Monday, July 21, 2008

Boss Godfrey Takes Another Bite Outta Crime

The mayor adopts a "zero tolerance policy" for the parents of "gangstas" and other "taggas"

Although everyone in Ogden knows that Boss Godfrey ordinarily displays a near complete blind eye to crime, we lumpencitizens are also gratified to know that there are certain exceptions.

For example, Boss Godfrey is a true crime fighter, when it comes to bicycle thieves.

And we know he has a very low tolerance for purportedly crooked (and insuborbordinate) whistleblowers.

And now we learn from the Standard-Examiner today that Godfrey's most detested segment of the Ogden criminal element is composed of "taggers" and other vandals, who use spray paint to sloganize and damage public and private property. Here's an example of the work of the taggers Boss Godfrey reportedly intends to shut down... by calling and suing their moms: Shocking, ainnit?

We don't know which particular children are in the mayor's gunsights over this, but judging from the nature of the graffiti, we're gonna presume that either Boss Godfrey or Ogden City Attorney Gary Williams has already called the former Lift Ogden Chairman's mom.

Next!

12 comments:

Monotreme said...

This article in the Economist caught my eye: Venezuela: Deadly Massage

However, the present incumbent [Interior Minister], Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, a former naval-intelligence officer, claims to have achieved a 27% drop in homicides since he took over the job in January. Few independent experts believe this to be due to anything more than a creative massaging of the figures.

Anonymous said...

Snarking comments aside, I am of two minds about this fining parents for tagging proposal. The fact is, often, parents do not have any effective control over a child 16 or 17 who is engaged in criminal activity. Zero. In such cases, fining the parent seems not likely to have good effects: (a) it will not affect the gang member's behavior (b) it may trigger serious financial problems, if not disastrous ones, in the family, particularly in the case of a single parent struggling to stay afloat and care for his or her kids and (c)it seems unfair.

I believe in Utah 16 and 17 year olds can be and often are tried as adults for violent crimes they commit. That suggests that, at least in some circumstances, they [not their parents] are held responsible for the actions they commit.

And I recall reading, just last week, a story I think in the SL Trib [possibly in the SE as well] about several high school football players arrested and charged with multiple thefts from homes and businesses... in the double figures for numbers of crimes. And the story went on to say that the judge involved in the case, the prosecutors, and the boys' football coach were trying to arrange things so that their having been charged with a dozen plus thefts from stores and homes would not interfere with their ability to play football for the high school team.

But parents of taggers who spray paint public or private property will be fined $2,000... not the perpetrators, their relatives. Somehow, the principle of "equal justice under the law" seems to me to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Monotreme said...

Curm:

Here ya go.

Players hope to return to team

Anonymous said...

Curm continues to drift further into a dream world.

Now parents have no control or responsibility for their own children. Why? Because they choose to take none.

Hooray for Godfrey on this one. No snide comments this time. This is on the level.

Never mind Curm's nutty attempts to use legalisms to absolve the responsible of their responsibility. Parents, you are responsible for the actions of your children. Get used to it, or quit making your little delinquent scum. Yeah, I mean your little SOBs with the spray cans.

Like I said: Brilliant idea, Godfrey.

Anonymous said...

got to agree with danny on this one.
after all who is responsible for teaching the kids the difference from right and wrong. if parents dont take on the responsibility then they should pay the price until the kids are of majority age.

Anonymous said...

Vicarious Liability

PARENTAL LIABILITY IN THE UNITED STATES

Anonymous said...

Danny:

You wrote: Now parents have no control or responsibility for their own children. Why? Because they choose to take none.

You are wrong. A teen can go off the rails with caring, loving, involved parents, who have done their damnedest, sometimes at huge financial and greater emotional cost, to keep their child on the straight and narrow. It can and does happen to children in the homes of poor people, middle class people, and wealthy people. It happens in homes with multiple children, raised in the same home by the same parents in the same way, in which all the children but one turn out just fine. Watching it happen to a child of yours despite your straining every nerve and resource to pull them back from self-destructive conduct is a fair working definition of hell.

We agree on much, Danny, but on this, you don't know what you're talking about.

Anonymous said...

I see that despite the manufacturing, Chinese side, desante in America is trying to give the impression that they've joined the "Green" movement.
I love gondolas!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Teenagers can be out of control, regardless of what parents do. I was one once. And they don't have to come from a broken home to be vandals. I remember growing up in a horrible, small town north of here and seeing the local doctor's spoiled brat child get a slap on the wrist for spraypainting the hell out of a neighbor's building. Daddy covered his ass, of course.

Likely, however, most of the tagging problem here in the ghettos of Ogden are due to children from broken homes, whose parents are busy working and don't have time to hover over their monstrous little children. (I agree with Danny, we shouldn't be popping out so many children these days.. but oooh, that would keep us from bringing all the spirit children down here to clog up the earth.) I highly doubt Godfrey would actually sue any of his fellow snob-o-nites east of Harrison if any of their spoiled brats were actually the culprits.

All of this aside, what pisses me off is we've got murders happening all over the damned town and we're worried about taggers? Nobody has ever, ever been murdered with a fucking can of spray paint to my knowledge. Godfrey is an idiot, bless his little munchkin heart.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me a better solution would be for Godfrey to support local after-school programs for disadvantaged youth. There's a wealth of statistics that show children who are left unattended in the "danger hours" of 3-7 p.m. get into all kinds of trouble. Punishing parents who may be single, or working multiple jobs just to make ends meet, etc. is a rather short-sighted, punitive approach IMHO. Supporting community resources like Marshall White Center, the Boys & Girls Club, etc. that provide structured, after-school programs that give kids positive adult role models and a safe place to be seems like a better solution for the entire community.

Anonymous said...

No mathematicians or statisticians here, I see.

This is based on all the comments above, along the lines of "Well I know a family where blah blah blah."

The statistical fact, in spite of a few EXCEPTIONS, is that bad kids come from BAD PARENTS.

This is overwhelmingly the case, even though we all know of EXCEPTIONS.

Let the parents pay for their little scum they breed and raise to be like themselves.

Anonymous said...

who gets to spank godfrey now that his daddy is gone. is it going to monica oh i forgot he spanks monica

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