The drunk driving apologist who seems intent on telling us it’s not unusual for teens to drive almost 3 times the speed limit while under the influence on a residential road in Arlington, and also that there was no reason for the driver to expect it to cause a fatal accident, … do you really believe this? I’m being serious. The level of speed we’re talking about here is the guy flying past you in the passing lane on 95. It’s the speed of a police cruiser in a car chase. Nothing even remotely normal. The concept of drunk driving being fatal is a pervasive message in our society, yet you are telling us this kid was just like, hey, never saw that consequence coming. Who could have guessed? I mean who among us hasn’t gone 90 on a residential road in the middle of the night while drunk and high. We do it all the time and it’s fine. Give me a break.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve said it once already on this thread, but it’s worth repeating. Railing against supporters of the grieving family is a losing battle on a thread like this. No matter how right you are on any legal or philosophical level, you always look bad if you rail against the sympathetic victim. No matter what the legal consequences, I think there’s general consensus that it is the driver who committed the bad act. The victim’s family wouldn’t have to say anything at all if the driver hadn’t killed their son. They are not in this position voluntarily. If the law says the driver’s parents can’t be held liable, that will sort itself out in the courts or in a lawyer’s office. Trying to litigate the issue here just makes the driver and his family look worse, even if they’re not the ones initiating the posts. If you stop defending the driver’s side in your posts, you’ll stop prompting all of the outraged responses and the thread can die.

The kid committed a crime and should face consequences. He’s a minor though and doesn’t fit guidelines to be tried as an adult. It wasn’t intentional, just a reckless dumb accident that he caused. His sentencing isn’t out of the ordinary. If you don’t like it, work to make systemic change.

The family could also sue the parents - they are responsible for their son.

With all due respect, isn’t public outcry the first step towards making systemic change? Also, this is a little closer to murder than just a “dumb accident” in most people’s eyes. Referring to it as a dumb accident is in poor taste. It ignores the intentional acts that led to the predictable horrific outcome. Did the prosecutor view this as just a dumb accident? Maybe that’s why the family is so frustrated.

The “public outcry” is misdirected if the goal really is changing the system.

Drinking and speeding is common and while they do *increase* the risk of an accident (sometimes fatal), that usually doesn’t happen. It wasn’t predictable. And it’s absolutely not “murder”. The driver didn’t intend to kill anyone. A stupid, reckless kid accidentally ran into something. He wasn’t expecting anyone to be making a u-turn in an intersection. Unfortunately, that accident resulted in the death of another kid.

Well plenty of us in the community think the *increase* in the likelihood of killing someone while drunk and speeding at nearly 100 mph is a pretty egregious risk and causes an absolutely unacceptable and foreseeable chance of harm. You must have your personal reasons for trying to justify the driver’s actions because even most posters who agree with the decision to try him as a minor realize that his actions were incredibly reckless with a good chance of someone being hurt/killed. Why you’re bending yourself into a pretzel to deny otherwise is beyond me.

You know what else doesn’t always lead to death … taking drugs. But we know overdose is a predictable outcome. Shooting a gun into a crowd won’t always kill someone. But again, pretty predictable and foreseeable that it would.

When we tell kids not to drink and drive, and/or speed, it is entirely because someone may be making a U turn, or a kid may fall of their bike, or whatever at the intersection ahead of you that you weren’t expecting. Driving requires the ability to stop at a reasonable distance so stop trying to sneak in blame an unexpected U turn.

And I haven’t seen many (or any) posters call it murder. But it’s homicide, which often carries harsher penalties. That is where the public outcry is coming from. Also you claim drinking and speeding is “common” but I would say it’s only common but so is robbery, rape, etc. Normal, good people are not committing any of those acts. Only a certain criminally aberrant demographic of teen engages in the type of drinking/speeding the killer engaged in. He is a deviant outside the social norm for people his age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve said it once already on this thread, but it’s worth repeating. Railing against supporters of the grieving family is a losing battle on a thread like this. No matter how right you are on any legal or philosophical level, you always look bad if you rail against the sympathetic victim. No matter what the legal consequences, I think there’s general consensus that it is the driver who committed the bad act. The victim’s family wouldn’t have to say anything at all if the driver hadn’t killed their son. They are not in this position voluntarily. If the law says the driver’s parents can’t be held liable, that will sort itself out in the courts or in a lawyer’s office. Trying to litigate the issue here just makes the driver and his family look worse, even if they’re not the ones initiating the posts. If you stop defending the driver’s side in your posts, you’ll stop prompting all of the outraged responses and the thread can die.

The kid committed a crime and should face consequences. He’s a minor though and doesn’t fit guidelines to be tried as an adult. It wasn’t intentional, just a reckless dumb accident that he caused. His sentencing isn’t out of the ordinary. If you don’t like it, work to make systemic change.

The family could also sue the parents - they are responsible for their son.

With all due respect, isn’t public outcry the first step towards making systemic change? Also, this is a little closer to murder than just a “dumb accident” in most people’s eyes. Referring to it as a dumb accident is in poor taste. It ignores the intentional acts that led to the predictable horrific outcome. Did the prosecutor view this as just a dumb accident? Maybe that’s why the family is so frustrated.

The “public outcry” is misdirected if the goal really is changing the system.

Drinking and speeding is common and while they do *increase* the risk of an accident (sometimes fatal), that usually doesn’t happen. It wasn’t predictable. And it’s absolutely not “murder”. The driver didn’t intend to kill anyone. A stupid, reckless kid accidentally ran into something. He wasn’t expecting anyone to be making a u-turn in an intersection. Unfortunately, that accident resulted in the death of another kid.

Public outcry often is the first step in changing policy, which I’m sure you know-I’m sorry you don’t like that people find the driver’s action revolting and his behavior to be a moral outrage but they do and will continue to do so no matter how much you normalize it. Even if his sentence is light because he’s a juvenile, the moral judgement will follow him for the rest of life and no amount of shaming his victim’s family will stop it. Hopefully he will try to make a decent life for himself but even if he does, that’s a heavy burden to carry and it should be. Source-I know a guy who is the driver 20 years from now. Neither he nor anybody he meets who finds out (which is essentially everyone he meets) think it’s a “dumb accident.” They think it’s an appalling and catastrophic and that he’s trying to cobble together some type of normal life despite of it with only middling success.

You’ll have to work on your message if you actually want change.

The drinking and speeding was horrible. Terrible, reckless decision. But the kid didn’t intend to kill anyone.

His actions had catastrophic consequences but it wasn’t premeditated or intentional.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drinking and drug use sure was premeditated. What was he intending when he drove 94 mph?

Choosing to drink and drive fast is not the same thing as choosing to kill someone.

People drink and drive fast fairly often and most of the time it does NOT result in death.

He wasn’t doing it with the intention of killing someone.

By saying this 12 times on this thread doesn't make it true.

Shall we go through the numbers again?

Do you ever drive on OD?

I’m sorry that you don’t want to face reality but drinking and driving and speeding are very common. Unfortunately.

Daily. I live in the neighborhood. No one goes 94 on OD, particularly since where the accident occured is an intersection where the light is usually red. Stop gaslighting.

People frequently do go very fast when there is little traffic - 60+.

If kids were playing around in a fast car you could easily get to 90. It’s definitely unsafe, but people doing it aren’t thinking about the risks.

He didn’t intentionally kill.

I am on this section of road multiple times a day. People are not going 60 (or 100) on OD on the regular in this section of Arlington. This is the section where there is a red light is red at Williamsburg Blvd and then a few blocks later at Little Falls. People do speed on OD on the McLean side but NOT where Braylon was hit.

The speed limit is 35 in that section. People were going 50 there with medium traffic on Friday. I checked specifically because of this thread.

With no traffic, it’d be much easier to go faster.

An inexperienced driver may not be aware that there is a light just past the bend.

Many people speed. And many drink & drive. It’s not some rare event.

Just because you keeping reply yourself doesn’t make it true. #gaslighter

I literally just drove it yesterday. The car in front of me was going 50.

And I’m not replying to myself.

Facts.

A little quick math tells me that 50mph is about half of 94mph.

50 with a steady stream of traffic. If there was no traffic, it’d be easy to go much faster.

People speed on that road. I don’t think it’s safe but it happens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The drinking and drug use sure was premeditated. What was he intending when he drove 94 mph?

Choosing to drink and drive fast is not the same thing as choosing to kill someone.

People drink and drive fast fairly often and most of the time it does NOT result in death.

He wasn’t doing it with the intention of killing someone.

By saying this 12 times on this thread doesn't make it true.

Shall we go through the numbers again?

Do you ever drive on OD?

I’m sorry that you don’t want to face reality but drinking and driving and speeding are very common. Unfortunately.

Daily. I live in the neighborhood. No one goes 94 on OD, particularly since where the accident occured is an intersection where the light is usually red. Stop gaslighting.

People frequently do go very fast when there is little traffic - 60+.

If kids were playing around in a fast car you could easily get to 90. It’s definitely unsafe, but people doing it aren’t thinking about the risks.

He didn’t intentionally kill.

I am on this section of road multiple times a day. People are not going 60 (or 100) on OD on the regular in this section of Arlington. This is the section where there is a red light is red at Williamsburg Blvd and then a few blocks later at Little Falls. People do speed on OD on the McLean side but NOT where Braylon was hit.

The speed limit is 35 in that section. People were going 50 there with medium traffic on Friday. I checked specifically because of this thread.

With no traffic, it’d be much easier to go faster.

An inexperienced driver may not be aware that there is a light just past the bend.

Many people speed. And many drink & drive. It’s not some rare event.

Just because you keeping reply yourself doesn’t make it true. #gaslighter

I literally just drove it yesterday. The car in front of me was going 50.

And I’m not replying to myself.

Facts.

A little quick math tells me that 50mph is about half of 94mph.

Why are we letting 17 year olds drive if the country’s official position is that 17 year olds are just dumb kids who can’t be expected to make good decisions?

If we aren’t going to treat them as adults during trials and sentencing then we should not give them control of a deadly weapon.

[quote=Anonymous
Disgusting.