It looks like this boy had a fascination for knives. Apparently his parents let him have a knife collection. This might be a harmless activity for a country boy or girl. When I was a teen, I liked to whittle with a Girl Scout knife.
As a parent, I have to ask, what were this kid's parents thinking? Who lets their kids have a machete, a "long knife" capable of killing someone, etc. without parental supervision? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I believe in keeping the sharp toys and guns safely locked away, if you must have such things in the house [actually I'm against guns, but we have that pesky "right to bear arms" Amendment]. It's hard to separate someone with Asperger's from his things, but in this case, a life would have been spared.
The fact that he brought the knife to school will be used as premeditation, even though, as an Aspie, he might just have wanted it with him because he loved it. My grandma was that way about knives, too. She got stopped by security in the UN building because she had a butcher knife in her purse--fortunately with receipt. How many neurotypical people go sightseeing in NYC and buy butcher knives, then forget they have them in their purses? This was 20 years before Sept. 11, so they simply held it for her, and she reclaimed it on the way out. One day, after she was in the nursing home, my mother went through her drawers and found a razor-sharp paring knife. Mom freaked! She was afraid Grandma would get kicked out if they found her knife, so she just took it home with her. [Mom doesn't like me to tell people about Grandma and her lifelong year love affair with knives, because they will think she was peculiar. Mom also denies that Asperger's runs in our family. According to her, my son got Asperger's from his father, not me, my brother, grandmother, great grandfather, or any of the other brilliant-but-eccentric people in her family.]
A law that automatically requires a minor to be tried as an adult is a travesty... especially when the minor is disabled. I don't think it was right to even release the minor's name. The boy's medications are private, unless his lawyer chooses to make them an issue in court. Antidepressants are most likely to cause violence in the beginning of treatment. The lawyer indicated that he'd been treated for years, so they are an unlikely cause.
25 Jan 2007, 1:10 pm
