Nathaniel Brazill- Dangerous killer or confused child?

[WriterDom]

Judge to Sentence Florida Teen-Ager
By AMANDA RIDDLE, Associated Press Writer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The fate of a 14-year-old boy who fatally shot his teacher now depends on a judge who must decide whether the teen can be rehabilitated and thus receive a lighter sentence.

At a sentencing hearing Thursday, Nathaniel Brazill (news - web sites) apologized for the first time for the killing of Barry Grunow, telling the judge: ``Words cannot really explain how sorry I am, but they're all I have.''

But Brazill insisted, as he did during his trial, that he didn't mean to hurt his teacher.

``I'm sorry for the pain I've caused the Grunow family,'' Brazill said, reading from a statement. ``Mr. Grunow was a great man and a great teacher. ... I've been thinking about Mrs. Grunow and how lonely she is.''

Circuit Judge Richard Wennet said he would decide the teen-ager's punishment Friday. Brazill faces at least a 25-year sentence and could get up to life in prison. The 25-year minimum is without the possibility of parole or time off for good behavior, but Brazill could seek clemency or pursue appeals in the courts.

Hours before the sentencing, Brazill's mother, Polly Powell, said she hoped the judge would give a sentence that would let her son help other teens learn how to handle the kind of anger that caused her son to go to school with a gun.

``I'm quite sure that he can help the next child not go through something like this, help children realize that if something is bothering you, you know, talk with an adult, talk with somebody,'' Powell told CBS News' ``The Early Show.''

Grunow's mother and two brothers said Brazill was a danger to society and must be punished for the murder. They asked for a life sentence.

``This was not an accident. I think Nathaniel should be punished to the fullest extent of the law,'' said Phyllis Grunow, the victim's mother. ``I don't think any family should have to go through this.''

Powell also testified Thursday, sobbing and wiping away tears as she asked the Grunow family for forgiveness and begged the judge to be lenient.

``Nathaniel is my first born and I love him like nobody else can. I just ask you that you please have mercy on him,'' Powell said.

Brazill was tried as an adult and convicted in May of second-degree murder in the killing of Grunow, 35, at Lake Worth Middle School on May 26, 2000, the last day of school.

Brazill had returned to school after being suspended by a counselor earlier that day for throwing water balloons. He shot Grunow after the teacher refused to let the seventh-grader talk to two girls in his class.

A defense witness testified that Brazill was a ``pot boiling over'' following his suspension and after years of silence about physical abuse of his mother by boyfriends.

``All this other stuff was exploding inside of him,'' said Jacqueline Patterson, deputy superintendent of Milwaukee schools.

Asked why Grunow was targeted, child psychologist James Gabarino, a Cornell University professor, testified that Brazill was in such a frenzy over his love life and the suspension that who the victim was ``may not have mattered.''

The defense is seeking the minimum 25-year term. Brazill's family rejected a plea deal of 25 years offered by prosecutors before the trial.

Prosecutor Marc Shiner asked for a life sentence, but made a second recommendation of 40 years in prison and probation should the judge not sentence Brazill to life.

``This young man deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail without parole,'' Shiner said. ``That's the only way we can be sure he won't hurt someone again.''

Grunow's widow, Pam, told the judge that she didn't have a sentencing recommendation to the court but described her husband as a wonderful father with many friends and students who cared greatly for him.

``At home he enjoyed working in his garden and being Daddy,'' she said. ``He was devoted to us. We were his priority.''

 

[TaffyJ]

Confused, my ass!

Sure, POOR LITTLE KID! Why do we humor these people? If Brazill gets off easy, that will just be incentive for every other angry, immature brat to do whatever they want with a gun, no matter who it hurts.

This kid killed someone with full knowlege of what he was doing. I don't believe for a minute that he went to school with a gun with the intention of not hurting anybody. He's old enough to understand that when you point a gun at a person and pull the trigger, somebody gets dead.

The victim's family will have to live without him for the rest of their life. His kids will always wonder why it had to happen to their daddy. Why should the murderer not be held accountable? If Brazill needs counseling, give it to him while he's in prison. He'll have plenty of time to think about what he's done there.

 

[Demian]

How He Be Any Worse Than...

MultiCrimed Killers who get out after 8 Years?

 

[Closet Desire]

That...

...is a brilliant point. Not a day goes by in the press that somebody with multiple convictions for assault, rape, or murder commits yet another atrocity.

I don't think Brazill will go into prison a hardened killer...but I think he will come out as one.

In the US they don't believe you are mature and rational enough to purchase alcohol until you're 21, but apparently at 13 you're old enough, mature enough, and rational enough to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to spend a quarter of a century in an adult prison.

Do I think he should get off with a slap on the wrist? Not a chance. I do think he belongs where he can be helped and, if he improves, released back into the world rather than written off as a human being.

Send a message to all the other young teens and pre-teens not to do this sort of thing? I've raised three teenagers up as high as eighteen and I have yet to notice them being aware of anything much farther than the tip of their nose. Kids don't think that far away. I know I didn't. (Why else would I have joined the military? Another five years and I would have been smarter!!). I did things that were stupid, reckless, and careless. I could have killed myself or someone else, but I got lucky.

Who knows what was really going on for the kid? Still, do we write off another human life as easily as this?

Sad.

 

[Merelan]

"Who knows what was really going on for the kid? Still, do we write off another human life as easily as this?"


Why not, he did.

 

[Closet Desire]

Sounds more like...

...revenge, not justice.

 

[TaffyJ]

Justice

Justice would be the same thing happening to him that he did to his victim. I'm not suggesting that. Yes, his entire life in prison might be a bit too much, though I doubt the victim's family thinks so. We, the "jury" are not the ones throwing away another young life. Brazill was the one who threw away his life when he pulled that trigger. People have got to be heald accountable for their actions.

I do not believe ALL teenagers are so clueless. I didn't know who I wanted to be when I was a teen. I DID know who I did not want to be. Murder was not on my list of things to do. I still can't stomach the idea that one person should go unpunished for killing another person, no matter how young the killer is. The only excuse would be self defense.

 

[Demian]

No Matter How Much His Mother Cries...

He was not in a good family situation...No way...No Government spending will fix all of these Problems...and certainly not Pat Robertson (Iknow you're on here)...His family didn't give him enough to be so young and Fucked Up...

 

[Closet Desire]

Forget for a minute...

...about politics and national names and all that. No comparisons or tit for tat stuff. I'm suggesting that when a child:

1) Can get hold of a gun.

2) Gets the gun.

3) Goes to a school.

4) Points the gun at a person.

5) Pulls the trigger.

that there is more than just a simple case of murder because, as you have already pointed out, most children just don't do such things. I'm asking if Brazill is the "disease" to be stamped out or is he just a symptom of something more malignant?

When the academic performance of children in a culture, any culture, goes down you can bet that the adults in all walks enact measures to reverse the trend. It seems to be something that everyone can agree on. Same goes for communicable diseases, AIDS, poverty, etc. It's easy to see how the common good is served by objectively identifying the cause and dealing directly with it.

What Brazill did crosses socio-economic boundaries. The two young men who ran riot at Columbine came from God fearing, Christian families who did not have to fight poverty or even violence like children in the inner cities yet these two men planned to not only shoot and kill as may classmates as possible but to blow the place up as well. In hind sight officials and parents are now admitting that warning signs were everywhere about by these two men...or boys if you prefer...and ignored.

It reminds me of an elderly neighbor I had in Virginia who used to sit inside his screened porch with a fly swatter. In spite of the screens the mosquitos (the big salt marsh ones) used to swarm around him. His response was to swat them one by one. I'm sure they deserved it, but one day I went over with a scrap of screen and patched the hole they had been coming through. The death toll on mosquitos dropped, but so did the bites.

I'm suggesting that maybe we should be looking for the holes.

 

[KillerMuffin]

This is a problem and so far the only two solutions offered are to ban guns and convict them as adults.

There is a reason kids are killing like this and it doesn't seem like anyone is doing anything but frothing at the mouth about whether or not they should be tried as adults and whether or not banning guns will keep them out of the hands of kids. It won't, after all banning cocaine worked so well to keep hard recreational drugs out of the hands of kids.

We need to find out why they're doing it. John Douglas and Company (there were several doing it) went to prisons and exhaustively interviewed hundreds of killers so that they could understand why serial killers, mass murders, etc. did what they did, what their warning signs were, and how to catch them. We've got a bunch of these kids sitting in jail globally, what's to stop us from conducting the same sort of interviews? Why can't we start gathering some intelligence into the problem and actually address the problem rather than throw popular bandaids on the proberbial flooding dyke?

Cause that would make sense and fuck if we could ever agree to do something about it.

 

[Closet Desire]

Tip of...

...the proverbial hat.

I don't think banning guns is the answer in the US. Hell, I love my guns...the two I have left anyway...and I'm not allowed to have them over here. The English banned virtually all handguns here and, guess what, criminals still have them. What a surprise.

Still, one has to wonder if the adults who own guns are prepared to accept responsibility for when one of their own weapons is used by a juvenile in a crime? Are the parents who feel safer with a loaded gun in the dresser ready to put it under lock and key or go to prison as accessories?

Killermuffin proposes something else as well. The US is the world leader in developing psychological assessment tests that can reveal, with a very high level of validity (MMPI), subjects with certain tendencies. We don't administer tests to kids, but I'm sure they are there waiting to be used. We actually order our tests from the US for use over here. Maybe people could agree that when a child posts a web site with death threats (Columbine) or has a record of violent propensities at school then it is time to exercise some authority and get to the problem before it becomes a crime and a tragedy.

We do see quite a few kids whose parents are concerned enough about what's going on to bring them in to see a psychologist. I worry about the ones who don't see one either because the NHS cannot fund it or because they can't affort private therapy.

Oh well, gotta run.

 

[teresafannin]

I think the biggest problem is that parents are not taking the time to know their kids & know what they are doing. Too many kids are running wild with no one to teach that there are boundaries. Many of the teens & young people I know have a plan for their lives & are working hard to make it come true. They have parents who love them, discipline them & make them see that their are consequences for their actions. Nathaniel Brazzil is a kid who was troubled for a long time & like so many others, no one was really watching to see what he was doing. He had been in trouble before & knew exactly what he was doing when he took that gun to school. He has never shown any remorse for what he did until now. I don't think that putting young people in adult prisons is the answer, but they have to understand that there are consequences to their actions. My son got into trouble on 2 occasions. We did teen court, alcohol awareness class & community service. He did not get his driver's license until all fines & community service was completed. He didn't get his little truck until he had a job & could make his truck payments. If more parents would be involved with their kids, there would be a lot less juvenile crime.

 

[Merelan]

And your son would still be by your side, not just in your heart.

 

[teresafannin]

Thanks Merelan, you always seem to understand. An adult actually committed the shootings that took my son, but he had started showing signs of emotional problems during his teen years. There was a special needs child in his family & I think his parents devoted so much time to the care of that child, that he kind of fell by the wayside. They meant well, but just couldn't give him the attention he needed. As an adult, his siblings knew the potential for dangerous behavior but they seem to have looked the other way. With the easy availibility of guns here, it was only a matter of time before it all exploded. He wasn't a criminal until he stepped into the church. One of the things I have done during this past 2 years is try to educate parents & kids about their responsibilities to each other.

 

[Siren]

well said.

 

[Closet Desire]

behind closed doors...

There's no doubt that parental involvement is a vital part of raising responsible kids, but I've learned some surprising things working in our practice. We often see children and teens from upstanding families who have issues with anger and violence either at home or at school. They come to us because the families don't want a record in their GP's files or with the NHS. It's a good reason and absolute discretion is one of the reasons we're so busy.

The funny thing is this. The parents are genuinely concerned about their kids as evidenced by bringing them in, but frequently it comes out that the problems don't centre on the child but elsewhere within the family system, including in-laws. Often, after a few sessions with the child, it is the parents who end up in longer term therapy to resolve issues in their relationship which are actually the root of the child's problems. Stress levels are so high that the child can't cope and violence and anger are often the result. The parents are enmeshed in the "system" and aren't even aware of what's really going on.

Terresfannin has confided that she had problems with her child, but boldly faced it and dealt with. I have to admit having problems with anger in my son. Eventually it resulted in a divorce not only from his mother but from the rest of the screwed up family as well. He moved here with me, into a new family, and is a different person today (employed full-time at 18...what a miracle!).

What I'm suggesting poses something of a dilemma in a country where personal freedom is so treasured and that is that sometimes an outsider really needs to step in and say "there is a serious problem here" and it must be dealt with. I'm still stunned that although the parents of the Columbine High shooters knew their sons had a "hate" website and that other parents had complained to them about the behaviour of their sons, they simply rationalized it away and didn't act on it. The Sherriff's department also dismissed concerns based largely on what they perceived about the standing of the families. Ignoring the warning flags caused untold tragedgy that likely could have been averted.

I think there are ways of addressing these problems, but it starts with realising that it can happen in any family regardless of how they are perceived by outsiders.

 

[teresafannin]

One of the reasons I tell people about Justin's troubles is that I want kids to realize that you can change your life & get back on track. Once we let him transfer to a school that is run more like a junior college, he blossomed. Getting his diploma hadn't been important before, but at this other school he worked his butt off & got totally caught up. He would have graduated in December 1999, 6 months early & after a counselor at his other school told me that he wouldn't ever amount to anything. He was working at an office supply store 30 hours a week & running his own DJ business on the side. He had grown up so much in that last year. I want other kids & parents to realize how important that relationship is. If your kids aren't worth fighting for, what is? Family dynamics are a strange thing. We are quite lucky throughout my family. For the most part, we all have good relationships. My brother & I don't speak, but that is a whole different thread. We really try to communicate with each other & work hard to understand each other. We look out for each other's kids, spouses, step-kids, etc. It is work, but worth it.