Teach Your Kids to Swim
Posted by Moonage on 14 Oct 2005 | Tagged as: Political Correctness
From my buds at Independent Sources orginally from Overlawyered:
A $50 million lawsuit is being filed against Hoboken and its police department by the parents of a 16-year-old boy who drowned in the Hudson River shortly after escaping from Hoboken Police Headquarters. On Oct. 5, 2004 Vincent "Woody" McConnell Jr. was arrested on an outstanding warrant and on being taken in asked if he could use the public rest room at the station house. According to police, he then unscrewed the security grate on the small window in the rest room and escaped; with cops in pursuit, he climbed a railing, "escaped from an officer holding his arm and jumped into the water," which has dangerous currents at that point in the river.
This is just stupid. Now, it’s sad that The McConnells have no more Woody to love and provide for. But, it’s not the fault of the Hoboken Police that:
- They never taught Woody to swim very well apparently.
- They never taught Woody not to jump into rivers since he can’t swim all that well apparently.
- They never resolved the OUTSTANDING WARRANT that put Woody in peril in the first place.
- They never taught Woody that if he was arrested, to COOPERATE with the police.
I see no fault with the Hoboken Police Department here. I see an overzealous lawyer in Robert Bianchi convincing the McConnells that Woody’s death was not their fault.
News flash for Bianchi and the McConnells. This kid obviously was not raised right and didn’t have a whole lot of sense. That’s not something you can sue over. If it were, the McConnells would have been guilty a year ago.
Parents, if your kid gets arrested, RESOLVE IT. Teach your kid to respect cops and cooperate if they get in trouble. It goes a long way to getting OUT of trouble a LOT moreso than trying to escape. And above all, teach your kids to swim.
Idiots. Robert Bianchi should be fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit. The McConnells should be looked at closely by the state to make sure they aren’t raising any more kids.
And I hope, if this does make it to trial, the jury sees things the same way most of the blogosphere seems to. For some reasons juries tend to exhibit stupidity in the safety of numbers. Let’s hope this isn’t one of those cases.
Thanks for heads up IS!
3 Comments »
on 14 Oct 2005 at 11:17 am 1.Independent Sources said …
ACLU Suing Tampa Bay Bucs: Sadly its not on behalf of pirates offended by the teams name
Reuters reports:
A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida on behalf of high school teacher Gordon Johnston, challenges a policy approved by the Tampa Sports Authority in September requiring physical searches of every fan enteri…
on 07 Dec 2006 at 1:25 pm 2.Edward Perez said …
For your information I grew up with “Woody” and this was my best friend.You say cooperate with police,well that may be possible in whatever “Desperate Housewives” neighborhood you live in.But where we live it’s kind of hard when you have police officers with fake mafia mentalities and abuse there authority.Growing up with Woody he never knew how to swim,even almost drowning in 4ft. pools.Now don’t you think it’s kind of fishy that he would jump into a river that growing up we were told was one of the worst rivers.Because not only does it have bad currents,but the water is filthy.So I doubt he’d really jump into the god damn Hudson River.Oh you’re still in your “Mr. Roger’s” mentality,and think cops don’t abuse their power.how about 2-3 years ago during Halloween when I was in high school.A couple of “kids” got into a fight and 4-5 cops came and hit them in the heads with nightsticks.Correct me if I’m wrong,but isn’t it illegal to hit a minor.Till this day the cops were not punished for that action.And if it was just a “kid” jumping into a river than how was there blood before the railing when he supposable jumped.Last time I check when a person is taken into custody without restraint and just runs,how would there be any blood shed.Unless there was foul-play,which people like you think is so impossible.As if there are no crooked cops,and those 2 detectives in NYC that were arrested for ties with the mafia weren’t anyone.Here’s a news flash,get out of the box and realize there can be police that don’t follow procedure.
on 07 Dec 2006 at 3:29 pm 3.Moonage
said …
Could it be possible Woody cut himself escaping the jail before trying to evade the police by jumping in the river?
You make a lot of generalizations in your rant. What you don’t do is give any actual evidence of why my thoughts that this whole situation was FUBAR in the first place.
I still stand behind my original thoughts 100%. If Woody had been taught how to swim, and you don’t have to learn in an ugly river, you can do it in what is called a “swimming pool”, he would not have died. Around here, it’s something most kids learn at an early age. Belittling those that do have the God given sense to teach their kids to swim isn’t doing anyone any good now is it? Those people that do have the sense it takes to learn to swim don’t live in fantasy worlds as you think, they live in about 99% of America. You need to get a grip. It’s not my fault Woody’s dead. It’s not anyone else’s on the planet’s fault Woody’s dead. If he’d kept his nose clean he most likely would never have been in jail in the first place. I don’t buy into the theory that every cop is a criminal. I do buy into the fact most criminals are criminals. I do live in the part of this country that does trust cops more than criminals. And, I can assure you, if you don’t listen to media every day, you’d know that’s probably 99% of the country. So, I do encourage feedback, and I have admitted my errors on this board many, many, times. However, this is not one of them.