One of the things I hope I never end up doing is being one of these parents who makes some idiotic comment defending the undefendable actions of their kids.
At the university I attended and now work at there is an area right near campus called Knollwood. Because it is a very large area with only two small streets leading to the main thoroughfare and because there are about 6 large apartment complexes with lots of open parking space between them, Knollwood has long been the site of student riots.
The pattern is always the same. Several hundred drunk students congregate in a large open area, then somebody thinks it is a good idea to start a fire. Then somebody else decides it would be helpful to set a car on fire and throw furniture and other stuff into the fire. Then police show up, get pelted with beer bottles and other paraphernalia, and the university comes off looking very bad in the eyes of the community.
And parents whine when their kids get arrested and charged with actual crimes. There was just a riot a couple of weekends ago that was probably the last straw for the city. But as for the comments from parents, there is a story in the student newspaper today about students being charged from the previous riot, held last Winter.
A stepfather of one of those charged thinks his stepson is receiving treatment that’s too harsh. The police charged him with felony involvement with a riot. According to the parent, however,
He helped three kids put something into the fire, that is all he did.
That is all he did? Based on the previous reporting of the riot, he was probably one of several people who threw a couch into a fire. Now, maybe things are different in this person’s community, but where I grew up people didn’t run around throwing couches into fires in the middle of parking lots. And there wasn’t a lot of sympathy for people who would do those sorts of things.
And there isn’t going to be a lot of sympathy around here for people who literally fan the flames of a riot.