Reason not to 100% take away your kid’s phone as a punishment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids have survived without phones in the past. The bigger question is how did he get lost on the way to school? I use to walk to school. Never heard of anyone getting lost on the way to school. The story seems to be sketchy.

He usually takes the bus and missed it. Some bus routes are convoluted. If you're not paying attention on a bus trip of a reasonable length, you can get lost trying to walk it, especially if you think you could take a short cut. I recently got lost dropping my child to school because I took what seemed like a logical "short cut" because there was a back up in traffic on the usual route. This is not a walker claiming not to remember how to walk to school. This was likely his first time walking the route.

Yep. And most kids are either looking at their phones, sleeping, or talking to their friends while on the bus, not looking out the window long or often enough to memorize the (likely convoluted) route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I'm one who only takes DD's phone at home for punishment...dd was in elem and we lived in CT when Sandy Hook happened (got her a phone after that) and now in HS, we live in FL. I want her to have a phone outside our house.

The reason I got my first cell phone was because of Columbine. I was a Junior in high school and they weren’t really a thing then. After Columbine, school was 100% different. That was the first time I remember teachers having discussions with us about what to do if a shooting happened. I still remember the way my English teacher’s voice cracked when she told us where she hid her purse in her desk in case we needed to find her cellphone or car keys to make a run for it if she was shot. “I drive a huge old conversion van. You all know the one. It’s that maroon monstrosity in the lot outside these doors to our left. Just grab my keys and pile in and drive. You’ll all fit! Just floor it!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll wait for the authorities to release the tape before deciding who is racist.

My bet, though is that the teen (who most likely had confrontational behavior with his mom-thus the reason his phone was taken away in the first place) was not so neutral in his body language.

I'm waiting for an outrageous incident involving a black person as a victim, where nobody comes up with a reason why it was really all the black person's fault. I thought this might be it, but nope, here you are. So I'm still waiting.

Exactly, racism is well and alive here on these forums! If a 14 year old of any ethnicity actually tried to rob me..... by ringing the door bell, all by himself, I would let him and probably offer him some food and drinks instead of shooting him! And OP's take on this story is that taking away cell phones is not a smart idea?! Really??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something is off did the kid skip school and try to break in to a house

Yes, because people routinely ring doorbells to make their presence known before they rob houses

Actually, yes they do, dumbass. If nobody answers the front door, then they go round the back and break in.

+1. This is a very common thing. Talk to a few cops about it. If someone answers, they try to sell them something, or they act lost. It’s pretty much the definition of casing the joint.

It’s especially dangerous for kids who are home alone and have been told to not answer the door when they don’t know the person. Then a burglary turns into a home invasion.

Agree with this. People often ring doorbells to see who's around.

My kids know to never answer the door. Even I don't answer the door if I'm home by myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something is off did the kid skip school and try to break in to a house

Yes, because people routinely ring doorbells to make their presence known before they rob houses

Actually, yes they do, dumbass. If nobody answers the front door, then they go round the back and break in.

+1. This is a very common thing. Talk to a few cops about it. If someone answers, they try to sell them something, or they act lost. It’s pretty much the definition of casing the joint.

It’s especially dangerous for kids who are home alone and have been told to not answer the door when they don’t know the person. Then a burglary turns into a home invasion.

Agree with this. People often ring doorbells to see who's around.

My kids know to never answer the door. Even I don't answer the door if I'm home by myself.

So clearly the kid who is trying to rob you, will keep explaining himself while you yell at him? And wait for you to start shooting at him?

[Anonymous]

The Chaos Theory/Butterfly Effect at its finest.

One small changes causes a big effect/lots of chaos.

A mom takes a phone. A boy misses a bus. This house is chosen out of the tens of others on the street. A (thankfully) wayward shot rings out.

These kinds of stories have always fascinated me. One small alternate choice and the outcome is completely different. Once small alternate choice can lead to hundreds of different outcomes. He picks a different house, the house had no security recording system, the homeowner remembered to pull the safety off, etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

What the heck??? Why are so many people trying to blame this on the lost 14 year old?? He had already asked directions to school at another house. So he just changed his mind and decided he wanted to rob the next house instead? And had an aggressive stance (despite no data to support that)? It's somehow his fault?

Geez. Can't we just call a spade a spade - a racist jerk answer the door and shot at an innocent kid because of his skin color. Which is a problem. And it's a problem not just because of this situation but because it happens too often.

But we still can't admit that we have a racism problem in this country....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Chaos Theory/Butterfly Effect at its finest.

One small changes causes a big effect/lots of chaos.

A mom takes a phone. A boy misses a bus. This house is chosen out of the tens of others on the street. A (thankfully) wayward shot rings out.

These kinds of stories have always fascinated me. One small alternate choice and the outcome is completely different. Once small alternate choice can lead to hundreds of different outcomes. He picks a different house, the house had no security recording system, the homeowner remembered to pull the safety off, etc. etc.

One small change: the people at the house decide not to shoot at the 14-year-old person at the door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://amp.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/black-teen-misses-bus-gets-shot-at-after-asking-for-directions-in-rochester-hills?__twitter_impression=true

Teen missed the bus. His mom had taken away his phone and was at work. Dad was deployed. He decided to walk to school but got a bit lost. He did what everyone on DCUM always argues their kid can do when their phone has been taken as a punishment: he rang a doorbell to ask for help/directions and was shot at. Luckily the overzealous homeowner missed and their Ring doorbelll camera recorded the entire encounter.

I’m all for taking away their phone as punishment, but not outside of the house. They get it when they leave for school and give it back when they return home. You can even install an app that turns the smartphone into having flip phone capabilities until you enter a master password to allow it to be a smartphone again.

This is a terrible and frightening story. But what did people do before cell phones? How on earth did we all survive?

I was never told to go up to random stranger's houses and knock on their door and I think that is not a wise thing to advise a kid to do. I would have asked a passerby for directions. I'm certainly NOT excusing the individual who tried to shoot this kid, I am only saying that going onto a stranger's property like that can be a risky proposition. It's better to ask a passerby or go into a store to ask for directions.

If you are lost in a residential neighborhood at that time of the morning, there might not be a passerby. I'm pretty sure if there was a store that he knew of, he would have gone to the store. All they had to do was say through the door that they didn't know and move on. High schools start at about 8 am or earlier, what is the likelihood that a criminal would pick that time of the morning to case a house? Many people are still home at that time. I have people (including teens) knock on my door all the time, not for directions, but fundraisers, selling things....I don't open the door if I don't want to. I speak to them through the door or ignore them. I've never once shot at anyone.

It was just a weird situation for this kid from the get go. He had his phone taken away and shortly thereafter he got lost on his way to school, found himself in a strange neighborhood where he knew no one and wound up picking the wrong door to knock on for directions. Thankfully he wasn't hurt. But if his phone battery had died or his cellphone had gotten lost or stolen he could have found himself in a similar situation.

A teenager going out to knock on doors in their own neighborhood for a fund raiser in the early evening after most people are home from school/work is different. 8am is a weird time to get a knock on your door. Not saying that you should shoot a person for knocking on your door at 8am - NOT o.k. - but I can see how that might be a startling thing for a homeowner.

[Anonymous]

I live now in the Detroit area. Rochester is a very suburban, white area. The high school starts at 7:30, so he was probably walking before 7 a.m. That area is very residential, and I've gotten turned around just driving in the residential areas. On those roads you could go miles before coming across a store.

It's interesting that the surveillance system basically recorded the homeowners' illegal behavior.

[Anonymous]

When my neighbor's kid(Hispanic) misses his bus.... I offer to drive him to school. When I see a kid walking, AA, white, whatever ethnicity, walking down the road from our little town center, I stop and give them a ride back home. Imagine if these two poor excuses for human being were actually nice/not racist a**holes?! I do live in a smaller suburb/town in MD, so maybe a little bit different, but come on, shooting a kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids have survived without phones in the past. The bigger question is how did he get lost on the way to school? I use to walk to school. Never heard of anyone getting lost on the way to school. The story seems to be sketchy.

The kid normally takes the bus to school. Bus routes are not direct so he was trying to walk somewhere he may never have gone door to door. It sounds like he made a mistake by missing the bus and was trying to do his best to still get to school.