My son was mugged in a college parking lot this morning...

[tsd71]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ

For the record, my son and his roommate have a car on campus, they drove to McDonalds and returned to the campus parking lot with the car. They were walking back to their dorm when the incident began, oh by the way since viewing the video the police have arrested 4 perpetrators for assaulting my son and his roommate. I talked to the Detective this morning and he said more may be on the way. I never meant to bring race into this discussion, I thought the politically correct way was using the words Afro-Americans. To me it really doesn't matter who it was or what color they are, when they attack in a pack like they did the deserve the term "mongrels"....and absolutely no way is that racist....

 

[TheGeekess]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ

For the record, my son and his roommate have a car on campus, they drove to McDonalds and returned to the campus parking lot with the car. They were walking back to their dorm when the incident began, oh by the way since viewing the video the police have arrested 4 perpetrators for assaulting my son and his roommate. I talked to the Detective this morning and he said more may be on the way. I never meant to bring race into this discussion, I thought the politically correct way was using the words Afro-Americans. To me it really doesn't matter who it was or what color they are, when they attack in a pack like they did the deserve the term "mongrels"....and absolutely no way is that racist....

https://forum.freeadvice.com/other-crimes-federal-state-4/my-son-mugged-college-parking-lot-morning-590520.html

Alrighty then.

 

[CdwJava]

I, for one, did not assume a racially biased motive for the phrase. While I thought that prejudice might have been a possibility, I did not leap to that conclusion and assumed that you were simply a parent angry at the assault on his (or her) child.

In the previous thread MY point had been that the facts may not play out to show your child to be an entirely innocent party in the incident and that you - as a parent - should gird yourself against the possibility that your child played a role in what transpired. It is rare that a random group assault occurs out of the blue. Exceedingly rare. As such, when we delve into these crimes, we often find that the victims contributed in some way to the crime. Would such an action as an epithet, a roll of the eyes, a flipping of the bird, etc. justify a beat-down? No. But, while it does not justify the beating the police will delve into the motivations for the assault and these things must be considered. There are cases where a derogatory word or gesture has resulted in an assault, and the "victim" was also charged with a crime related to his own beating. That is not to say that is what happened in your son's case, but just be open to the possibility that your son may have exercised poor judgment.

Also, keep in mind that the video may show what happened next to the McDonald's, but it probably lacks an audio component and obviously would not contain information on what - if anything - might have transpired before the subjects came within video range of McD's surveillance. A lot can happen outside the minute or two that is usually seen on these tapes.

AND, I still maintain that by-and-large people out after 3 AM are most often impaired and/or up to no good. That is not to say EVERYONE out that late is a no-goodnick, but experience tells us that this is an hour for inebriated individuals and people looking to commit crimes are out and about. It's also why police can very easily make detentions of people wandering about so late at night, because even the courts recognize that there is often something suspicious about the activity.

So, I hope your son is okay, and I hope that the suspects are identified and prosecuted. I would also hope that your son and his friend exercise a little better judgment next time so that they might at least be more mindful of their surroundings as well as the late hour before they decide to head out. Everyone needs to be concerned with their own safety and that means acting smart. Yes, intelligent and mature thinking is not an easy task for most college students (I know, I have one such son in college with more pending), but it is something we as parent need to remind our children about. Being oblivious to threat can have dangerous consequences.