Despite speculation, the tormentors of bullycide victim Jamie Rodemeyer will not face criminal charges. After examining Rodemeyer’s computer and cellphone, investigators found “insensitive” and “inappropriate” online remarks, but no criminal offenses that would constitute aggravated harassment or a hate crime. But as we said earlier, we’re not sure that prosecuting the bullies would have helped future LGBT bullying victims either.
DJ Veno
I call bullshit.. Sound like they didn’t want to take it any further.
JElder
So then it’s time to amend our laws so that people can’t continue to skirt around the law and torment someone to the harsh end of them taking their own life.
It’s time people get angry and stop sitting back and taking the bullshit we’re fed.
JElder
If a “Christian” were to be persecuted, harassed and pushed to end their lives, people would be in a hissy and politicians would be screaming to change laws left and right.
Hundreds of LGBT people kill themselves every year and people hardly bat an eyelash…even within our own community.
It honestly sickens me…
Mike in Asheville
Well the findings by the police and prosecutor are, from a legal point-of-view, probably right, and certainly any prosecution would invite a First Amendment challenge to the bullies’ rights of expression.
Interestingly though, the First Amendment would also protect Jamey’s parents exposing just was emailed and voice-mailed to their son. And, there is no right of privacy exposing exactly who left those hateful messages.
I say, expose the hatemongers and let the entire community know who those hateful bastards are. Expose them to the ridicule for their hateful antics.
ke
I agree. I want to know their names. Somebody, a school friend maybe, drop a Facebook profile link. You would be doing a good thing.
B
Definitely look at the ACJ article QUEERTY linked to. It stated, “But neither the in-school bullying episodes, one of which involved pushing and an anti-gay remark, nor ‘insensitive and inappropriate’ online comments were found to be prosecutable, [Police Chief] Askey said, in part because the victim is dead and unable to help prove harassment or other charges that might have been filed.”
“‘I’m not satisfied, to be honest,’ said Askey, adding that officers had devoted hundreds of hours to the investigation. ‘I would like to have seen something we could have done from a prosecution standpoint.’
It seems that no one person did anything that could be proven to be criminal. The problem was that there were a number of people picking on the victim, each independently of the others. The cumulative result of all that harassment (in the colloquial sense, not the legal sense) appears to have been the cause of the suicide, but the individuals picking on the victim weren’t acting as a group. You can’t charge them with a criminal conspiracy if they were really independent of each other, and no single individual did enough to plausibly cause enough emotional distress for a suicide. So, while each is a little bit responsible, it is in a way that our legal system can’t handle.
Cam
“”But as we said earlier, we’re not sure that prosecuting the bullies would have helped future LGBT bullying victims either.””
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By that logic, then we shouldn’t prosecute assault or rape because it might not help future victims.
False, if people know they are doing something illegal, it stops a lot of those incidents.
As for the victim. If he had said ONE thing to a Mormon kid they would have been up in arms and demanded jail time.
the crustybastard
Torment a kid to suicide? Hm. Well, nothing we can do about that.
Hold up a BONG HiTS 4 JESUS sign off-campus when school isn’t in session? ZOMFGZ!! 10-day suspension.
/teaching kids “values”