Toddler thrown onto freeway

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

Higa killed Cyrus. That's how it's gonna go down in the history books.

But to every sentence, there is a long story behind it. And in Higa's case the question is "why did he do it and what was that remark he said on camera all about?"

She may get away with a simple drug rehab sentence, but she has to live with the reality of what was the reasons that lead to her son's death. Both were ice users, Matthew was living proof of what it can do to you. The mom was living proof of what can happen as a result.

Two people aflicted with the same drug affected adversely and connected. One saw recreation in the drug, another saw it differently. One ran from her responsibilities, another reacted. In the end an innocent child is dead, the killer is behind bars, and the mother has two paths, the one she's currently on, or the one that will save her.

[AlohaKine]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

There are a few bridges that have such fencing, but the vast majority of them do not. I didn't think anything of it until visiting the East Coast and seeing bridges almost completely (and sometimes completely) enclosed. Or at least with 6' high fences that arch inward at the top.

...

I've seen this most often in high crime urban areas.

[mapen]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

craig, I agree with most everything you said except your conclusion, that the mother is more responsible for the death than Higa.

Yes, Cyrus's mother was a pathetic loser of a mom. Her crime in this incident was chronic neglect for the welfare of her son.

Taking your theory of what drove Higa to do what he did, his crime is pre-meditated murder.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

if we are to believe what the involved parties have to say about this, the stepdaddy and grampa apparently let that boy have more contact with Higa than the mother ever knew about. If that is the case, how can we malign her for not defending against that of which she was unaware? She leaves and thinks the boy is in the hands of his family. Where is the umbrage towards the stepdaddy and the grampa?

[cynsaligia]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

oO(supply side??)

Now waitaminit, if Cyrus was never born, then the world would have one less victim? Its Chanco's fault that the baby was born, because if we didn't have a victim, we would have no crime? The solution is to rip Mary's ovaries out, hence removing future victims?

(snip)

I am 100% in agreement in the desire that all children be so fortunate to grow up with Worthy parents, but the fact is if only the Worthy were allowed to have kids, folks like me wouldn't be here.

this isn't what eric was saying. he's saying that the state or other government body could offer money for voluntary sterilization.

i'll note here that freakonomics posits that the reason the-then widely expected crime wave of the late 80s into the 90s didn't happen is largely because of the legalization of abortion in 1973.

[mapen]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

Good point, Pua'i Mana'o.

As bad a mom as she was, she still at least cared enough to leave the baby with family who she thought would watch over him.

But it seems folks still want to believe that parental neglect is the real reason to explain why a baby is thrown off a freeway bridge.

[EastCoastTropics]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I too think its a good point. But I feel the stepdad and grandfather are responsible as well. If she had left Cyrus with a babysitter instead of stepdad and grandpa, folks would likely blame babysitter too, no?

[MixedPlateBroker]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

The solution is to rip Mary's ovaries out, hence removing future victims? ...

I am 100% in agreement in the desire that all children be so fortunate to grow up with Worthy parents, but the fact is if only the Worthy were allowed to have kids, folks like me wouldn't be here.

I already noted in my previous post that I don't support incentive-driven voluntary sterilization as a solution to the social services conundrum GeckoGeek pointed out. The concept is meant as a catalyst to get people thinking and talking about viable solutions. And I never suggested any mandatory system of reproductive permitting based on parental qualifications. I'm not a fan of Orwellian society. But if you don't think our social services system needs some intrinsic re-engineering, you might as well tell Chanco to continue on her path and raise a few more children in a household of danger and neglect.

If everyone's happy with the status quo, then the suffering of Cyrus, Peter Boy and Shari will be visited upon increasing numbers of young innocents.

[cherla42]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

If everyone's happy with the status quo, then the suffering of Cyrus, Peter Boy and Shari will be visited upon increasing numbers of young innocents.

EXACTLY!!!!!! The suffering of these precious little innocents is beyond what most could imagine...I know first hand!

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I already noted in my previous post that I don't support incentive-driven voluntary sterilization as a solution to the social services conundrum GeckoGeek pointed out. The concept is meant as a catalyst to get people thinking and talking about solutions. And I never suggested any mandatory system of reproductive permitting based on parental qualifications. I'm not a fan of Orwellian society. But if you don't think our social services system needs some intrinsic re-engineering, you might as well tell Chanco to continue on her path and raise a few more children in a household of danger and neglect.

If everyone's happy with the status quo, then the suffering of Cyrus, Peter Boy and Shari will be visited upon increasing numbers of young innocents.

Dude, I got that (about your nonsupport for an orwellian society). However, you mentioned your solutions in this thread, and that same post you went after the 900lb gorilla. Do forgive the natural tendency to correlate the two.

So what does your solution mean in practice? The supply side is to remove who? And how? And why?

As for me, I do not hold Chanco blameless, but in casting blame, I see it in degrees:

1)Higa first, for killing the kid
2)Stepdaddy and Grampa for allowing the kid enough access and fostering the trust in him for that bad man and then
3)A two-parter:

on the part of the mother:
•the mother for being a selfish druggie
•having the baby in the first place
•choosing a life that leads to the status of a low-income loser mamma and
•raising the baby in an apartment with no yard, safety gate, etc.
In that order.

on the part of the Higas:
•for not getting Matthew help in childhood
•for not aborting him (abortion was legal when MH was born, and this situation proves that not only methheads are responsible for parenting killers)
•for choosing a life that led to covering up then fostering this guy's mania, not turning him in when he started ice.
In that order.

Chanco is all over the social services files. How come Matthew Higa has no file, when clearly his mental illness is no recent situation? Why aren't we fuming over the Higas' chronic neglect and abuse of their son?

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

Postscript:
There is a lot that we all have in common regarding our collective attitude towards this tragedy: it was preventable. How we are hashing it out, six pages in, tells of a very human way towards resolving the anger and senselessness of it. It is in that vain that I am venting here and I apologize to Eric and everyone else for being offensive and brusque. It just hurts my heart. I gotta back away from this thread.

Peace, Puaʻi

[SusieMisajon]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

From a purely economic approach, the logical point to tackle the problem is on the supply side. The state could offer $100 to any man or woman under 30 who volunteers to be sterilized. No need to verify applicants are meth heads as addicts who are compelled to commit property crimes to support their habits would naturally be drawn in. A cost-benefit analysis would show that the state recoups the cost of the program many times over in savings on spending on social services and criminal justice.

I'm not saying I would support such a socially, politically and morally incorrect program. But I do support discussion by politicos and the populace on how we can help prevent tragedies like Cyrus' death from ever happening. Maybe injecting extreme ideas such as the aforementioned "prevention program" into the discussion is what is needed to get our lawmakers beyond the usual posturing and finger-pointing.

But let's at least address the 900 lb. gorilla in the room: Chanco has no business having kids. Yeah, I said it. I'm not blaming her for Cyrus' death. I'm just saying a woman who's already had two children taken away from her because she can't properly care for them, a woman who smokes ice while pregnant, a woman who was admittedly still smoking ice last week ... is not a woman who should be having kids. And it's just sad that she has more of an incentive to smoke ice and keep having kids than to stay clean and concentrate on making herself a productive member of society.

The parents of the man that threw the baby off the bridge should have been sterilized.

[scrivener]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

on the part of the Higas:
•for not getting Matthew help in childhood
•for not aborting him (abortion was legal when MH was born, and this situation proves that not only methheads are responsible for parenting killers)
•for choosing a life that led to covering up then fostering this guy's mania, not turning him in when he started ice.
In that order.

Chanco is all over the social services files. How come Matthew Higa has no file, when clearly his mental illness is no recent situation? Why aren't we fuming over the Higas' chronic neglect and abuse of their son?

Chances are you won't see this, since (and I totally understand) you're stepping back. But you are making all kinds of assumptions about Higa and his family I don't think you're in any position to make. First of all, how do you know any of his mental problems were problems in childhood? We know that he was perhaps involved in the racing death of a good friend (one neighbor even said something to the effect of, "He's never been the same since that accident"). You and I both know people who, after some traumatic event, went over the edge and were never the same. Why could that not have happened to Higa?

Second, what do you know about Higa's family and what kind of home he was raised in? I am not totally sure, but I think this was a private-school boy up until his tenth grade year, when he transferred to Roosevelt. And I'm not talking about any private school, but the finest private secondary school in the state, if not the world. While a school all by itself means nothing, there's at least some indication that he grew up in a family that valued education enough to pay eight thousand bucks (or more) per year for it and cared enough to send him to the finest private secondary school in the state, if not the world. To imply that perhaps this boy should have been aborted implies that the family should have known while the child was still in the womb that he had no shot. This contradicts some of the things you've posted in response to Eric's modest proposal.

And finally: Ice can hit any family, unexpectedly and dramatically. I think it's tough to judge a family (especially given how little we know about this family) for how it responds. How do you KNOW he wasn't in treatment, either for a drug addiction or for a mental condition? How do you KNOW the situation was bad enough that any reasonable, loving parent could predict that something violent might happen? Many of us know families who are taking care of adults with mental problems; most of them are eccentric or erratic but not violent. Nothing in Higa's record (you said so yourself) seems to point to a violent past. Locking oneself in a car on a dealer's lot hardly predicts the terrible act the young man committed last week. To accuse his family of "chronic neglect" is unfair, unless you know something the rest of us don't.

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

I see this; I am trying to refrain from posting on the thread, but this deserves comment.

The last several posts on this thread have been to take both barrels and aim it at Chanco. Although I posted to Eric, it was Craig's post above that got me to log on.

So…

of course my post was filled with assumptions galore about the Higas; it was the same technique that was happening here in nailing the mother.

The newspapers said their house was dirty. They printed that neighbors heard lots of physical violence. Former classmates said he was weird. The father said he was hearing voices. There is no social services case files on MH.

Anyhow, I still have to step back from this thread. I should state for the record that I consider this a tragedy period, a senseless death and my heart hurts for the Higas as much as the Chancos and the Chancos as much as anyone who loses a child to a senseless death. I don't think there is much to be gained by assigning blame, employed sarcasm earlier to counter points and make my own, then regretted doing so, apologized and jumped out of the thread, of course jumping in again to clarify now and is the responsible thing to do, and now jumping back out again.

[SusieMisajon]

Re: Toddler thrown onto freeway

The question is...how you gonna stop it from happening again?

The guy yelled out at reporters 'thanks very much'....does this mean that it was a copycat murder of the four kids thrown off a bridge a few days earlier? Does this mean that maybe the media should be blamed?