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    tito_swinefluCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:14pm

    Ah, there but by the grace of being white go I...

    One of the things that always stands out for me personally in these stories is the list of items the cops deem suspicious. Once, when I was a kid, someone blew up a footbridge in town. Naturally, the police raided my house. What did they take? Clothespins, scotch tape, some cardboard toilet paper tubes and a stack of flyers for my band with pictures taken from Gustav Dore's illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. In their inventory of thing's they'd taken, these last were listed as "Satanic Materials"

    I wish I was brilliant enough to make a bomb from clothespins, scotch tape, toilet paper tubes and satanic material. I guess if I had real satanic material, anything would be possible?

    It's very difficult to figure out what on earth is going on inside the heads of the cops / prosecutors / etc in cases like this. In what world do kids NOT want to shoot up their school on a bad day? How dumb do cops have to be to think that criminals have a uniform - "oh, before I shoot up the school, I have to have a black trench coat. Given that every American seems to have a gun, they should have been more suspicious of someone without a working gun on the grounds that they were probably un-American. Brilliant work everyone.

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      sharpstickstito_swineflu
      12/13/13 2:23pm

      So... at no point in the entirety of my inner city public school education did I think "wow, I really shoot up my school" bad day or not. o_o

      Walk out and go home? Sure.

      Cut a few classes in the library? Absolutely!

      Shoot up other students? Nope. That is not really a normal thought.

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      emmabrocker2sharpsticks
      12/13/13 2:51pm

      I don't quite understand the inclusion of "inner city public school education" here. Most of these school shooting cases take place in suburban schools. Inner city schools, while the home to a lot of other types of violence, don't tend to have this problem.

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    RandyMagnumCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:35pm

    So... what is the intent of this article? Am I supposed to feel bad for this kid? I get that he had a shitty childhood, I do. But I also get that he made repeated threats of violence, one of which was a very specific and detailed plan about murdering his schoolmates. What am I missing? It doesn't sound like he was railroaded into prison, it sounds like for once the system caught the problem before it happened. Do you think he would have had a change of heart after Sandy Hook happened?

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      hickorydickoryduckRandyMagnum
      12/13/13 2:50pm

      I think the intent is just....to tell a story?

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      CeeCee1RandyMagnum
      12/13/13 3:00pm

      what i got out of the story is that we have a very emotionally disturbed boy who has gone through all sorts of trauma in his life and perhaps if it were recognized and treated sooner by a better mental health system, he wouldn't have ended up in this position.

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    joeystylezCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:21pm

    The last sentence sums up the entire article. This moron mother was too high to notice any warning signs and even let her kid buy an automatic rifle. START PARENTING AND SMARTEN THE FUCK UP!

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      SimulatedSnowmanjoeystylez
      12/13/13 2:23pm

      It's true. All the pot smokers I know are stone cold killers.

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      Graymyas Leighjoeystylez
      12/13/13 2:25pm

      'automatic rifle'

      You mean the .22 with the broken firing pin he bought for $15?

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    XyloCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:37pm

    "No excuse is good enough."

    Unless you suffer from "affluenza" and really kill someone.

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      Kyo Soma AdamsXylo
      12/13/13 2:54pm

      OMG! YES! I was totally going to throw my computer against the wall this morning after I heard about this. That judge should be questioned and fired asap.

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      Camille DoderoKyo Soma Adams
      12/14/13 5:24am

      For the record, a judge didn't write that, a member of the "community" did in a letter to the judge, demanding more time for Sammie.

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    emmabrocker2Camille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:46pm

    This was so compelling, Camille. There were so many things to talk about here, but I'm mostly just going to be haunted by the fact that this was a kid rich in immediate and extended family, even as he was neglected to an absurd degree. Despite the fact that he had a seemingly responsible and caring uncle, aunt, grandmother, and family friends, he was in an environment where he was witnessing his mother's sex work throughout childhood, smoking weed at age five, sexually assaulted at age nine, binge drinking through the school day by age thirteen—the examples go on and on. And now those family members sadly relate the conditions Sammie had to deal with as he was growing up, as though abuse and neglect was his unchangeable lot in life?

    So many kids in Sammie's position have literally no one to look after him. This kid was lucky enough to have several people who could have taken care of him and loved him—and he was, nevertheless, utterly abandoned. On top of everything else, this breaks my heart.

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      mkdallasemmabrocker2
      12/13/13 3:39pm

      Agreed. This was a really well-written and thought-provoking piece; I'm still not sure where I stand on the punishment and if Chavez had a true intent to cause harm or was just blowing off steam. His backstory is really terrible; I'm glad that the sentence wasn't longer and that he has plans for a future beyond prison. That being said, if Sammy had made these comments in my daughter's school, I might be feeling quite differently about his jail time. Excellent reporting!

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      EdnasEdiblesemmabrocker2
      12/13/13 4:14pm

      Agree. I'd like to think he would be a different person if he was with his grandma. It sucks that his mother wrenched him away from a normal stable home life and then later on abandoned her parental rights. I kind of want his mom to go to jail for being such a shitty mom.

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    EasttoMidwestCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 3:46pm

    This is excellent, thank you. It wouldn't be out of place in The New Yorker (with some copy editing). More of this please!

    I would have liked to hear more from forensic psychologists. Chavez seems to be pretty adept at telling people what they want to hear, which gives me pause. In any case, clearly there was reason for alarm; I wish he was receiving in depth psychological counseling and assessment.

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      betsyd123EasttoMidwest
      12/13/13 8:05pm

      It sounds like you have a background in psych - what would the implications be of his ability to say what people want to hear? Why does that give you pause? Genuinely curious what your read is - I find forensic psychology fascinating.

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      EasttoMidwestbetsyd123
      12/16/13 12:24pm

      I don't have a background in psychology. I've read an embarrassing number of books on the topic, so I am noway, nohow, no expert.

      From what I've read, sociopaths are pretty adept at figuring out how to get a desired response from people. Smart ones can fool experts who interview them, etc. It struck me that when speaking to Camille, he launched into a series of anecdotes meant to make her (and us) feel sorry for him, make him seem like a victim, make his behavior seem inevitable. I could be wrong, but I would not expect the kid as he described himself, to be so affable and open, especially after having so many negative interactions with authority and dealing with intensely depressing circumstances. I would expect him to be extremely guarded and suspicious and not very savvy. Moreover, he does common background with violent sociopaths: a narcissistic parent, abandonment, abuse via exposure to criminal activities, including his mother's prostitution and (if he's telling the truth) drug activity that may have effected his developing brain. But it's really his social skills which make me wonder.

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    s3rp3ntsCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 3:11pm

    Now, juxtapose this bullshit with Mr. Parole due to Affluenza. That (rich white) dude actually killed people. This (broke Native American) kid just talked about it and made no real, discernible effort to carry out his alleged threat.

    WTF people. W T F.

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      momofpeanuts3rp3nts
      12/13/13 3:40pm

      Well, but he was never told NO. That's far more traumatic than being ripped away from the only home you've ever known to follow a drunk prostitute around the county, getting molested by your step-brother, witnessing domestic violence, having your stepdad finally give up and leave, having your mom disown you for modelling the hyper-sexualized behavior she's shown for years, and then throwing in under-treated depression and anger combined with being a poor and different student in a school full of problems.

      "Doomed from the start" doesn't have the ring of "affluenza."

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      Anthony Garcias3rp3nts
      12/14/13 9:02am

      I'm right there with you buddy. You try to hope that the country is moving forward and making progress on these types of disparities, but stories like this really try my optimism.

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    WeaselsareUsCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:40pm

    There are many "Sammie's" out there. Most of them you would be hard pressed to recognize, not all of them come from a background where you could almost predict the outcome. We are "breeding" these kinds of kids and I'm afraid it will only get worse unless we take notice. There's a book called "High Risk" that if you get a chance you really should read.

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      Camille DoderoWeaselsareUs
      12/14/13 8:56pm

      Who's the author? I'd love to check it out if it deals with these sorts of things.

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      WeaselsareUsCamille Dodero
      12/15/13 11:57am

      Magid, Ken/ McKelvey, Carole A./ Schroeder, Patricia (CON), Paperback

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    sui_generisCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:50pm

    ....he told a parole officer that he plans to live with his mom...

    Oh great. What this kid actually needed was a psychiatrist, and a new mom. So it's kind of a bad sign that he was just thrown in jail and now that he's getting out, is going back to his mother, who's done such a great job as a parent thus far.

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      amyofthelakessui_generis
      12/14/13 11:27pm

      Hell yes. If the Affluenza kid from Texas can't see his parents for at least a couple of years, Jessie should be slapped with a restraining order from seeing Sammie as well.

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      Nefertittiesamyofthelakes
      12/15/13 5:17pm

      I don't think there is anything wrong with his seeing her, if their relationship is on the mend. But in a perfect world, he would have a situation other than that to go to. It sounds like his grandmother would be ideal as someone to live with and get him on his feet with supervised visitation from the mother.

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    CaryGrantLivesCamille Dodero
    12/13/13 2:14pm

    Why don't we just imprison all these troubled ethnic teenagers? I certainly don't want animals like Sammie Chavez around my children. Maybe we could set up some sort of separate correctional institutions where they can still get an education and learn how to fulfill their role in society.

    -Megyn Kelly

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      kinseCaryGrantLives
      12/13/13 3:06pm

      People like you are the parents of the jocks and bullies that mess other people up.

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      allie.kattkinse
      12/13/13 7:42pm

      Did you skip the "-Megyn Kelly" right there at the bottom?

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