Kids watch, point and laugh as man dies.

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https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/u ... gle.com%2F

This is what my country is turning its kids into.

Public schools actually encourage children to treat the disabled like this. Either by turning a blind eye, or by telling the disabled that they deserve that kind of treatment.

And we have a president who got elected because people love how he did things like mocking a disabled man

This is not a good time to be less than a perfectly healthy, neurotypical heterosexual in my country at the present moment

The kids will not have charges pressed against them. Even the law is on the side of those who point and laugh as a man with a disability dies a painful death right in front of them.

I am disgusted and I am disturbed by this. And yet I am not surprised and I am not shocked. The only shocking thing about this story is that it got any press coverage to begin with.

That is pretty disgusting....I certainly couldn't have stood by like that, I would have been in the water trying to drag the guy out of there. Even on a work day pretty sure calling into say 'sorry I am late just had to help someone who was drowning' would be an acceptable excuse.

The cops with support of the mayor are trying to find loopholes in the law to charge the kids.

It's a classic case of rubbernecking. Those teens may have laughing nervously to hide the shock of witnessing such a horrible event

I would not be surprised if the kids didn't know how to swim but their behavior and the fact that they didn't go for help or even alert authorities in any way is sickening. In my state we have a law that requires you call 911 to help someone in need, if you are able to do so.

Whatever the circumstances, whether he was drunk, fell in by accident or was attempting suicide, they ought to have helped him instead of just watching and mocking. That he was disabled is beside the point - they probably weren't aware of this because he was struggling in the water, not walking, when they saw him.

If they couldn't swim, which is very likely as Chronos points out, they could easily have called 911.

I agree with KL that there's no excuse for their behaviour and they probably will at least be charged with failing to report the incident.

i see.

i completely understand the "turning a blind eye" scenario, it's a common sight where i live for people to just pretend that the disabled or unsightly just plain don't exist. parents rush to change the subject whenever a naturally curious child asks a parent about them. that's not to say it doesn't have the capability to hurt deeply. i'm sure many of us know what it's like to be continually ostracized.

completely different to me is "telling the disabled that they deserve that kind of treatment.", IMO that is just wholly on another level and it's nothing i've seen yet in my own waking life. there is absolutely nothing to be gained from teaching this to children, if i am indeed reading you right.

can i ask what you mean by "encourage"?

I'm as utterly disgusted as everyone else. But instead of blaming the country, education system, or anything else, maybe it was truly just the nastiness of those kids. Maybe truly evil people bundle together for security. Sociopaths aren't typically demonstrative of fear, but inside they experience fear, just in a detached form. These kids might have not been human at all, and could've been sociopaths who just stuck together. They ended up at the place together and mocked the man because he wasn't one of them. Group mentality in the worst scum of man (sociopaths) is disastrous.

i really do hope they get charged of something, failure to report, please, anything.

What this made me think of is:

http://www.darwinawards.com/

As in that mentality, laughing at people who die in such a way. Some people honestly believe people like that deserve to die and laugh. But in this case they were there to witness it in person. I don't think that way, but for someone who did, then I don't suppose it would matter whether or not they were watching it live and in person, they'd still laugh and not help because they honestly think such a person should die and that it's hilarious.

So this brings the question of should anything be done? It was horribly cruel but in no way did they contribute to his death. I think it should, because it's cruel. Such intentional cruelty should not be tolerated.

A more interesting question, what if they'd just sat quietly and watched, then did everything they did after he died? I've not thought about this before, but I like the idea of laws making you get help. You shouldn't have to risk your own neck, but you should at least alert the relevant emergency services.

The sister of the deceased alleges that the man was physically disabled and used a walking stick so how he ended up in the "middle" of the lake is a mystery. Technically if he fell in and was unlucky to drown then he would be near the shoreline as he could not have been physically able to wade out into deeper water.

Not entirely impossible but the teens could have been responsible for his predicament, perhaps dropped him off a boat especially given their apparent lack of remorse or emotion.