Another Round of Copycat Hangings

[Buttercup]

I was terribly distressed to read this just now.....a number of boys have hung themselves after watching Saddam's execution.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_mimicry_hangings

Should anything be done about televised/internet executions such as this?

Should the posting of executions be banned altogether online and on tv around the world?

Why do you think young boys are the ones so curious about the hanging and trying it for themselves?

 

[lunamoth]

Wow...that is awful. I have so many reactions to this kind of news...none of it good.

First, I think the boys should not have been exposed to the hanging...but I also think that there must be something else going on with them...

Second, actually this should be first...I object to capital punishment to being with...so I don't think there should have been a hanging.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think the parents should take more respsibility and explain things to thier kids.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

First, I think the boys should not have been exposed to the hanging...but I also think that there must be something else going on with them...

A lot of these kids were old enough to know that actual dead is not something that changes when people stop watching. I would agree there were probably other factors at work here.
It reminds me of a case here where a girl watched Scream at a friends party - she was about 12 from memory - and had what amounted to a psychotic eposide when she got home. Her parents put it down solely to the fact she'd seen the movie and started a campaign to stop people showing their kids horror movies. If they'd got anywhere with it, my 5 year old would have been bereft...she loves her horror movies with a passion.
On a different note, no, I don't think the execution should have been shown. By the same token, if people weren't by and large such a morbid lot, there'd have been no money and no mileage in it for anyone.

 

[lizskid]

Clearly, the execution was not meant to be shown. I do feel the Iraqi people needed to see him in his shroud for closure and reassurance that he was, indeed, dead. However, to blame the actions of these kids solely on this is a bit naive. It may have given them a means to attempt, but the ages of the kids, and I study this stuff-in a course right now dealing with death awareness and kids-means they were able to comprehend death as final. They had more issues, and if someone talked to other adults with whom they had contact, say teachers, bosses, whatever, you might get a slightly different picture than that of a grieving parent. Not to belittle the tragedy, because, that's surely what it is!

 

[Buttercup]

Clearly, the execution was not meant to be shown. I do feel the Iraqi people needed to see him in his shroud for closure and reassurance that he was, indeed, dead. However, to blame the actions of these kids solely on this is a bit naive. It may have given them a means to attempt, but the ages of the kids, and I study this stuff-in a course right now dealing with death awareness and kids-means they were able to comprehend death as final. They had more issues, and if someone talked to other adults with whom they had contact, say teachers, bosses, whatever, you might get a slightly different picture than that of a grieving parent. Not to belittle the tragedy, because, that's surely what it is!

Do you think it could be that given the ages of these very young boys that perhaps a couple of them were "experimenting" and didn't mean for it to cause their death? The pictures of Saddam with a noose around his neck were very widely publicized over several days. It's all so sad.

 

[Ozzie]

I was terribly distressed to read this just now.....a number of boys have hung themselves after watching Saddam's execution.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070114/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saddam_mimicry_hangings

Should anything be done about televised/internet executions such as this?

Should the posting of executions be banned altogether online and on tv around the world?

Why do you think young boys are the ones so curious about the hanging and trying it for themselves?

Saddam's video sets an example of contempt for life. Why should we expect impressionable possibly depressed minds to have any more respect for their own especially if we also show them how to kill themselves?

 

[Ciscokid]

Darwin award stuff. There are millions of kids that didn't do this. I blame the kids.

 

[Ciscokid]

Darwin award stuff. There are millions of kids that didn't do this. I blame the kids. Oops double post. But I wanted to add that often times adults don't want to blame kids especially when death is involved in the situation.

I would rather put the blame on the kids...I think that's where it belongs as hard as it is to say that. They blamed Marilyn Manson on the Columbine thing remember? It's ok to blame kids for things.

 

[Buttercup]

Darwin award stuff. There are millions of kids that didn't do this. I blame the kids. Oops double post. But I wanted to add that often times adults don't want to blame kids especially when death is involved in the situation.

I would rather put the blame on the kids...I think that's where it belongs as hard as it is to say that. They blamed Marilyn Manson on the Columbine thing remember? It's ok to blame kids for things.

I'm not really wanting to debate whom to point the blame to...more how can we stop events like this from happening? Surely you have to admit that if these kids had not seen the pictures or videos of Saddams execution they more than likely wouldn't have tried this.

When I was a kid you NEVER would have seen a picture of a man with a noose around his neck just before his execution on the nightly news for days on end. As I mentioned above, I think at least a couple of the boys were simply goofing around and didn't mean to kill themselves.....from the linked article....

"A day after Saddam's execution, a 10-year-old boy in Texas hanged himself from a bunk bed after watching a news report on the execution. Police in the Houston suburb of Webster said the boy, Sergio Pelico, tied a slipknot around his neck while on the bed but had not mean to kill himself.

"I don't think he thought it was real," Julio Gustavo, Sergio's uncle, said afterward. "They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?"


I think what we watch DOES have an influence on us. A ten year old boy who kills himself in this manner is a great tragedy and causes me to wonder how much influence tv, videos and violence has on our culture and on impressionable minds.

 

[Kay]

I honestly don't know what to think of things like this. Kids hang themselves after watching an execution. They jump off buildings in immitation of superman. On and on it seems to go.

Here's the thing:

I watched superman. I watched tons of westerns where people were hung and stabbed and shot. I never tried to jump off a building. I never played at hanging myself.

I don't know that it's the parents fault. My parents never sat down with me and said "Now Kay, you know that you're not supposed to jump off buildings after watching this show, right?" I knew dead was dead.

I dunno.

 

[Ciscokid]

I think there is certainly something to be said about violent acts being shown to our youth. But there really is no protection from foolishness.

 

[Buttercup]

I watched superman. I watched tons of westerns where people were hung and stabbed and shot. I never tried to jump off a building. I never played at hanging myself.

I definitely hear what you're saying as watching these types movies are simply a part of our upbrining in America.

But, there must be something different about make believe (which we all know movies are when we watch them) and real life violence. I don't know what the difference would be to a child or teenager, but it seems as though it's taken differently.

Remember all the shootings at schools and how they seem to go in copycat waves? I think the constant televising of the event triggers more copycat shootings. The kids get the idea from the tv news because it's a real event and for some reason unknown to us they want to repeat it. Seems like these very young kids doing the copycat hangings are following suit with what they see on tv as real life drama. It's a very odd phenomena because as you mentioned, surely this kid from Texas has seen stuff like this in make believe movies and tv and didn't try it before.

 

[ChrisP]

I don't know if it's copycat so much as the perceptual opposite of "out of sight out of mind" but I agree with your observation about waves of these kinds of things chimpfeatures.

 

[Mike182]

ugh, so sad