What the fuck is going on???

[Iron Zombius]

Boy dies after schoolyard stabbing

By Emma Pollard and Andree Withey

Updated 35 minutes ago
Police say a 13-year-old boy allegedly stabbed a 12-year-old boy with a knife at the school.

Police say a 13-year-old boy allegedly stabbed a 12-year-old boy with a knife at the school. (ABC News: Emma Pollard)

A 12-year-old boy has died after being stabbed during a fight in a schoolyard on Brisbane's bayside.

Elliot Fletcher was stabbed in the chest at St Patrick's College at Shorncliffe about 8:00am AEST.

He was taken to Brisbane's Royal Children's Hospital in a serious condition but later died.

Police allege the boy was stabbed with a knife by a 13-year-old fellow student.

The 13-year-old was found nearby with minor wounds and is assisting police with their investigation. It is not clear what sparked the incident.

The school was put in lockdown this morning after the stabbing but the restrictions have now been lifted.

It is the second stabbing involving students at a Catholic boys' schools in Brisbane in the past 10 days.

But criminologist Professor Paul Wilson says it does not mean there is a trend.

"I don't think that the fact that it occurred in a Catholic school necessarily points to more problems in Catholic schools at all," he said.

"But I do think that school, and other schools where there have been serious assaults, have to be analysed very carefully."

Tributes

Scores of condolence messages have been left on a Facebook page dedicated to the dead boy.

"Devastating. A dark day for the family and all St Patrick's College Old Boys.....RIP brother," one post said.

Many more messages lamented the loss of such a young boy.

One person wrote: "soooooooooo sad 2 young to die."

"My thoughts are with his family and friends," wrote another. "May you rest in peace. No child's life should end this way."

Increasing violence

The Foundation for Young Australians says there is no doubt violence is increasing amongst the nation's youth.

Today the foundation addressed a Melbourne hearing of the Federal Government's long-running inquiry into youth violence.

Its primary recommendation was that funding be increased to school-based programs targeting youth violence.

The foundation's Sharby Ibrahim says today's tragedy only highlights the need for classroom-based education about violence.

"I think what's extremely aggravating is that we've had so many of these wake-up calls," he said.

"The fact that another young person has died ... through this kind of behaviour just shouts about the fact that there needs to be action and it needs to be taken drastically.

"It's been shown that there has been a significant increase not only in the amount of violence but also in the severity of violence.

"That means more knives are involved, there have been more deaths, there are more guns involved and sometimes these attacks are perpetrated by groups of young people."

As the dad of 2 school age kids, I shudder to think how I would have reacted if I recieved the call to say one of my kids had been stabbed at school

Tragic..... just tragic

 

[Southy]

Totally agree, and I have a young bloke the same age as the victim in the absolute abhorrent crime.

I couldn't imagine the pain of that family tonight, on both sides, two families ripped apart by a stupid senseless act

 

[Winmar]

I just don't understand why anyone would carry a knife with them. Bizarre.

 

[FerretallicA]

What the fuck... is this really noteworthy:

One person wrote: "soooooooooo sad 2 young to die."

?

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Violent crime in Australia seems to be rising pretty quickly over the last few years. If it keeps going at this rate it's going to become like the USA.

The ironic part is, though their crime rates are still higher than here, violent crime in the USA for the most part is nowhere near as bad anymore as it was during the 70s & 80s. It's been on a steady decline since the '90s. How come we're heading backwards while they're making progress?

 

[Southy]

Discipline and respect have begun to make a turnaround in the U.S, while the school system is still not allowed to dole out discipline, and the coppers, and the parents either a) don't do it or b) support the systems that ARE teaching said things, we are going to continue to have these issues.

Hell my eldest son knows the ins and outs of the system and knows except for me and the wife he is untouchable, and makes alsorts of a mongrel of himself at school because of it. Yes there is a too far, but I think right know there needs to be a return of the pendulum to the correct place and discipline needs to be restored to the children of today, because it is only going to get worse in the meantime.

Yes this is something I am passionate about, probably because I have a child like I do, and I can see what the problem is, if the discipline meeted out here, was matched/backed up at school, he would work to his very smart potential rather than playing the fool at school and constantly being in trouble.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Here's something interesting I just dug up. Unfortunately I can't find any old statistics to compare trends in Australia, however I know these USA crime rates are WAY down from the 70s & 80s (and even early 90s).

Here are recent crime stats (2008 I think for the American ones and 2009 for Australian ones). Three US cities to use as an example to compare to here....
New York - A city that in the 1970s was one of the most dangerous but since the late '90s has been one of the safest in the US.
Los Angeles - A city that's also had huge improvements but nowhere near that of New York and is still above average for crime.
Detroit - America's most dangerous city, to give you a comparison of how we compare to the absolute worst America has to offer.

These numbers aren't the total number of crimes, it's the average number of crimes per 100,000 people so that population isn't a factor. It compares the rates based on if the cities all had the exact same population.

(The murder, assault & robbery stats are all also included within the "Violent Crime" total which takes into account all crimes against the person also including rape etc).

New York City, New York:
Violent Crime 614
Murder 6
Robbery 265
Assault 332
Property Crime 1819

Los Angeles, California:
Violent Crime 718
Murder 10
Robbery 348
Assault 334
Property Crime 2621

Detroit, Michigan:
Violent Crime 2289
Murder 46
Robbery 764
Assault 1440
Property Crime 6772

Melbourne, Australia:
Violent Crime 1141
Murder 4
Robbery 131
Assault 868
Property Crime 8543

Interesting....

 

[Mark]

Keep in mind that Detroit is basically a city collapsed in poverty since the auto industry has shrunk so much in the US.

In London, kid-on-kid crime is a serious concern as well, with quite a number of fatal stabbings in the last year; much of this seems to be gang related, and typically black kids. Knives are the main problem, again because kids are carrying them in case they meet the wrong people, plus it seems that it's the accepted response if you're in a fight to whip a knife out.

Sad to see that places in Oz are going the same way... I don't really have anything to add here.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Yeah for sure Detroit is almost in a class of its own, maybe just along with cities like St Louis & Dayton in the same region that were also industrial cities that have become half abandoned. Modern day Detroit looks like post-war eastern Europe and its population is less than half of what it was in the 1960s. I mainly put that one there as the yardstick of what an absolute disaster city's crime rates are, and to highlight that Melbourne actually had a higher property crime rate! I know that obviously there are other factors in play - firstly, with the ridiculous amount of violent crime being so common there people would report property crime ALOT less than they would here; secondly, the city is so ruined anyway that alot of property crime goes unnoticed - but even so, I thought those factors would only make the rates a bit more comparable, not make ours higher.

Kids getting involved in gang stuff so young is a huge problem. Luckily I don't think gang violence is a big problem here (yet).

When I was in London in '08 I walked through some pretty rough looking neighbourhoods!

 

[Mark]

I get your point 100% Where did you get the crime stats from? Would be interesting to see London's stats.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

How would Philadelphia fare in comparison to some of those I wonder. I watched a doco on the US drug underworld which was mostly targeted there, saying it was one of the countries worst crime cities. Also, isn't Washington DC meant to have a high murder rate? Adelaide is known as Australia's murder capital isn't it? I wonder how the stats compare to Melb and Sydney.

As a teacher, I can tell you now that the entire public schooling system in this country is fucked. Not only in regards to security and discipline, but in almost every way. I honestly don't know how they are going to fix it unless some drastic measures are taken, which I don't see happening in the near future.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

The Melbourne stats are from the Victoria Police site and the USA ones are from the FBI site

Philadelphia & Washington DC are both pretty high - higher than LA & NY, got the stats at home, I'll have a look tonight! As far as the major cities go the worst are Detroit, St Louis & New Orleans, followed by ones like Cleveland, Orlando, Atlanta, Washington DC, Philadelphia & Miami. Among the safest are San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, etc.

Some of the absolute worst cities though are actually small ones (some which make up a part of a larger metro area) such as Flint, Compton, Gary, Dayton, Camden and Oakland which is funny because it is part of the pretty safe San Francisco metro area. Alot of the absolute safest ones were small Californian cities, especially around Orange County area. Irvine's violent crime rate was about 70. Compared to 700 in nearby LA and nearly 2000 in Compton (located in the LA metro area).

 

[Winmar]

Crime stats depend on incidents being reported, but they're a pretty good indicator.

I wish I lived in a city called Gary!

 

[Priest of Evil]

Wow some interesting info there, thanks Trixxi!

What transpired in that school should not have happened, whatever the catalyst was. Its time our people & Govt took notice of this rise of problems amongst the youth and implemented some reforms to avoid these situations escalating.

There's plenty of reasons why kids grow up with problems - victims of violence, sexual assaults, mental abuse, carers who dont really care. I can't tell you how many times I'm seeing single mums on facebook & myspace who are trying to palm their kids off to anyone on their friends list who will babysit so they go can out. Its disgusting! Would you put your children in harms way so you can go out for a night? If you werent ready for children why did you breed?! Um sorry,ranting aside, it really is time the Govt sat up & started working for the people as it was intended. Might I add that anyone caught trying to abuse or abduct children shot be executed!

 

[Southy]

My kids have, in general always gone out where I go, if that means I can only have 1 schooner in the beer garden of the local then so be it, I think child bearing in some parts of this country has become a financial decision (by this I mean a generation seems to have seen a massive lump sum government payment as a good option not to knuckle down and work hard) and it is fucking stupid.

When did this country lose it's hard working identity? Having a fucking job and working hard was something we did as Australians, and IMO was/is something to be fucking proud of, no matter your fucking job, do it and do it well.

I sit back, and cannot see where we took this wrong turn into the path of selfishness and absolute ruin, everyman for himself, no longer willing to help each other out, how and why did we get here, and what do we do to change it?

 

[Stonewall]

We do help each other out, just indirectly. It's called the welfare state.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

How would Philadelphia fare in comparison to some of those I wonder. I watched a doco on the US drug underworld which was mostly targeted there, saying it was one of the countries worst crime cities. Also, isn't Washington DC meant to have a high murder rate? Adelaide is known as Australia's murder capital isn't it? I wonder how the stats compare to Melb and Sydney.

Here's Philly & DC's rates & where they rank.

Philadelphia:
Violent Crime - 1475 (16th)
Murder - 27 (13th)
Robbery - 715 (7th)
Assault - 667 (36th)
Property Crime - 4305 (not even top 100)

Washington DC:
Violent Crime - 1347 (23rd)
Murder - 31 (10th)
Robbery - 677 (11th)
Assault - 606 (50th)
Property Crime - 4712 (not even top 100)

I guess it highlights the more violent cities do tend to have way less property crime reported - people probably don't bother.

I haven't looked up Adelaide but I know S.A. is known for murders haha. I looked up Sydney but couldn't make comparisons as the stat categories are all broken up completely differently, whereas Melbourne's records use the exact same categories as the FBI does in America.

 

[Shannow]

This is a good site to find stuff...run by the CIA, so there's some stats purposely left out.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

Purposely opened it at that page, because Australia sux on that particular statistic.

As to gang violence, plenty of it in the Blue Mountains.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

That's well over double the USA's rate...

 

[FerretallicA]

What the fuck is going on with this:

Clearly a company not used to success.