Stricklands settle after death of son I am not going to debate the question of whether this teenager needed to die. He did not. The sentence did not fit the crime he committed. I do have a problem with one issue here. If Stricklend had never stolen a PlayStation, the cops would not have been at his door. This is aspect of the situation that seems to have been overlooked in the outrage over the actions of one trigger happy cop.
In today’s society we seem to overlook the actions of a person if an injustice results from those actions. Rodney King would not have been in a situation to be beat by LA officers if he had not been doing drugs and driving erratically. Why did someone not point this out. It was wrong for the cops to bludgeon him, but he brought the cops attention to himself by being high. There are other circumstances also, he kept resisting the officers. If he had just stayed on the ground he would not have been beaten either.
How many times a day have officers arrested someone and no one was hurt in the incident? Many. But when something goes wrong the blame is always placed on the cops and little mention is made about the offenders crimes. When can we place some blame?
Why accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions if you don’t have to do so?
Unfortunately, society is not moving in a direction where people are going to accept more responsibility.