Animal Cruelty

[beaternumber1]

There was this 7 year old kid in Australia and he broke into a zoo. He didn't trigger any alarms because he was to small. So anyway this little brat goes and starts beating up the animals and then one by one he feeds them to the alligator. He killed over 10 animals including an extirpated lizard. (Extirpated means no longer alive in a certain place in this case the wild). They have this entire thing on camera, the kid isn't angry he in fact has no expression on his face at all. My mom and i talked about his punishment and she thinks the it is his parents fault because they probably abused him and that they should be investigated. I think that he should be fed to the alligators ( yes i know thats severe I'm just angry how about life in prison?). I don't care if he's seven he is a evil little kid who deserves severe punishment. What do you think?

Here is a link to a website about it.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7649876.stm

[Ankh]

I blame his parents. At his age, I think it's has parents that have the most effect on what he does.

[Schmergo]

I blame him. No matter how bad parents his are, a seven-year-old kid should know better than to feed zoo animals to alligators. It's not like he did it accidentally. Getting into the animals' exhibits and picking them up takes EFFORT. He had to consciously think, "Hmmm, how should I go about feeding these animals to the croc?"

[mousemaylikecheese]

I think both the parents and the boy are at fault. The boy is seven years old and should not be allowed to run wild in a zoo where ever he liked, but he is also old enough to know that what he was doing was wrong and harmful to the animals.

I'm would guess that he was probably either very angry about something and wanted to take it out on someone or he was imitating behavior he had seen somewhere. (ETA: A third possibility--he really, really doesn't like small reptiles for some reason) By the use of the word "clammed-up", I think that he either didn't understand the magnitude of what he did (yes, it did take premeditation to kill lizards, but I mean that he did not understand their value/rarity. Perhaps his thought process went along the lines of "They're just animals; it doesn't matter so much if I hurt them") and therefore did not expect such an investigation or else did not want to talk to anyone about it. Possibly he was intimidated by the idea of the police talking to him.

Either way, I think he should have to admit what he did was wrong.

[bb]

I'm in two (or more) minds about this.

I'm not sure whether it's the little brat's fault or his parents'. On one hand he's a bratty jerk, but then it seems he was abused by his parents...

Dilemma. Ugh.

~BB