[News] 8 Year Old Kills Two Adults

Hammer · 8th November 2008, 4:01pm

What. The. Fuck?

Quote:

An eight-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of his father and another man in the US state of Arizona.

Police in St Johns, a small community north-east of Phoenix, said the child had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-calibre rifle on Wednesday.

"Who would think an eight-year-old kid could kill two adults?" said St Johns Police Chief Roy Melnick on Friday.

A judge has ordered a psychological evaluation of the boy, who is being held at a juvenile detention centre.

He did not have a record of bad behaviour at school, and there had been no indication of any problems at home, prosecutors said.

Mr Melnick said police officers had arrived at the child's home within minutes of the shooting on Wednesday evening.

They found one victim just outside the front door and the other dead in an upstairs room, he added.

The second man is believed to have been lodging in the house.

The boy had gone to a neighbour's house and said he "believed that his father was dead", Apache County prosecutor Brad Carlyon said. Police later obtained a confession from the boy for the two killings.

His defence lawyer, Benjamin Brewer, said police had overreached in questioning him without representation from a parent or a lawyer, and that they had not advised him of his rights.

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Treetop Flyer · 8th November 2008, 4:39pm

Oh no, he came back!

Dario · 8th November 2008, 5:10pm

Is it possible he thought it was a toy gun?

Treetop Flyer · 8th November 2008, 5:15pm

In America there are toy bullets in their toy guns

endless psych · 8th November 2008, 7:42pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dario

Is it possible he thought it was a toy gun?

A .22 calibre rifle?

It's possible the kid might not have known it was loaded and the like.

I dunno why but I find the idea of an 8 year old confessing more troubling... Especially (just going on Hammers post) the lack of other compelling evidence mentioned...

**PapaZeb** · 8th November 2008, 7:51pm

Quote:

A .22 calibre rifle?

You ever held a .22 before? They feel like toy guns and the recoil is piddling.

Forget the 8year old and his reasons...imprison a nice federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison the retard that neglected to lock up their gun.

*LesMTS* · 8th November 2008, 7:57pm

Aye, a .22 is the kind of pissy wee rifle they use for shooting rats and pigeons and other large pests in factories and farms and whatnot. There'll be thousands of them in households across Scotland.
I'd wait for the details before chalking this up as ammo against US gun laws. It's possibly the kind of thing that could easily happen here, the fact it's happened in the US might just be....er...unfortunate for their reputation.

endless psych · 8th November 2008, 8:00pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by PapaZeb

You ever held a .22 before? They feel like toy guns and the recoil is piddling.

It's more the size of the thing, or I suppose what I percieve as the size of the thing given the word rifle, I'd find that explanation easier to explain if it was a pistol of some sort. Given kids toy pistols seem to be more "realistically" sized then kids to rifles. Bare in mind I'm coming at this from a UK-centric point of view and the only guns I've encountered have been that which the farmers use to shoot birds and foxes.

**Shannow** · 8th November 2008, 8:02pm

2 confirmed kills with a .22 rifle?

Kids a fucking good shot.

*LesMTS* · 8th November 2008, 8:11pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by endless psych

the only guns I've encountered have been that which the farmers use to shoot birds and foxes.

Probably .22s.

**PapaZeb** · 8th November 2008, 9:48pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by endless psych

It's more the size of the thing, or I suppose what I percieve as the size of the thing given the word rifle, I'd find that explanation easier to explain if it was a pistol of some sort. Given kids toy pistols seem to be more "realistically" sized then kids to rifles. Bare in mind I'm coming at this from a UK-centric point of view and the only guns I've encountered have been that which the farmers use to shoot birds and foxes.

Got it, yer talking about stuff you don't know anything about.

Kids BB guns are easily the size of a standard .22 rifle, and round these parts giving a kid a BB gun at 8 isn't unheard of (or younger)

Still doesn't make up for the useless cockmonster that left it out the gun safe.

erithromycin · 9th November 2008, 3:22am

Apparently his mother wanted him to get a BB gun. They want to try him as an adult.

Also, the notion that a .22 is a piddling weapon is laughable. I know I wouldn't want to be shot with one. Yes, it's a small caliber, but it does sit on top of a rifle cartridge. I mean, there are bigger, manlier guns, but at short range with a 22lr killing two grown men with it would be little more than a turkey shoot.

Stew · 10th November 2008, 2:19am

Quote:

Originally Posted by erithromycin

They want to try him as an adult.

Hopefully they'll give him a Winnie the Pooh plaster after the last injection, then.

corky · 10th November 2008, 4:25am

Quote:

Originally Posted by PapaZeb

Got it, yer talking about stuff you don't know anything about.

Kids BB guns are easily the size of a standard .22 rifle, and round these parts giving a kid a BB gun at 8 isn't unheard of (or younger)

Still doesn't make up for the useless cockmonster that left it out the gun safe.

By a toy gun he probably doesn't mean a bb gun, there are age limits on bb guns here.

**PapaZeb** · 10th November 2008, 5:24am

Quote:

Originally Posted by corky

By a toy gun he probably doesn't mean a bb gun, there are age limits on bb guns here.

Oddly enough there's age limits on .22 rifles too but that didn't seem to stop some people getting 'em.

I'd suggested a bb gun/toy pistol comparison due to how similar in size they can be. On further reading, the dead dad taught his kid to shoot the .22 by killing small animals (and likely either left the gun safe open, had no gun safe, or the kid knew the combo/knew where the key was) so it sure as hell wasn't a mistake on the kid's part. Bang = dead.