Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/10/police-chiefs-son-charged-in.html
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Sonny boy is practicing to be a cop… just like Daddy.
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Fuckers. Do we blame nature or nurture?
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Maybe the piglet doesn’t fall far from the boar.
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Worth noting that they are saying their son has been estranged for several months prior to this. I’m not saying this completely absolves the chief of any responsibility for raising a shitty son, but at least they already knew he was shitty before he beat up a random brown person.
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No room for an “affluenza” defense here, so his attorney will have to settle for “cop-rophagia”
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Man, real tough guys beating up a 71 year old dude… 
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Well, now we know what kinds of values that police chief brings to his job. I am sure minorities living in his town feel especially safe.
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Revenge! Revenge for some terrorist act we learned about in class! The same class where they explained that Sikhs are not Muslims!
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You are joking right? You can’t possibly be suggesting attacking the innocent and elderly to be a natural act.
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The other suspect was identified as a 16-year-old boy whose name was withheld because he’s underage.
Ah, so the police chief has two sons…
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“Nature” in this case, refers to genetic heritage. Having said that, there are many things in “nature” that wouldn’t balk at attacking a defenceless old man. Of course, those things wouldn’t be theoretically capable of making moral decisions.
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Yeah, it is “perfectly natural” to beat up people because they anger you, or just because you are angry. It is also “perfectly natural” help a little old lady cross the street. We all have the capacity for either within us, although the degree of each may be different. But it is choosing between them, deciding whom we will treat as worthy of our help or deserving of our wrath that determines what kind of people we are, and in turn, what kind of society we live in.
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Xenophobia is natural, strangers are potentially dangerous. Trust is a luxury that comes with civilization. It’s hard to build and easy to tear down.
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Related story…
Last week a Sikh man putting up campaign re-election signs for a local Republican member of Congress was attacked in Stanislaus County by assailants, at least one of which allegedly said, “Go back to your country,” the victim told NBC affiliate KCRA.
The irony is not lost on me.
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Is it? Are we sure that xenophobia isn’t taught?
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Just to clear the air a bit…
As many of you know, I’m a fairly socialist-minded guy who does his best to promote understanding about racism. Yet I have an estranged brother who is an emotionally unstable Trump apologist. Our father is an ex-pastor who tried his best to raise his sons right, but as many families know, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
Don’t blame the father, especially when he expresses his disappointment in his son’s actions.
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While I am in the last person to cut a cop any slack for something they themselves do wrong, I’m not going to judge them for something they didn’t do. I’m surprised how harsh the parent is being judged in some of these comments. I’m sure plenty of you know people who have a wayward kid despite perfectly fine normal parenting. And as he notes his other kids turned out fine.
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I was in the middle of posting something that expresses a similar sentiment to what @knoxblox said.
As the father of 3, I would like to think that I have influenced them and helped instill certain values and beliefs in them. But I know full well the whole of their being is not solely what I taught them. I also know full well that they will be influenced by parties outside my control and quite possibly diametrically opposite of myself and my spouse. There is only so much a parent contributes to in the formation of their child(ren).
Additionally, assuming that because the father is a cop that this kid must have learned violence from him is poor form. This story is not about “bad cops being bad” it is about two young men committing a hate crime and one of their father’s happens to be a cop. The father and mother have clearly denounced the actions of their son.
I will be interested in seeing if the father uses any influence to ensure his son is prosecuted harshly or leniently. That will be a fairly interesting portion of how this story continues to develop.
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