What is your opinion of this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoa...r=1&oref=slogin

 

I read about this the other day...that woman's vindictiveness directly contributed to the girl's death. Shocking, really. It's a shame she can't be charged with a crime.

 

I do not believe any hoax is fun no matter who or why. In this case, it is criminal for this adult woman to have perpetrated such unthinkable and irresponsible act. It is our responsibility to provide protection for vulnerable members of our society, especially young children. Any adult who has time and energy to engage in such malicious activity demonstrates our society has become more lax. I do hope this woman receives just retribution.

 

Excuse my "French" but I think that F-ing bi*** should be charged with some degree of manslaughter and do jail time.

As the internet creeps into more and more parts of our lives the law needs to keep up.

<off soapbox now>

 

You tell 'em!

 

Unless I'm mistaken, child abuse can occur when any adult abuses any child -- that is, it doesn't need to be parents or grandparents. It may be that this harassment qualifies and that legal action could follow.

That said, I also think that the poor young lady's parents need to accept some responsibility for the tragedy as well. They, after all, were insufficiently attentive to their daughter's emotional state throughout this episode -- if they'd been monitoring her online activities or interacting with her as parents should, they might have been able to prevent the suicide.

I wonder what the harasser feels about this -- one can only hope that she's overwhelmingly depressed and guilt-ridden. HPH

 

Well, I've been hearing about this for a few days now. Apparently, no laws were broken so going for a criminal complaint would be useless. But as we learned from OJ, eventhoughhe was found not guilty, the Goldmans went to civil court and got a large setlement (not getting paid) becuse he was found civily responsible for the death of Nicole and Ron. I suspect at least one lawyer has contacted the parents by now.
The case may be hard to make, however, because the girl was said to have been suffering from depression.

 

I don't agree. They moved her to a new school, and they had sought medical help for her. And then someone else deliberately inflicted emotional harm upon her. I don't see how the parents are responsible for that.

 

I happen to agree. I think the parents did what any reasonable parents would do. I don't think that anyone should have or could have expected these parents to anticipate the actions of this neighbor who intimately knew of this childs vulnerabilites and made a point of taking advantage of them. I think only with hindsight would anyone blame the child's parents.

I'm not sure that I understand the legalities of this case. I don't know that there are any laws to prevent this, or that any laws in fact were broken. I don't know that any law's could have prevented this or that any laws would really make a difference.

What I find most disturbing about this case, aside from the fact that a young girl is dead, is that it was an adult whose actions were responsible for this tragedy. It's one thing for kids to taunt and tease each other. This kind of thing has gone on in school yards and social groups for as long as there have been school yards and social groups. It's a whole other thing for an adult, an adult who should know better, to do this kind of thing.

I hope this is an isolated incident of one woman's vindictiveness gone out of control, because if it is more widespread, and adults are acting this way, than I think we are in a great deal of trouble.

 

That is to say, you agree with my disagreement?