Lovely Behavior

[impressive]

Two Women Sentenced in Birthday Attack
By BRIAN WITTE, AP

BALTIMORE (May 2) - Two women received maximum prison sentences Monday for their roles in the savage beating of a 12-year-old girl at a birthday party, an attack prompted by a kiss on the cheek from a boy acting on a dare.

Monique Baldwin, 37, was sentenced to 30 years after pleading guilty in March to first-degree assault and second-degree child abuse for instigating other children at the party to beat Nicole Townes, who went into a three-week coma after the attack.

Kenya Keene, 25, received a six-year sentence on reckless endangerment and second-degree assault charges.

"I hope you suffer ... for what you did to my angel," Wayne Townes, Nicole's father, said before the sentences were handed down.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Kaye Allison said she ordered the maximum sentences to send a message that the women's "incomprehensible" behavior won't be tolerated.

Before sentencing, Baldwin and Keene wiped tears from their eyes as prosecutor Julie Drake recounted the beating. Baldwin told other children at the February 2004 sleepover to beat Nicole, instructing them: "Don't stop until she bleeds."

Baldwin apparently had been offended because the boy was supposed to be her daughter's boyfriend. Keene conspired to conceal what had happened when paramedics arrived.

Nicole's sister, Brenda Bailey, 11, was also beaten.

Keene struck the younger girl several times and deliberately delayed obtaining medical treatment for Nicole. When medics arrived, she told them Nicole had suffered a diabetic episode. The misinformation and delay in treatment resulted in a worsening of the girl's condition.

Drake said Nicole doesn't remember the attack. Her father said she was "doing OK," but he declined to elaborate on her condition.

Erin Baldwin, 20, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to four years in prison and four years probation

Seven other females were also charged in the attack. Charges against four of them were handled in juvenile court.

 

[Liar]

Most depressing. If it had only been that one woman losing her marbles, I would had been able to comfort myself with the thought that she as an individual was freaking insane. But it was her, two more adults and a whole bunch of kids knowingly and deliberately beating a little girl to pulp. Which tells me that it's not rare individuals that are insane, but all people, in the wrong context.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Well, that's one of the most depressing things I've read in a couple of days. First kids sports became battlegrounds, now you can't even send your kids to a B-Day party any more without worring that they're not going to end up in the hospital. And apparently it's not the just the other kids, but the parents to.

Is there any place in the world that is still civilized or are we all going down together?

 

[mismused]

Disgusting human behavior!

 

[cantdog]

I listened to and watched an incident across the street, yesterday, while feeding the so-called lawn. The car pulled away from the house and made a very decisive turn, then shot away down the street. From the back porch came running a little girl, screaming, "Mommy!" pegging along on stiff legs with both arms held out, tears streaming. She was sorry, she said, standing at the end of the driveway. Don't leave me. This girl is three, I guess. A three-year-old boy, and a five-year-old girl, also in the household but not sibs, had responded to the girl's extreme desolation by becoming mute shadows. They accompanied her to the drive's end and turned when she did.

This mom has no authority whatsoever. Even the puppy ignores her completely, except to make a game of "can't-catch-me" out of it when she calls him and he doesn't come. The kids know she's a nonentity, the puppy knows, I know. She's forever making threats like this. "I'll just go without you if you don't come here!" Well, she decided to do it, according to the fellow who eventually came out, the dad of the three-year-old boy.

The girl continued to scream disconsolately for Mommy and Daddy for minutes. Her shadows followed her down the street a ways, where they all stopped. The screams made a neighbor lady, who was gardening, come over to help. Once this woman was there, the dad I spoke of finally came out, fetched his kids out of the street, and explained to the neighbor what had happened. Our girl was still disconsolate, of course, but the other children persuaded her to come inside with them and have something to eat.

"You Mom will be back in an hour," the fellow told her. Later, one of the other Moms in the house told everyone she'd be back in thirty days, by the way!

Crappy, crappy parenting. The woman has lost all control and respect by the time her child is three, man. At least someone was there, even if it was only this nebbish dad.

People just don't know nothin. They don't even suspect nothin.

cantdog

 

[CharleyH]

:| Thats just .... :|

 

[rgraham666]

I had thought I had lost my capacity to be surprised and disgusted.

Wrong again.

 

[cloudy]

Unfortunately, the capacity for cruelty of my fellow humans doesn't surprise me anymore. I see it everyday in my own home.

 

[R. Richard]

The injury to the girl who was beaten is horrible and terrifying. [Actually, it appears that there were two girls beaten, one severely.] However, think of the mental injuries to the girls who did the beating. They will have to live with what they did for the rest of their lives.

Everyone at the party suffered. The sentences seem harsh, but are probably not enough.

 

[Samandiriel]

Another example of trash that floats uncollected in the gene pool.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Is there any place in the world that is still civilized or are we all going down together?

My office. Or possibly the inside of a good book. Try "The Winged Watchman."

 

[cantdog]

Shang, the question seems to be, where is civilization? You and I were raised to imagine that we were citizens in a republic, and also participants in and heirs of a great multi-generational thing, western civilization.

I don't think either of these ideas is on the curriculum anymore.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

My office. Or possibly the inside of a good book. Try "The Winged Watchman."

Then you should lock your office door to keep the world out.

The part that really scares me is that you may be right, the only place that is still civilized is the inside of a good book.... unfortunatly, the book is fiction and has no basis in reality.

 

[cantdog]

Most fiction has a basis in reality. Civilization still persists. But it's an enclave amid barbarism and decadence, now. Do we sound like old guys complaining about "kids today" or what, dude?

 

[rgraham666]

Another example of trash that floats uncollected in the gene pool.

And we're fresh out of chlorine.

 

[cantdog]

They're dumping tons of that into the stream two towns upriver. Let's kill them and get it, whattya say?
We can be Darwinian all by ourselves!!! Bwa-hah-hah- haaaa!

Fools! They don't know what they're playing at!!! I do!! Bwa-ah-ha-haaaah!

 

[cantdog]

No but seriously. I have to agree pro forma with the existential sighing about all the stupid people. The human race is mostly boneheads, yes. And even those that aren't don't necessarily mean well, yes. But they are all us. All us, just the same.

I blush for us, but I cannot help it. Yet we still are worthy of love and should be preserved from our foolishness. Chlorine is not the answer, just a strong temptation.

 

[rgraham666]

I quite agree, cant.

I was just foaming at the mouth a little.

 

[SeaCat]

Most fiction has a basis in reality. Civilization still persists. But it's an enclave amid barbarism and decadence, now. Do we sound like old guys complaining about "kids today" or what, dude?

Whoa hold on a bleeping second here Cant. These people were members of one of the greatest civilisations that has ever existed. (It says so right here on the back of the box.) They are civilised by their standards. I read stories like this and wonder why people get uncomfortable when I mention I'm happy being uncivilised. House broken, but uncivilised.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

I quite agree, cant.

I was just foaming at the mouth a little.

Don't worry about it Rob. Mama Nature has all the Chlorine for the Gene Pool she needs.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

I read stories like this and wonder why people get uncomfortable when I mention I'm happy being uncivilised. House broken, but uncivilised.Cat

You and me, both, babe.

 

[cantdog]

The most nationalist would doubt that these people were following the standard raised high by that civilization. I hope. The most nationalist do defend Dubya, though. You may be right, cat. Perhaps being a good American requires incitations to mayhem, and the judge is the Commie terrorist. I saw it as divorced from the political and in the realm of the diseased, but you could still be right.

 

[rgraham666]

Barbarians are politer than civilised men, because civilised men can be rude without getting their skulls split, as a general rule. - Robert E. Howard.

Seriously, why don't we make as much effort to teach and test people at parenting as we do at having them drive cars?

 

[cantdog]

There is a certain squeamishness about a procreation license, maybe, Rob.

But they do, in a way. The one in Maine is called DHS, but each state has a child protective bureaucracy of some kind. Different acronyms.

My sister is a lawyer who represents minors quite a bit as they they attempt to navigate a system whose prime directive is the best interest of the child. It's a very strange mix. Bureaucratic turf wars, moralistic extremism, grandparents in huge tizzies over improper child rearing, criminal justice systems out of their depth, special hearings, custody battles, school administrators with issues. And, finally, minors with no good choices left. She's very good at what she does. She has a level head and a heart in the right place. She can think. She makes the process help the kids whether it wants to or not.

So there is a certain amount of testing of parents. But they have to end up being questioned in these hearings before that occurs. that usually means a criminal or civil complaint has to be brought first. Or a school action like suspension or expulsion. Once things have gone awry, then there are hard questions to face.

Up til then, I guess everyone gets a free shot on goal. Parent on. One big fuckup, or perceived one, and the experts descend.

cantdog

 

[SeaCat]

There is a certain squeamishness about a procreation license, maybe, Rob.

But they do, in a way. The one in Maine is called DHS, but each state has a child protective bureaucracy of some kind. Different acronyms.

My sister is a lawyer who represents minors quite a bit as they they attempt to navigate a system whose prime directive is the best interest of the child. It's a very strange mix. Bureaucratic turf wars, moralistic extremism, grandparents in huge tizzies over improper child rearing, criminal justice systems out of their depth, special hearings, custody battles, school administrators with issues. And, finally, minors with no good choices left. She's very good at what she does. She has a level head and a heart in the right place. She can think. She makes the process help the kids whether it wants to or not.

So there is a certain amount of testing of parents. But they have to end up being questioned in these hearings before that occurs. that usually means a criminal or civil complaint has to be brought first. Or a school action like suspension or expulsion. Once things have gone awry, then there are hard questions to face.

Up til then, I guess everyone gets a free shot on goal. Parent on. One big fuckup, or perceived one, and the experts descend.

cantdog

Cant,

Your sister has my ultimate respect for what she does. I know I wouldn't be able to do it.

Cat