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Just For The Fun of It!!!

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  • Just For The Fun of It!!!

    Saw this and just can't believe it. The photo didn't appear but if you click at the bottom on the link, you will see the entire article. How sad. What is wrong with the youth of today?? My heart just breaks.

    Police say teens killed Australian student in Oklahoma for the 'fun of it'

    Published August 20, 2013
    FoxNews.com





    chris_lane.jpg


    Christopher Lane, shown here in an undated photo, was attending school in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship when he was gunned down. (AP/Essendon Baseball Club)



    Three teenage suspects accused of gunning down an Australian student in Oklahoma for the "fun of it," according to police, are expected to face first-degree murder charges in court today.

    Christopher Lane, 22, who was visiting the U.S. on a baseball scholarship at East Central University, was jogging along a road in Duncan, Okla., after visiting his girlfriend on Friday when he was shot in the back, allegedly by the teens.

    A woman tried CPR and paramedics arrived on scene, but Lane was pronounced dead an hour later.

    "He went by a residence where these three boys were, they picked him as a target, they went out and got in a vehicle and followed him," Duncan Police Department Chief Danny Ford told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, according to AFP.

    "[They] came up from behind and basically shot him in the back with a small caliber weapon, then sped away," Ford added.

    Richard Rhodes, a builder who discovered Lane lying face down, said he was targeted with a .22 caliber revolver.

    Police tracked the teens down using surveillance video from a business that is near the shooting scene, KOCO reports.

    If the three teenagers arrested are charged with first-degree murder and convicted, they face a maximum sentence of life in prison. The teens, ages 15, 16 and 17, can be tried as adults, but they can't face the death penalty since they are under the age of 18, a spokesperson for District Attorney Jason Hicks told the Sydney Morning Herald.

    The teens have not been identified by police and remain in custody at Stephens County Jail in Duncan. They are expected to appear in court Tuesday afternoon.

    Police revealed Sunday that one of the teens confessed to the crime and said he did it for the “fun of it,” KOCO reports.

    "The boy who has talked to us said, 'We were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody,'" Ford told the Associated Press.

    On one of the alleged killer's Facebook pages, investigators found the message: "Bang. Two drops in two hours," Sky News reports.

    "I think they were on a killing spree. We would have had more bodies that night if we didn't get them,” Ford said in an interview with the Australian Associated Press.

    Ford wouldn't say how many times Christopher Lane was shot. Autopsy results are pending.

    The mother of the 16-year-old accused in the killing said her son and his two friends were part of a “wannabe gang,” but insisted that he is not a killer, KOCO reports.

    The father of the 15-year-old also denied his son had a role in Lane’s death, but said the boy had run-ins with the law before, News.com.au reports.

    Lane’s girlfriend, Sarah Harper, wrote a tribute on Facebook after he was killed.

    "I love you so much babe," she said, according to Sky News. "From 2009 until forever you will always be mine and in a very special and protected place in my heart."

    East Central University is setting up a fund so Lane’s parents, who are still in Australia, can come to Oklahoma.

    "Chris was a well-liked young man here on campus. His teammates thought a lot of him. Seemed to be a bright, promising student," Dr. Jeff Williams, the athletic director at East Central University, told KOCO.

    East Central University is in Ada, about 85 miles west of Duncan. Lane started 14 games at catcher last year and was entering his senior year.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.












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    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/20...#ixzz2cXG3IYUl

  • #2
    Re: Just For The Fun of It!!!

    It's really terrible when this happens and you can't but wonder what the world is coming to.

    Here is an article I read earlier today... not the same seriousness as your story but perhaps a symptom of how we are living today.

    A coincidence that leaves me worried about our lives
    An Article that should make us think by Alex Wood

    Perhaps I shouldn't read too much into the coincidence but I've had almost exactly the same experience twice in the last fortnight and I'm concerned.

    The first occasion was at Waverley Station entering from Market Street. As ever the place was awash with travellers in a hurry. A young woman with a baby in a buggy stopped at the head of the stairs and sighed audibly. It's more than 20 years since my kids were in a buggy but I knew what she was feeling: 'How do I do this without becoming totally knackered?'

    I turned to her and offered to help carry the buggy. We got it down to the platform level and she thanked me. The thanks were profuse, seriously profuse. I waved my hand: 'No problem. Take care'. And I moved on.

    I didn't rethink the matter until yesterday. Again, it was in a station, this time Linlithgow station. I was in the queue, a busy queue, at the ticket office when a young woman, again with a buggy, leaned over and informed the ticket clerk that the lift to the platform would not open. 'Afraid it's not working,' he replied. Again, the woman's doleful look said it all.

    I left the queue and offered to help get the buggy and baby to the platform. I took the front of the buggy, she took the back and 30 seconds later she and the buggy were on the platform. The coincidence, however, wasn't that I'd twice helped a woman hoist a buggy either down or up station steps. It was the profuse nature of the thanks I received.

    The task on both occasions was simple, not physically challenging and consequently on both occasions the gratitude seemed to me, initially at least, out of all proportion to the routine favour granted.

    One explanation is simply that I bumped into two women prone to hyperbole and exaggeration but I do not think so. What hit me after the second experience was that on neither occasion, despite the many other passengers in the vicinity, did another soul make even a move to help. The response of these women was less about gratitude for the brief assistance I had rendered but rather an acknowledgement that such behaviour was not the norm. It did not accord with their routine experience.

    I'll return to that theme shortly but after, on the latter occasion, I had completed my supportive behaviour, I returned to the ticket queue when I experienced my one moment of frustration. Despite the fact I had left the queue to help someone in need, my queuing associates stood their ground to a person. Not one of them suggested I re-enter my original place in the queue. They all saw me leave the queue and why I did so. Several turned and saw me return but their eyes quickly refocused on the ticket clerk, on their journey and on their own concerns. A few minutes at the end of the queue gave me time to pause and consider what had happened.

    I started to reflect on that experience and on the experience of a fortnight earlier. It was not merely that I was alone in offering assistance – and I am certain that the profuse thanks were a reflection of that. It was that for so many of my fellow passengers, engrossed in their mobiles or iPads or conversations with friends, focused on their own particular journey or simply not considering that it was the job of 'someone else' to help, the plight of a fellow traveller was not even visible.

    I am not an advocate of a return to some mid 20th-century culture of male etiquette, where men automatically give up seats on public transport to women. I would have done exactly the same on both occasions had the buggy-wheeler been male.

    There are, however, basic courtesies which oil the wheels of social connectedness. Offering help to someone patently in need of it is the most basic of such courtesies. Courtesy generally is a social lubricant. As a teacher I told young people that terms such as 'Please' and 'Excuse me' gave a signal to others that we respected them and that we were not putting ourselves and our interests ahead of them and theirs. Consequently it made them relate more warmly and connect more readily to us.

    In our atomised, goal-focused culture, we are in danger of losing sight of the fact that it is our very inter-connectedness which makes us human. The small courtesies and kindly behaviours of daily behaviour among individuals are the essential underpinning of cooperative relationships in society at large.

    That may be naïve. Perhaps Thatcher was right, not ethically right but predictively accurate: '…there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families'. If that is the case we should not be surprised at some of the cruel and callous behaviour which has recently been uncovered in hospitals and care settings. It is simply the extreme end of a spectrum of the relentless individualism which left countless passengers blind to the dilemmas of two women with buggies facing stairs they could not tackle alone.

    Alex Wood is a retired headteacher
    The article came from the Scottish Review
    http://www.scottishreview.net

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Just For The Fun of It!!!

      Diane,
      The shocking part of this story, to us in Australia, is that 3 young, under 18, teenagers were able to get their hands on a gun at all.

      Elda

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Just For The Fun of It!!!

        Oh Elda,
        I can imagine your wonder about three youths getting their hands on a gun. Especially since in Australia, if I am not mistaken, there are very strict gun control laws. Here however everyone has a gun. Semi-automatics, and everything else. It is in our constitution, the right to bear arms. Of course when that was written, they had muskets that had to be hand loaded with powder and a bullet. I am not trying to get into a position one way or the other, everyone has their own thoughts. Lots of people here say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Well I think it is both. So for these youths, it will probably be discovered that they got it from parents, relatives, etc. Thanks for listening to me rant. I feel better now. Haha And Alastair, I really like that article and his conclusions on society.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Just For The Fun of It!!!

          Diane,
          I've often thought that the best way to control gun use is to strictly control the ammunition :smile:

          Elda

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