Update on Crash

[walkitout]

http://acton.patch.com/articles/19-year-old-male-chared-with-oui-in-prospect-street-accident

Yes: all the expected stereotypes apply.

RHI [ETA: R. asked me what RHI stands for and this may have contributed to the negative response by the abusive commenter. RHI = Rumor has it. I was repeating what I heard from someone who was at the plaza at the time of the accident, and who talked to other people who were at the plaza at the time of the accident. I don't know the people who told her this stuff, so I labeled it "rumor", altho I now understand RHI is not obviously "rumor" to every reader. My apologies. ] he walked away from the accident and the injury to the young woman involved a broken bone. Let's hope they all learned their lesson (something involving NOT speeding down a residential street -- hey, MY street -- in the dark and missing the curve).

However, googling "jacob victor acton ma" turned this up from a couple years ago:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/acton/news/police_and_fire/x276659401/Acton-police-logs-April-30-edition

"Jacob Ross Victor, 17, of 10 Heather Hill Road, Acton, was arrested April 24 and charged with disorderly conduct."

So I guess I wouldn't be too optimistic.

ETA (after the abusive commenter showed up):

(1) I pulled that quote from a public source and the public source is named above it.
(2) The person in question is _not_ a child (they are now 19 years old).

ETA Yet again:

Here's what Offical Journalism Types Say About Naming a Minor:

http://www.splc.org/knowyourrights/legalresearch.asp?id=107

ETA: STILL MORE!

File this under, oh, for *'s sake:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/acton/news/x313678869/Acton-police-logs-June-4-edition

"Jacob Ross Victor, 17, of 10 Heather Hill Road, Acton, was arrested May 25 and charged with shoplifting by concealing merchandise"

I didn't pull that off google; I went to wickedlocal and typed "Jacob Victor" into the search box. I'm going to quote something else from the site:

"The following are excerpts from the Acton public safety log for period May 25 through May 31. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty. If an individual listed is found not guilty, The Beacon will print that information here at the request of the individual and upon verification with the court or police."

Word to the wise.

ETA Jul 22 3:40 p.m. EDT:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/acton/thisjustin/x121487976/Police-charge-man-in-Acton-car-crash

Looks like the turn-around time for him at Emerson was pretty short. "Parisi said the accident remains under investigation." The article describes booking and arraignment.

Comments

It would be so nice if the anonymous posters would include their names

[walkitout]

Most of this remark is on topic and it gives me an opportunity to address two specific issues with the anonymous commenters.

(1) Members of a community have an interest in enforcing group norms. One of our group norms is NOT SPEEDING and NOT DRINKING AND DRIVING and really not doing both of those, hitting a couple phone poles, etc. By naming-and-shaming someone who engages in violation of group norms, we communicate what the norms are and that we care about them and that we are prepared to hold violators accountable. That's what we're doing. We don't need to know about someone's upbringing or disabilities or wtf to enforce group norms. If you're wondering why I dragged prior arrests into it, well, those prior arrests were also violations of group norms and people with a pattern of violating group norms deserve more opprobrium than one-offs.

(2) We haven't been speculating about his upbringing. The anonymous commenters keep talking about upbringing. We're talking about an adult engaging in bad behavior and some of us are also proposing ways that this bad behavior could be addressed (adult learning from negative experience, jail time, family intervention, etc.).

So we don't need to stop speculating about his upbringing, because we weren't in the first place. If you're trying to get us to shut up about the event, this is a terrible way to do it; I only went looking for more police log events after the first commenter called me an ignorant ass -- I felt vindictive. I also really dislike stumbling across people who want to sweep bad behavior under the rug, and the anonymous posters have been sounding a lot like that. I don't think pretending this thing didn't happen will help the young man -- and I _know_ it won't address the public safety and property damage issues that led me to post in the first place.

Anonymous Comments Must Be Topical

[walkitout]

Just calling me names is going to get you deleted.

Friends may call me names while off topic. Not random strangers.

Oh, and as for the "not middle school" bit? Please. Middle school students aren't allowed to drive and are thus much less capable of violent damage to themselves and others.