There's an article in the AJC (Girl, 11, Tasered) about an 11-y.o. girl in a Fla. elementary school who went into a rage, spit at teachers, and tried to push another student into oncoming traffic. When the school resource officer tried to intervene, the girl punched her in the nose, injuring her. The resource officer then Tasered the girl to get her under control. The parent's response:

"I think they should be able to restrain the child without having to Taser the child, especially at such a young age," parent Brenda Aloiau said. By the way, the girl was 5'5" and 165lb, bigger than any 11 year old that I can remember from when I was 11.

What struck me when I read this article is that just yesterday, there was a report in the news about DeKalb County investigating 31 incidents last year in which police shot a suspect. All but one case was dismissed by investigators as "justified". However, relatives of several of the suspects who got shot were interviewed on TV, and they all had similar reactions to the parent of the 11-y.o. They blamed the police for shooting when it "wasn't necessary". In one case, three armed suspects broke into a police officer's home in a home invasion. The officer drew her gun and started shooting at them. At least one suspect was killed. His mother was complaining on TV that he was shot in the back, twice. As if that fact somehow canceled out the fact that he was committing an armed home invasion at the time.

We all have to start taking responsibility for our own actions. I started to write "for our own mistakes", but an armed robbery is not a mistake, it's a conscious decision.

It all starts in school. When kids choose to misbehave, we need to provide appropriate consequences, not excuses. Otherwise, they will grow up into armed robbers who are just "victims of circumstance" in their own minds and the minds of their relatives.