Police: Teen says he killed dad over Internet ban

According to a Mesa police report released Wednesday, 15-year-old Hughstan Schlicker told a homicide detective that he considered committing suicide in front of his father after finding a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition in the garage of their home, but decided to murder his father instead and then commit suicide.

After the slaying, "the defendant first called his friend and told her what he had done. He told her he was going to kill himself but she told him not to. She convinced him to call the police and deal with the situation," the report said.

Hughstan told detectives that he used the Internet to communicate with his friends and since his father took the Internet away, he was "just so depressed all the time," the report said.

www.usatoday.com...

Cases like this seem to be becoming more prevalent. Just a few days ago, a girl and her friends murdered her family because she was made to break up with her boyfriend.

The murder rate in our inner cities has been appalling for several decades now, with the drug trade fueling a lot of the homicides.

But these recent cases, although not unprecedented, leave one wondering just what is the problem.

Scout, 15, allegedly killed family without warning

Nicholas W. Browning remained jailed without bond after confessing early Sunday that he killed his father, John Browning, his mother, Tamara, and his younger brothers, Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11, according to Baltimore County police.

Browning, who turns 16 on Saturday, had no history of violence, mental health problems or drug problems, according to court documents.

www.cnn.com...

A high school couple forced to break up spent about a month plotting to kill the girl's parents before her mother and two younger brothers were fatally shot and stabbed in a weekend ambush, according to records released Monday.

The family dog keeps vigil on the burned house where Penny Caffey and her sons were killed Saturday.

1 of 2 Charlie James Wilkinson, who had been dating Penny and Terry Caffey's 16-year-old daughter, told police his girlfriend wanted her parents dead because they forbade their relationship, according to Rains County [TX] Sheriff Department investigators.

www.cnn.com...

In your opinion, what is it?

Simply put, I think it's too many under-supervised kids, influenced by violent media, lax discipline at home and at school, and a sense of entitlement and victimhood instilled by the schools and sometimes violence and abuse in the home.

All factors are not evident in each case, but these are influences that are common and widespread.


[edit on 2008/3/6 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Simply put, I think it's too many under-supervised kids, influenced by violent media, lax discipline at home and at school, and a sense of entitlement and victimhood instilled by the schools and sometimes violence and abuse in the home.

All factors are not evident in each case, but these are influences that are common and widespread.

[edit on 2008/3/6 by GradyPhilpott]

I would like to add.

With fast and easy access to fire arms in a country that doesn't bat an eyelid when the news reports that someone has been shot. The whole country (generally speaking) has been completely desensitized to gun related crime.

I also read somewhere that Canada has more firearms (mostly rifles I think) per person, but their not all running around shooting each other.

Why is that?

MonKey

Here's another case from early last month.

A US teenager shot dead his parents and two brothers as they slept after a dispute with his father in a small Maryland town near Baltimore, county police said Monday.

Nicholas Browning, who turned 16 at the weekend, grabbed his father's handgun and apparently used it to shoot his parents and his brothers, age 12 and 14, before hiding the weapon in bushes along a road.

rawstory.com...

Originally posted by ChiKeyMonKey
With fast and easy access to fire arms in a country that doesn't bat an eyelid when the news reports that someone has been shot. The whole country (generally speaking) has been completely desensitized to gun related crime.

Firearms have been readily available since the first Europeans set foot in the New World and the right to keep and bear arms has been Constitutionally protected in the US since about 1789.

The availability of guns being a constant, doesn't really explain anything, especially the rapid rise of violence in the last two decades of the Twentieth Century or the events in question here.


[edit on 2008/3/6 by GradyPhilpott]

I don't think this is an indication of anything other than the general demise of our society as a whole. The western world has continuously diminished on so many fronts, and unless something changes in our mindset, we will continue down this path. I attribute this demise to our culture and the main stream media that preaches their biased agenda to the average folk that do not know any better.

Average citizens are taught to be afraid and protective of their own, and kids are taught that being a tough punk with bling will get you farther in life than hard work and decency.

More often than not, I am a strong advocate that kids today are no more messed up than they were in the past. To a degree, I still believe in this. But the effects of the mainstream media are beginning to take hold and the demise of our society indicates this.

Adolescents today are a problem, just as they were in the past. But our problems are not restricted to this population. Parents and seniors are just as much of an issue as well, so I do not think we should be calling any one group out in particular. It wasn't any more than a year ago that a Canadian man was brought up on charges for putting his new born baby in the freezer because he had a fever.

As stated, western society has demised tremendously and appears to be still heading down this path.

Originally posted by ChiKeyMonKey
I also read somewhere that Canada has more firearms (mostly rifles I think) per person, but their not all running around shooting each other.

Why is that?

Well, rifles aren't made to shoot humans, and are mostly made to hunt Game animals...

Pistols on the other hand, have one soul purpose... to shoot humans...

Also, there are some diffrences in the makeup of the populations... but i will refreign from going into detail...

Originally posted by chissler


As stated, western society has demised tremendously and appears to be still heading down this path.

I agree completely. And I can't say I'm very surprised with the worship of violence, violent sports, games. Physical strength being prized above intellectual achievement.

Constant media bombardment of blood, guts, torture and anyone not worshipping at the same throne is deemed a sissy.

Western society is a warrior society and to expect it to not spill oven into the general populace is naive.

You ain't seen nothing yet; wait until people get hungry with the coming depression. Even peace loving people, when driven to desperation, can perform undreamed of savagery.

It's a brave new world, welcome to the monkey house.

[edit on 6-3-2008 by whaaa]

Simply put, I think it's too many under-supervised kids, influenced by violent media, lax discipline at home and at school, and a sense of entitlement and victimhood instilled by the schools and sometimes violence and abuse in the home.

Probably gay too. Thanks for this post Grady.

reply to post by GradyPhilpott


Upon further reading it would seem that guns really are not the issue!!

Gun Ownership in the US

But then guns on there own are never a problem. It's when there's an idiot on the other end of them that problems occur.

All the examples that have been given are pissed off teenagers. I wonder how many of them are or have been on some form of medication for some blown out of proportion problem like adhd?

Is there a something going around that is upping peoples anxiety levels and making them prone to violence?

MonKey

Originally posted by ChiKeyMonKey


All the examples that have been given are pissed off teenagers. I wonder how many of them are or have been on some form of medication for some blown out of proportion problem like adhd?

Is there a something going around that is upping peoples anxiety levels and making them prone to violence?

MonKey

This is just purely spectulation on my part but I would bet that besides their being a genetic component to violent behavior; more than likely environmental factors such as alcoholism or drug abuse or other toxic substances in the home.

Growing up, almost all the guys I knew that liked to fight had drunk abusive fathers. And liked to get tanked up themselves.

Now with a saturday nite special available for under a hundred bucks and easy availability on the street, you got a scene prime for serious violence and death.

I think there have been studied that show that prozac and other drugs like that can cause cognative impairment and lead to violence.

reply to post by ChiKeyMonKey


Never mind, Monkey. I reacted before reading your next post.



[edit on 7-3-2008 by thisguyrighthere]

Hmmm, sounds like hormones and drugs addling thier brains. What do you expect when you dump 6 different kinds of meds down their throats? "He has ADD, ADHD, HDDD, Depressions, give him these drugs!" Oops, everything mixing together inside of a growing brain causes problems. Oh well, at least the drug companies made an extra billion killing your family.

To blame it on violence in TV/Media is bogus. When I was growing up a hit song was The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia. It's all about a friend telling a man that his wife was cheating on him, that man going to kill his friend because his friend was one of them, finding his friend dead, flagging the police down, and being hung in a make believe trial. Then you find out his little sister shot the man, and killed the cheating wife, and I quote. "His cheating wife had never left town that's one body that will never be found cause little sis don't miss when she aims her gun." Yet we didn't this crap going on.

What about movies like Full Metal Jacket? Platoon? Very violent movies yet... nothing.

Its the drugs I tell ya. It's all the drugs being pumped into our kids today.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
In your opinion, what is it?

I agree with everything you've listed. But, I'd like to add one more. Perscription drugs that the younger generation is on. I swear every child has some kind of "disorder" that needs to be medicated.

Originally posted by chissler
It wasn't any more than a year ago that a Canadian man was brought up on charges for putting his new born baby in the freezer because he had a fever.

As stated, western society has demised tremendously and appears to be still heading down this path.

Have you seen the movie "Idiocracy"?

en.wikipedia.org...

It's not that great but the premise was brilliant IMO.

Your example made me think of it.

reply to post by HHH Is King



Looks like great minds think alike.


I believe it's all the drugs now too.

Originally posted by HHH Is King
To blame it on violence in TV/Media is bogus. When I was growing up a hit song was The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.

What about movies like Full Metal Jacket? Platoon? Very violent movies yet... nothing.

With all due respect, these examples are nothing compared to the level of violence in the media today. There have always been war movies, it's true, but somehow most people were able to comprehend them in the context of war and it didn't spill over into their behavior in civilian life. The violence now is often random, gratuitous, unreasonable, pervasive. The message is that violence is normal and unavoidable.

Young people are not only killing others, but also killing themselves at an alarming rate. As a teacher I often deal with suicidal depression.

I am reluctant to join that group of people who say, "Young people nowadays..not like when I was young!" But when I was growing up school shootings were nonexistent. There were fistfights at my high school, and an occasional knife, but they were never life-threatening and were always punished.

There is a profound difference in the way many young people relate to authority; they are actually harder to discipline. I often see parents of young children stymied as to what to do to control their children's behavior. Other parents don't care what their children do to others as long as they don't give them any trouble themselves--the message there is "the only rule is not to displease or inconvenience me." I have had older students whose parents just laugh when they get arrested for anti-social behavior. There are fewer distinctions between right and wrong.

Maybe some of the rebellious baby boomers and the generation Xers have turned out to be lousy parents.

[edit on 7-3-2008 by Sestias]

[edit on 7-3-2008 by Sestias]