Until They Kill Part 2

I can’t help but wonder where people get the idea that buying weapons for a fourteen-year-old, troubled, and unstable youth is acceptable parenting behavior. As I read the account, and watched the video, concerning the young boy who was arrested in Pennsylvania yesterday for planning a “Columbine -like attack” on the local high school, I kept asking where were the parents. I saw the cache of weapons that was stored in the teens bedroom and shook my head in disbelief. How is it that he could have all of those guns, clips, greanades, and literature without the parent knowing? Well, of course, the parents knew – they bought them!

Prosecutor: Mom bought weapons for boy

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/12/student.arsenal/index.html

• Story Highlights
• Mother faces multiple counts for allegedly buying son guns, powder
• Parents tried to coddle “social outcast” son, prosecutor says
• Judge orders psychiatric, educational evaluation for boy, 14
• In separate incidents, six teens arrested in West Virginia

From Allan Chernoff and Brian Vitagliano
CNN

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) — A woman bought guns and bomb-making material to indulge her socially outcast 14-year-old son, a prosecutor said Friday.

Michele Cossey, 46, faces charges in connection with her son’s alleged plan for a Columbine-like attack on a school. She is accused of buying him a .22-caliber handgun, a .22-caliber rifle, a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle and black powder used to make grenades.

“There’s a lot of things at play here,” Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor Jr. said. “You have a child who is obviously emotionally disturbed and a social outcast, and no doubt the parents feel sorry for him and are indulging him.

“This is not the best parenting I’ve ever seen, obviously, and she has to be held accountable for that.”

Cossey was charged Friday with unlawful transfer of a fiream, possession of a firearm by a minor, corruption of a minor, endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of reckless endangerment.

A search of the family’s home Wednesday in Plymouth Meeting outside Philadelphia turned up the rifle, about 30 air-powered guns, swords, knives, grenades, a bomb-making book and videos of the 1999 Columbine High School attack, Castor said.

Castor said the weapons were plainly visible in the boy’s bedroom.

“We alleged that she purchased the 9 mm rifle for her son, allowed him to have black powder, gunpowder and the instruments to make the grenades,” Castor said.

“I don’t think she had anything to do with planning this attack, but by virtue of her indulgence she allowed him to get into this position.”

During a hearing Friday in juvenile court, a judge ruled authorities could continue to hold the teen during their investigation.

The judge also ordered psychiatric and educational achievement evaluations for the youth, who withdrew from school in 2006 and was reportedly home-schooled.

The teen was charged as a juvenile with solicitation to commit terror and other counts and was being held at a youth facility. If he is found delinquent, he could face long-term detention and counseling.

The boy was brought into court in handcuffs. At the end of the hearing, he blew a kiss to his mother and whispered, “I love you.”

As Cossey sat sobbing in the courtroom, Castor walked over to her and informed her that he had a warrant for her arrest. He told her to go to his office on a lower floor of the courthouse, where the warrant was served.

The boy’s father, Frank Cossey, also could face criminal charges pending an investigation, police said.

Police said Frank Cossey was sentenced to house arrest for failing to acknowledge a 1981 manslaughter conviction when he tried to buy a .22-caliber rifle for his son in 2005, The Associated Press reported.

School officials said police acted on a tip from a Plymouth Whitemarsh High School student and his father. They said they believe the tip was prompted by Wednesday’s shooting at a Cleveland, Ohio, school in which a 14-year-old killed himself after wounding two teachers and two other students.

In separate incidents in West Virginia, six teens have been arrested and charged with making terrorist threats at two high schools.

In Marion County, four students are suspected of involvement in attempting to set fires at Fairmont High School, and a fifth is accused of making unrelated threats against students and teachers, Marion County Prosecutor Pat Wilson said.

In Greenbrier County, a Greenbrier East High School student was arrested Thursday morning after students alerted police that he was making threats of a school shooting, said John Curry, county schools superintendent.

CNN’s Catherine Clifford, David Mattingly, Diana Miller, Caleb Silver and Citabria Stevens contributed to this report.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

Where does it all end?

Mychal Bell Back In Jail

http://thetowntalk.com
Article published Oct 11, 2007
‘Jena Six’ defendant Mychal Bell taken back into custody after juvenile court hearing
By Abbey Brown
abrown@thetowntalk.com
(318) 487-6387
After two weeks of freedom, Mychal Bell is back behind bars.
Bell, the most well-known of the “Jena Six,” was taken back into custody today after a juvenile court hearing in Jena, according to Bishop J.L. George of Sicily Island, who has been ministering to the family throughout this process.

Bell, 17, was held in an adult detention facility for about 10 months awaiting trial and then sentencing after a June conviction in connection with the beating of a fellow student at Jena High School. He was released on bond on Sept. 27.

George said Bell now has been “locked back up” in a juvenile detention facility.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, president of National Action Network, said Bell is facing 18 months in a juvenile facility, which Sharpton called “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Sharpton, who has supported the Jena Six and worked for Bell to be released on bond last month, issued this statement tonight:

“Tonight, Mychal Bell was placed by the same judge in Jena, Louisiana, in a secured juvenile facility for 18 months after convicting him for two prior pending cases.

“We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement. His parents were also charged with the cost of all court costs and witness costs and will have to pay for him in the facility. I have committed that National Action Network will financially support the parents through this unusual financial strain imposed upon them.”

Sharpton added: “I call upon the governor of Louisiana, who has the overseeing powers over the juvenile criminal justice system, to meet with us to immediately intervene on this obviously biased decision by the same judge. I intend to raise this next Tuesday, October 16th, in the proceedings of the United States House Judiciary Committee Hearings on Jena in Washington, D.C.”

Five other students were also arrested in the case of the “Jena Six,” which drew national attention after attempted murder charges were filed in the beating case at Jena High School.

Little is known about today’s juvenile hearing that went from 1 p.m. until just after 8 p.m. After a gag order issued earlier this month by 28th Judicial District Court Judge J.P. Mauffray against Bell, his family and the attorneys involved, they have been prevented from talking to the press about the case, family has said.

George said he isn’t sure where Bell is being taken, but he said it is a juvenile facility.

Melissa Bell, Mychal Bell’s mother, left the LaSalle Parish Courthouse shortly after Thursday’s hearing ended to check on her other children while Marcus Jones, Bell’s father, stayed at the courthouse with George and other family and supporters.

“It’s been rough,” George said of how the family is taking the news of their son’s incarceration in a juvenile facility. “It’s real rough for them.”

Bell is the first of the six black teens referred to as the Jena Six to face trial. He was initially convicted in adult court of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime after LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters reduced his charges from attempted murder.

Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Jesse Ray Beard, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were all initially charged with attempted murder after their arrest in connection with the attack on white student Justin Barker on Dec. 4 at Jena High.

According to court documents and testimony, Bell knocked Barker out with a punch and then all six suspects “kicked and stomped” his unconscious body. Barker was treated in a hospital emergency room for three hours.

Charges against Bailey, Jones and Shaw have been reduced to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime. Purvis hasn’t yet been arraigned.

Details about Beard’s case are unknown as he was 14 when arrested, and his case is being handled in the juvenile court system.

After Bell’s conviction, his family fired the court-appointed attorney, and a group of lawyers from Monroe took on his case pro bono. They appealed both convictions.

Mauffray agreed with Bell’s attorneys when they said the adult court never had jurisdiction over the conspiracy charge. He vacated that conviction and sent the case back to juvenile court. But he contended that the adult system retained jurisdiction on the battery charge.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal disagreed and ruled that Bell should have faced the battery charge in the juvenile court as well. When Walters decided on Sept. 27 not to appeal that decision and the conviction was vacated and sent to the juvenile court, Mauffray set bail at $45,000.

Bell was released that day and had been on house arrest, the conditions of which aren’t known.

Initially, Bell’s bond was set as high as $130,000, according to court documents, but it had been reduced to $90,000 before his adult conviction.

After his conviction, his attorneys requested a bond hearing, but bond was denied, with Mauffray citing Bell’s status of being on probation when arrested and four other juvenile adjudications for violent crimes. He had been adjudicated on two charges of battery and two of criminal damage to property.