Via vitalsecurity.org -
There are some important things we can learn from the sad case of Julie Amero:
1) Without fail, almost every single article published on this website seems to present an uneven, hang em' high style approach to journalism that frankly makes me sick. Whether it's this guy deleting blog posts left, right and centre or the main Norwich Bulletin website itself laying its cards on the table by means of presenting a continually slanted take on things with titles such as "Inaction Sank Amero" (apart from the fact it seems to be her actions, rather than inaction which seems to have "sunk" her, heaven forbid they should offer anything up that even remotely sounds like Amero might not be guilty), you're NOT going to get a fair crack of the whip in Norwich, CT.
2) Detective Mark Lounsbury promised we'd all basically look like idiots once the full transcripts became available - like there was some major smoking gun in amongst the wreckage.
Well, I've read about 85% of the documents now, and he's right - there IS a smoking gun in there. The smoking gun is that THIS ENTIRE CASE IS STILL A JOKE.
At some point, major, major alterations were made to the goalposts - the main thrust of the prosecution went from "SHE INTENTIONALLY LOOKED AT PORN! THE POOR KIDS!" to "SHE DIDN'T UNPLUG IT OR SWITCH IT OFF! THE POOR KIDS!"....it's great how "turning it off" or " unplugging it" WOULD have been considered "doing something about it", but no consideration is given to the similarly productive act of turning the screen away from the class (which wasn't hard, given that the PC was facing away from the kids in the first place).
If the kids in the class can't actually see the screen, does it matter at that point whether it's switched on or not?
Is this fair? Or does this smack of rampant stupidity and ignorance?
Worse, the closing argument from the Prosecution guy is ENTIRELY based around Julie Amero INTENTIONALLY ACCESSING PORN IN CLASS AND LOOKING AT IT AND STUFF. The whole stupid "throw a coat on it" thing is mentioned but the alternative of simply turning the screen away (which Amero did) is NOT given any thought as a possible solution.
Because, you know, that would've meant Julie Amero would have gone free.
(dagnabit sometimes I hate blogger. It just dumped a nice long affirming comment. Grrr)
ReplyDeleteWhat I was going to say was this: The only smoking gun I found in the transcript was the outright lies on the part of the district IT administrator who purports never to have heard of nor seen a popup storm.
The other travesty was the sur-rebuttal argument where the prosecutor spends most of his time claiming Amero clicked those dag-gum links and then tosses over his shoulder at the end, but if she didn't, well...hey, hang her high anyway for not turning the monitor off.
And of course, the jury who must either be the stupidest group of 6 on the planet or they just suspended their real-life experience when making their decision.
Really, what ought to happen is that Hartz should be brought up on charges of child endangerment and Amero should receive a huge settlement for her aggravation, grief and loss.