Happy Slapping

[N4H]

I'm so out of touch. I just learned about happy slapping.

Happy slapping is a fad in which an unsuspecting victim is attacked while an accomplice records the assault (commonly with a camera phone or a smartphone). The name can refer to any type of violent assault, not just slapping, even rape and sexual assaults have been classified as "happy slapping" by the media.[citation needed] Within the UK, where the term is used much more frequently than in the U.S., it is associated with the ned/chav sub-culture. Happy slapping filming attacks seem to be common in modern bullying, and not unique to happy slapping. The core defining feature of happy slapping is an effort by the attacker to make the assault seem like play, though some happy slappers have indulged in extreme violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping

Is it wrong that I enjoyed the video below. They happy slapped the wrong girl, and paid the price.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2457550630150624327

[Miffed67]

I'm on the verge of a general diatribe against the breakdown of good manners in modern society....aka a RANT. This is just......stupid. And wrong.

n4h, that vid is hilarious! I wonder how long the practice of 'happy slapping' would last if this was the reaction every time it happened? I'm sure the fun would pale considerably. And quick!

[N4H]

I'll bet they don't happy slap down in Texas. You guys would go all wild west on em.

I'd never heard of it up here. We do get swarming though.

[Miffed67]

We DO have guns! :jawdrop:

[N4H]

Speaking of rude...

A Fox newslady just doing her job :) (http://www.fugly.com/videos/6136/newslady_dollar_bill_stripper.html)

[prydain]

Speaking of Texas, Miffed, I drove through today and the fog was so dense I couldn't see. I was still barreling along at 90 though.

Anyway, happy slapping? Seems stupid to me, hopefully one day one of the slappers will get shot in the face, or the 'nads, and that will be the end of that. :)

[Miffed67]

LMAO. Poor lady! She wasn't having any of it, tho, was she?

Edit:

Speaking of Texas, Miffed, I drove through today and the fog was so dense I couldn't see. I was still barreling along at 90 though.You drove thru Texas in one day? You ARE the man......where were you? You should have stopped by and said Hey! We had cloudy and yuck this morning, but it was sunny by the time I got off work......

Speaking of Memphis (tho we weren't, *L*), I may be up that way in a couple of months.

[Black Eye Guy]

Wow, I've herd of it before. And seen it, but the ones I've seen is like a light slap to the face and its more for the surprise of the randomness. But the slap in that video is like a full on slap!

[goldenboy]

Did you guys see this one? I remembered this thread when I read this story...

Unruly schoolboys or sex offenders?

Sunday, July 22, 2007
SUSAN GOLDSMITH
The Oregonian Staff

The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran -- what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

After hours of interviews with students the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days.

Now, Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and a lifetime on the sex offender registry in a case that poses a fundamental question: When is horseplay a crime?

Bradley Berry, the McMinnville district attorney, said his office "aggressively" pursues sex crimes that involve children. "These cases are devastating to children," he said. "They are life-altering cases."

Last year, in a previously undisclosed prosecution, he charged two other Patton Middle School boys with felony sex abuse for repeatedly slapping the bottom of a female student. Both pleaded guilty to harassment, which is a misdemeanor. Berry declined to discuss his cases against Mashburn and Cornelison.

The boys and their parents say Berry has gone far beyond what is necessary, criminalizing actions that they acknowledge were inappropriate. School district officials said Friday they had addressed the incident by suspending the students for five days.

The outlines of the case have been known. But confidential police reports and juvenile court records shed new light on the context of the boys' actions. The records show that other students, boys and girls, were slapping one another's bottoms. Two of the girls identified as victims have recanted, saying they felt pressured and gave false statements to interrogators.

The documents also show that the boys face 10 misdemeanor charges -- five sex abuse counts, five harassment counts -- reduced from initial charges of felony sex abuse. The boys are scheduled to go on trial Aug. 20.

A leading expert called the case a "travesty of justice" that is part of a growing trend in which children as young as 8 are being labeled sexual predators in juvenile court, where documents and proceedings are often secret...
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1185040507206380.xml&coll=7&thispage=1


And an update...

DA, spanking case stir outrage

Schoolboys - The district attorney says jail is unlikely for two youths whose case is making national waves

Tuesday, July 24, 2007
SUSAN GOLDSMITH
The Oregonian Staff

Two McMinnville middle-schoolers facing sex abuse charges for spanking girls in the hallway probably will not do jail time or be required to register as sex offenders, the Yamhill County district attorney said Monday as the case against the boys grew into a media sensation.

The comments from Bradley Berry outraged the parents of the two 13-year-olds, Ryan Cornelison and Cory Mashburn, who with their lawyers were deluged with calls from ABC, CNN, Fox, Court TV and radio stations across the country a day after a story about the prosecution appeared in The Sunday Oregonian.

Until now, Berry has declined to discuss specifics of the case or explain why it merits criminal charges. After spending most of Monday fielding complaints, however, he elaborated for the first time.

"From our perspective and the perspective of the victims, this was not just horseplay," Berry told The Oregonian. "People may disagree, and I understand that."

Based on his experience in similar cases, Berry said it's unlikely the boys, if convicted, would be sentenced for the maximum jail time for each of the counts. "That type of sentence has never been imposed in my county or in any county that I know of for these types of offenses," he said.

Berry said he, too, was inundated with calls and e-mails from readers who complained that charging the boys with 10 counts of sex abuse and harassment was an overreaction, as their parents maintain. Lawyers for the boys say each count could bring a year in confinement and mandatory registration as sex offenders.

Berry said a judge could lift the registration requirement after it was imposed. "These youths can petition the court relatively quickly for relief from that," he said.

The boys' families said they were furious at what appeared to be backpedaling on Berry's part.

"It makes us angry that they can overcharge . . . and make us think this could happen," said Tracie Mashburn, Cory's mother. "Why would they do that and threaten us with that if they're not going to do it?"

"He's just doing damage control," added Joe Cornelison, Ryan's father. "I want to ask Brad Berry, what kind of due process is this?"
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1185249323232820.xml&coll=7

[N4H]

On a personal level, if some girl close to me is walking down the street, and she gets happy slapped, I'm angry. I want the slappers publicly flogged. If she's gets her bum patted in the school hallway, I'm just irritated. I'll settle for the patters getting a trip to the principal's office, forced to apologize, and possibly a week's detention, or some such punishment.

However...the patters might actually be more dangerous than the slappers, so I don't know how correct first impressions of this kind of stuff are..

[goldenboy]

However...the patters might actually be more dangerous than the slappers, so I don't know how correct first impressions of this kind of stuff are..

Yeah, it's impossible to know what's really going on there with those two boys - as filtered through media reports. You gotta think it's just crude flirtation, moronic behavior. Could lead to something dangerous if left unchecked, unpunished I suppose.

But you just keep seeing more of these bullying, overzealous DA's in the news, in the States. Initially charging these boys with multiple felonies, up to a decade in jail - for butt slapping (that other boys and girls were apparently also doing at the school)? What does this do to the larger culture within schools? On the face of it, seems like it trivializes the term "sexual abuse". Seems like it would make everyday interactions between students even weirder and more paranoid, unhealthy. Do these thoughts ever enter these prosecutors' minds?

I dunno. This kinda thing and "zero tolerance policy" abuse bothers me.

[Gollanth]

On the original subject of filming what actually amounts to an assault, it's been rife over here for some time now and it's about time it was stamped out once and for all. Give the next little toe-rags they catch a good pasting with a large stick and they might think twice about doing it again - and set an example to the other little shits still considering it.

There have been a couple of cases in the Courts recently where somebody was actually beaten/kicked to death by sub-humans who filmed it on their mobiles. I know I probably sound like Mr Angry, but hanging really is too good for someone who is willing to do that kind of thing. And I'm not talking about hanging 'em by their necks either!

Regarding the two kids who slapped an arse or two, I agree that it is something that needs to be nipped in the bud, lest it leads to something bigger, but it seems to me that perhaps the DA doesn't have enough work to do......