Teens who taunted drowning disabled man won’t face charges

[Common]

@DGutely @Chris

Florida prosecutors say they aren’t charging a group of teens who taunted a drowning disabled man and recorded his death.

State Attorney Phil Archer released a statement Friday announcing his office’s decision not to criminally charge four juveniles and one adult for failing to help 31-year-old Jamel Dunn at a Cocoa retention pond last July.

Archer pointed out that no Florida law requires a person to provide emergency assistance under the facts of this case. Such a law was proposed during this year’s state legislative session but failed to pass.



Dunn’s death received international attention last year after a viral video showed the teens laughing at him as he drowned.


Cocoa Police Chief Mike Cantaloupe initially said no laws were broken but said several days later a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a death might apply.


https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/teens-...-face-charges/

[Chris]

Taunting him was even worse than doing nothing. Really reprehensible. Trolling on a grand scale.

But I still wouldn't want to see laws coercing helping. It has to be a free choice to be a moral choice.

[Common]

I believe those of you that are for doing nothing to people who refuse to help when they can are viewing this very narrowly and not looking at all the implications, for example

Using your view a person or persons could watch a pedophille rape a kid and they do not have to do anything, yes its extreme but its in the same vein and "could" happen.

Watch a woman be abucted off the street, watch a murder and video it, leave an old person lieing in the street who cant get up on their own.

This was not an issue 3 decades ago but it is today and its very real. $#@!BAGS video crimes in progress, people suffering to get on youtube.

I disagree with you guys on this, I understand many of you believe everything the govt does is evil, but there has to be something somewhere that protects those that cant do for themselves, especially in the lets video the guy suffering and dieing and laugh at him era

[nathanbforrest45]

I think you have a moral obligation to help when you can but legal and moral are two entirely different things. There are many reasons why one may be reluctant to assist another in need. Who's really in need? My wife and I once had custody of my then 10 year old niece. She was quite a handful. One day in a Sam's she was acting up and I decided to just take her back to the car. In the middle of the parking lot she started screaming "Help help, he isn't my daddy, help" What if I had been attacked by a good Samaritan who thought he was saving a little girl from being abducted? How many "saviors" have been wounded or murdered by someone while trying to be of assistance? How many law suits have been filed against those who would help but injured the person they were trying to help?

What these boys did was reprehensible and they certainly should be shunned by everyone but a law requiring you to render aid would only lead to more problems than it solves.

BTW, this was an issue 30 years and longer ago. Remember Kitty Genovese in NYC. Several of her neighbors witnessed the attack (twice) and did nothing. I once had a boss who had to walk with a cane after an operation. Once he fell on a crowded city street and could not get up, Dozens of people walked passed him without offering to even assist him in standing up and this was in 1975.

[roadmaster]

Nor should they. I believe in helping people but when you deliberately go into a crocodile infested water and then expect people to risk their lives saving you of your ignorance, no way. How many here would.

[roadmaster]

It's like the teens that were running from police, crashed and their car ended up into a croc infested water and this was the fifth time they had stolen a car expected police to run in at night to save them. Their parents were mad police didn't swim out to save them. I give them credit they did try but why should they risk their lives knowing it was full of crocks for these young women. Do you think their parents would have been that brave to try and save their own in this situation. No they want strangers to just jump out and risk their own lives for their teens.

[DGUtley]

Having a moral obligation does not equate to a legal obligation.

[Ransom]

Police were notified about the video when a family friend of Dunn, who had two daughters, saw the footage on social media.

They posted it on social media?

Nice kids.

[Chris]

I believe those of you that are for doing nothing to people who refuse to help when they can are viewing this very narrowly and not looking at all the implications, for example

Using your view a person or persons could watch a pedophille rape a kid and they do not have to do anything, yes its extreme but its in the same vein and "could" happen.

Watch a woman be abucted off the street, watch a murder and video it, leave an old person lieing in the street who cant get up on their own.

This was not an issue 3 decades ago but it is today and its very real. $#@!BAGS video crimes in progress, people suffering to get on youtube.

I disagree with you guys on this, I understand many of you believe everything the govt does is evil, but there has to be something somewhere that protects those that cant do for themselves, especially in the lets video the guy suffering and dieing and laugh at him era

But that's not exaxctly what some of us are arguing. We think we should help others in need. In order for that to be a moral action, we must be free to choose to do it. We are only against the government forcing helping others by law.

[Dr. Who]

@DGutely @Chris

Florida prosecutors say they aren’t charging a group of teens who taunted a drowning disabled man and recorded his death.

State Attorney Phil Archer released a statement Friday announcing his office’s decision not to criminally charge four juveniles and one adult for failing to help 31-year-old Jamel Dunn at a Cocoa retention pond last July.

Archer pointed out that no Florida law requires a person to provide emergency assistance under the facts of this case. Such a law was proposed during this year’s state legislative session but failed to pass.



Dunn’s death received international attention last year after a viral video showed the teens laughing at him as he drowned.


Cocoa Police Chief Mike Cantaloupe initially said no laws were broken but said several days later a misdemeanor charge of failing to report a death might apply.


https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/teens-...-face-charges/

I would call it depraved indifference. The parents of those teens should be very worried about their child being the kind of person who would do something like that. They are basically psychopaths.