11-year-old boy to stand trial for mother's murder, motive suspected to be VR headset
An 11-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of murdering his mother has been ordered to stand trial.
The boy is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The district attorney's office is seeking to try him as an adult. The court has ordered that the boy's name not be revealed because he may still be tried as a child.
In July, the court found the boy competent, according to court records.
Milwaukee Detective Timothy Keller testified in court on Tuesday about speaking with the boy about his mother's death.
The detective said he questioned the boy the next day and the then 10-year-old boy admitted shooting her but called it an accident, according to WISN.
"[The boy] stated that he took up a shooting stance and was pointing the gun at her as she was walking towards him and asking him to put it down. And that's when he indicated that he fired the gun with his intent to scare her by shooting the wall behind her," Keller testified.
"He had made a purchase on his mother's Amazon account for some virtual reality goggles the morning after this homicide occurred. And [family] were concerned because he had had an argument with her about whether he could have these prior to the homicide," Keller said.
A bad seed? Trim the bad ones for the sake of the future?
Would you put the neurodiverse into a gas chamber for being a burden on society, too?
My lord, you need some help.
This is a kid, it's an accident, a tragic one. He's going to need a psychiatrist his entire life. The punishment is he will live with it.
I don't think he should be charged as an adult but I think there's a gap wider than my mom's ass between "charged as an adult" and "it's an accident just let him go". Even if you didn't intend to kill someone pointing a gun at them and pulling the trigger isn't an accident. There needs to be an intervention here, both for the health of the kid and the safety of other people. This isn't a whoopsiedoodle, he was mad so he shot at her.
I agree, appropriate action should be taken. Just what exactly falls into that bucket though?
You can't put an 11 year old in jail for man slaughter (I would call it that, not murder). Juvi? I really am not qualified enough to know my ass from a hole in the ground here.
What do you think?
following the law as written for an 11 year old defendant would be a good start. I'll admit to also being unqualified but I don't need to know exactly what point a person is fully competent to be treated as an adult by the judicial system to know that an 11 year old hasn't reached that point just like I don't need to know the exact coordinates of the Mexico-US border to know that I, as someone in Pennsylvania, haven't crossed it.
Isn't that the point of the calling someone a "minor", though? Decision making capacity isn't all there yet, higher chance of the stupid, believing you can fly, that sort of thing.
The article said he was aiming for the wall behind the mom. Maybe he thought he was some kind of ace combat special forces or something because of the VR headset stuff.
It's honestly hilarious that you're equating random NDs with a child that murdered his own mother and then ordered a VR headset on her Amazon account a day later.
You're missing the point. All I'm saying is that the punishment should fit the crime.
The kid is a kid. Not innocent, but not deserving of the full weight of adult punishment.
Worse yet, could the child be an undiagnosed ND? You and I don't know. What if he is?
Are you seriously trying to compare the neurodiverse with murderers?
Fucking gross dude. Get help.
Oh lol at you comparing some spoiled kid who killed his own mother to neurodivergent people as if that isn't blatantly ableist and insulting as fuck.
Also you need to learn empathy and to start seeing things from the other side. The safety of everyone else is more important than this kid's feelings because he killed an innocent person unjustifiably. That fact does not change because he is a kid. He is now a threat to the community, and you've no right to demand the community subvert its own right to existence just to appease your wack-ass sensibilities.
His punishment has to put him in jail where he'll be removed from society and still retain some rights. It's the only fair and just way.
This is you sympathizing with the wrong person and not caring about anyone other than yourself and you making yourself look good at the expense of literally everyone around you.
What are you under the impression will happen if he's charged as a minor and convicted? Like, what do you think the normal sentence is for minors convicted of first degree murder in Wisconsin?
Do you think the kid even fully understands the concept of dead? It's funny because in my country children under 14 are not responsible for their actions, the parents are.
That woman died for her own incompetence, the kid was just the vehicle of her demise. Yes sometimes genuinely evil people are born, but in these cases their upbringing is the entire reason for antisocial conduct.