I’m nearing the end of my fifth decade on this planet and I admittedly don’t know much about bring up kids (other than having watching my parents do it — and realizing many years later that they had done a much better job of it than I had thought at the time). But with that said, I wanted to discuss a recent “high profile homicide” involving a 12 year old girl, and the question of whether her parents had in some way failed by not training her to be wary of the situation that did her in. (Oh, and also some comments on the parents of the leading suspects.) Actually, I am not going to stand in judgment as to whether the parents in question “failed”. Obviously I cannot. In fact, I am sympathetic regarding all the challenges that parents face in the modern world, a world that is arguably more complex and uncertain than the one that my parents brought me up in. <\/p>\n
The case in question is the murder of Autumn Pasquale<\/a> in Clayton, NJ last Saturday. From what I’ve read, 12-year old Autumn was a fairly typical pre-teen Caucasian girl who lived in a single parent middle-class home. Her father is a postal worker; I couldn’t find out very much about her mother (Jennifer Cornwell). It appears that Ms. Cornwell presently lives in Cherry Hill. According to MyLife.com, Ms. Cornwell lived in Clayton until 2005, then was in Moorestown until 2010. If true, then Autumn lived with her father only. It’s uncertain if anyone else lived with them (Mr. Pasquale was pictured at Autumn’s funeral with his girlfriend Cheryl Evans). <\/p>\n During the week before last, Autumn had a brief discussion on Facebook with one of the suspects, 15 year old Justin Robinson of Clayton (an African American). The discussion was about a picture of Robinson’s BMX bicycle that was posted on Facebook. At some point, Justin wrote “cme 2 my house”. This was on a weekday, probably a school day. But on the following Saturday (Oct. 20), Autumn decided to take a ride on her own BMX bike to Justin Robinson’s home, about 1 mile away. Justin lived with a brother, 17 year old Donte, and their mother. His father lived elsewhere. <\/p>\n Allegedly, the brothers were known to neighbors for stealing BMX bicycles and taking them apart to recreate new bikes. Based upon other facts and circumstances, the media implies that Autumn went to the Robinson house (where her own bicycle was later found) and spoke with the Robinson brothers. At some point, one of them seized Autumn’s bike. She may have resisted, and was thus killed by blunt force trauma. Her body was found buried in a dumpster near the Robinson household. It was the mother of the Robinson brothers, Anita Saunders, who alerted the police to investigate her sons, based on their own Facebook communications, which she had somehow monitored. <\/p>\n Goodness, where to start. Perhaps the social media factor — how can a modern parent control what his child does on Facebook? Perhaps that is just not possible in today’s world. So how can a parent alert a child to its dangers? Could Autumns’ parents have enforced a rule not to visit or directly interact with people from Facebook whom their daughter did not know from real life? (I’m still old school, to me Facebook is NOT real life.) Should Autumn had at least been told that she should never go alone to such a meet-up? Or at least had been required to ask her father or mother first? And why didn’t Autumn feel a bit leery about visiting an unknown older teenage boy on Facebook by herself? Would such old-fashioned advice regarding the dangers of unsupervised interactions between a young girl and unknown teenage males now be considered politically incorrect? Are parents now thinking “oh, he’s on Facebook, so it’s OK?”<\/p>\n I think questions like that need to be considered by everyone. But then again . . . even if Autumn’s parents did lecture her in that regard, would she listen? Living in a single parent household, the girl may have felt that her busy working parents probably couldn’t have enforced their edicts anyway, and she was thus on her own. Facebook and children in single-parent \/ working-parent households; a rather frightening combination. <\/p>\n I’m glad that Ms. Saunders was able to use Facebook to detect that her sons had committed a major criminal act; but what about the on-going bicycle theft activities they allegedly engaged in? Didn’t she have any clues about that? Or was that just beyond what she could control with her boys, given all the challenges she faced in making a living and keeping the household running?<\/p>\n I wish that I had a sure-fire public-policy solution that could prevent future Facebook-linked crimes in over-stressed single-parent households. Mitt Romney and his conservative friends would lecture on the evils of single parent situations, but would do nothing to lend any practical support to the overburdened modern family.<\/p>\n And as to the racial question — I haven’t yet addressed the possible implications of a violent crime committed by a black teenager on a young white victim. Actually, race doesn’t directly enter into whatever reservations I have about the state of parenting today. With 20-20 hindsight, Autumn should not have gone alone to an unknown (but for Facebook) teenage boy’s house, no matter WHAT his color and background was. <\/p>\n Obviously, the danger of sexual approach by an unsupervised teenage boy is what most people would worry about here. But sexual assault did not enter into the Autumn Pasquale incident. There was no sign whatsoever of any sexual contact in the autopsy. Still, the casual use of deadly violence by the teen boys here is quite frightening. And it IS statistically correct, if not politically correct, to say that violent crime is significantly more likely to be committed by an African American actor than a Caucasian one. (E.g., according to 2012 UCR statistics<\/a> published by the NJ State Police, the arrest rate in NJ among blacks for major crimes is 3.28 times the rate for whites.) Should Autumn have been told that by her parents or other adults? I don’t know.<\/p>\n Many African Americans, especially those with professional training and positions in our society, say that “we need to have a conversation” nationally about race in America. [You will hear this more and more if President Obama is not re-elected next month.] I agree with this. [And I’m voting Obama, by the way.] America is not yet color-blind; white-on-black racism still lives, in more subtle and less obvious ways. That all needs to be discussed. HOWEVER, as part of this discussion, the higher propensity of violence in African American communities ALSO needs to be discussed. <\/p>\n Yes, there is much lingering poverty in those communities, and much of that poverty is connected to previous and lingering racism. But other ethnic communities living in poverty don’t exhibit the same levels of criminal violence, and seem to make more progress in terms of generational social and economic improvement. If whites need to examine their subtle attitudes and actions that prejudice the black community, the black community needs to examine its subtle attitudes that continue to tolerate and enable criminal violence and low achievement in poor neighborhoods.<\/p>\n For now, my sympathies to all involved in this terrible tragedy, both in the white and the black community. But allow me to point out the irony of the message that a friend of Autumns’ apparently sent on her Facebook wall right after she received the invitation to visit Justin Robinson. The message appears to be<\/a> “totally not this not his house”. Was that comment racist? Or just common sense advice, i.e. don’t go to a strangers house alone — i.e., just because an otherwise unknown person is listed as your “friend” on Facebook does NOT necessarily mean he should be trusted in person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m nearing the end of my fifth decade on this planet and I admittedly don’t know much about bring up kids (other than having watching my parents do it — and realizing many years later that they had done a much better job of it than I had thought at the time). 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