:16 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Matthew Sablan said...
I think this is a time I can get behind charging someone under 18 as an adult.

particularly since there doesn't seem to be any outside pressure that caused him to commit this crime. e.g. no friends egging some teen into a violent act. Looking at the article though, i wonder why they use 'arrests' instead of 'convictions'. Maybe he's a 'good kid' LOL, or maybe they should have convicted him of something before he got the idea he was immune to punishment.

Aska’s rap sheet includes arrests for robbery, assault and menacing, said law-enforcement sources.; 2/3/13, 9:16 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: If the kid had a tail he'd have landed on his feet.; 2/3/13, 9:28 AM
Anonymous said...: I'm trying to figure out what ethnicity the suspect is - "Casmine Aska" doesn't fall into any clear category, and Google searches haven't helped.

Peter; 2/3/13, 9:42 AM
Strelnikov said...: Sounds like Bran's fate in "A Song of Ice and Fire".; 2/3/13, 9:53 AM
Strelnikov said...: Is there a specific term for being thrown of a roof, ala "defenestration"?; 2/3/13, 9:55 AM
edutcher said...: He must have hit or caught on something that broke his fall ever so slightly.; 2/3/13, 10:06 AM
McTriumph said...: Any word on Bloomberg regulating gravity?; 2/3/13, 10:07 AM
edutcher said...: Or rooftops?; 2/3/13, 10:24 AM
tim said...: The suspect is expected to plead to something lesser, get 20 years, get out in 15. Then he will shoot up a place and the liberals will blame.......; 2/3/13, 11:11 AM
bagoh20 said...: "If it will save one child, we need to have a national conversation about tall buildings."

Can anyone in here tell me why they need a five story building?; 2/3/13, 11:29 AM
Fr Martin Fox said...: I confess my first reaction was, the punishment should be to throw the other fellow off the roof.

But no, I don't believe in capital punishment (assuming someone would normally perish).

Not, however, because he doesn't deserve it; but because we should not give ourselves the power to impose it.; 2/3/13, 12:05 PM
bagoh20 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/3/13, 12:32 PM
bagoh20 said...: "because we should not give ourselves the power to impose it."

But, we already have the power, that's how people get murdered. The question left for us is do we value innocent life enough to make those who steal it pay the appropriate price. We define the value of a thing by what we are willing to do to protect it.

There is injustice in being either too lenient or too tough. Justice requires the appropriate response. What is unlawfully taken from a murdered victim, and all their loved ones is so complete that a complete punishment is earned, and required of a people who truly value innocent life and justice.; 2/3/13, 12:33 PM
bagoh20 said...: Capital punishment should not be easy for us to accept, but that is no reason to hide from the responsibility when it's warranted.; 2/3/13, 12:36 PM
jacksonjay said...: ... I coulda been a contender ...; 2/3/13, 2:19 PM
Synova said...: I'll play devil's advocate here... we're assuming the article is accurate and Aska *dragged* the boy from his apartment and up to the roof and then threw him off.

I'd think that would be an important thing to prove, absolutely, that it wasn't a case of an obnoxious, clingy and highly medicated boy seeing an older teenager and following him to the roof and getting in his face and getting pushed. "Casmine threw me off the roof," is still true.

Because if there was a witness to the "dragging" then how did that work? Has the boy been lucid enough after naming who threw him off the roof to explain how that happened?

Second possibility (or third, or whatever) the older boy does "drag" him to the roof and threaten to throw him over in order to scare him, either because he's a sadistic monster or because the boy with problems won't leave him alone, and never intended to drop him.

I'm not saying that it's the kid's fault if he was being a pest, but there are scenarios where the teenager could be guilty of extremely bad judgement instead of attempted pre-meditated murder.; 2/3/13, 2:30 PM
Unknown said...: Roof control NOW!; 2/3/13, 11:31 PM