To think being bullied doesn't justify stabbing someone in the face?

[Topaz25]

So this article popped up in my newsfeed today. Teenager stabs girl in the face and beats another black and blue because they called him HARRY POTTER
www.facebook.com/dailymirror/posts/552566581523132

I was shocked at the amount of comments defending him! I was bullied as a child so I do understand it is devastating but that doesn't justify stabbing someone in the face! He didn't just lash out in the moment, he went home to get a knife to cause maximum damage, he lead the girls to the park, he thought this through. He is a danger to the public. I am also surprised at the sentence, I think stabbing someone in the face while shouting "die, die!" indicates intent to kill and should have been charged accordingly. I do wonder if his supporters would want to live next to him when he gets out or have him round to dinner since he is so misunderstood? I don't agree with bullying but when he attacked two younger girls I feel he effectively became the bully, it was a massive overreaction to the situation and he had other options. AIBU?

Having read some of the responses on here it seems that some posters would only have been happy if he had been found swinging from the rafters.

What posters don't seem to understand is that a bully doesn't really know their victim until the victim snaps.

in the correct context this could be used in anti bullying campaigns on what happens when the bully's push to much.

it's stupid to compare this to shootings in the US. this guy didn't go on a killing spree - his violence was directed at his bullies only.

bullies are cunts. they ruin lives. as for the knife breaking, it possibly wasn't a very good knife? I don't give a flying fuck about the 'victims' in this case, there's no justification for his actions but they are NOT blameless.

They are very young girls and perhaps don't have the best social skills. Wouldn't it be a shame though if they were trying in their own clumsy way to socialise with him?

this would be truly hilarious if this wasn't such a grim case.

They are very young girls and perhaps don't have the best social skills.*

You don't say?

Wouldn't it be a shame though if they were trying in their own clumsy way to socialise with him?

Oh my god. Are you for real?

A lot of the posts here condemning Ryan Walker comment that they would have found his 'snapping' immediately after the provocation would have been understandable, and the time delay when he went back to the flat for a knife is what makes them consider his attack to be premeditated.

Interesting.

I can remember listening to the argument made many years ago about the different ways provocation affected people. This was in relation to wife-beaters (yes, I am remembering something from that long ago when that phrase was still in use). IIRC, protest/reform groups were pointing out that the beaten wives were being treated very harshly by the courts when they snapped and hit back, because their 'attacks' on their abusive husbands were often seen as being premeditated. It was pointed out at the time that the 'red mist' immediate reprisal that would be accepted as a result of provocation (and a defence in law) simply didn't happen for these women; and that in the mental state brought about by the long-term abuse that they had suffered, they often 'reasoned' that they had to make sure that their abuser could not retaliate because if they did then they, the beaten wife, would surely be killed next time. These victims of abuse (switching to the language of now) were, in their own eyes, fighting for their lives. It was eventually acknowledged that this was the case, and I think that some women who had been jailed for attacking/killing their abusive husbands had their sentences reduced.

Comparing this to Ryan's circumstances, I really don't see much difference. Long-term abuse, final snapping, accusations of planning and premeditation. All those decades passed since those reforms on behalf of the victims of abuse, and still the mistaken belief that only immediate retaliation happens .

The difference was that the beaten wives were afraid of being killed by their husbands next time. Also they lived with their husbands and felt they had no other way out. Ryan Walker had no reason to fear being killed by two younger girls who had called him names. He was safe inside his house away from them but then he got a knife and went back out. He didn't attack them to prevent them killing him but to punish them for being rude to him.

You might have been bullied, but you don't know what its like to lose it.

I strangled one of my bullies. I don't remember doing it. It wasn't even over anything that bad it was a build up. She pulled my chair from under me. I got up and i remember shouting at her and everyone else was shouting.

Abd the next thing i remember is that i had my hands around her throat and she was a funny colour. So i let go.

I went and told a teacher what id done (our teacher wasn't in the room when it happened).
and then i went home.

Ive never felt bad about it. Just shocked that it happened.

So i have sympathy with this boy. And he is a boy. Hes a teenager.

I don't think the girl deserved stabbing no, but i think they need to take some responsibility for their actions and their harrassment if a fragile and broken human being.

I also think the girls parents need to take some responsibility because if that were my daughter, id be ashamed of her. Concerned for her yes but deeply ashamed too and i think them bleating in the papers is horrible.

i don't think the boy should be in prison.

Topaz, you and lesmiss have annoyed me tbh. You lack any understanding of the human mind and consistently twist this story to suit your own weird agenda.

He did not follow them. He left his house. They.followed.him. It is written in black and white.

They physically and verbally abused him. Men can be scared of women too you know? My brother is well over 6ft and has been twatted by girls.

He used to get picked on by girls all the time, younger ones too.

He used to chase them away with a stick if no one else was around. Didn't have it in him to hurt them hes no fighter.

It is recognised, by law, that persistent abuse effects the mind. You stop thinking rationally. You don't know what that's like.

Hes not a monster. Hes the victim. Their victim. And no they didn't deserve that but you know what? I hope every nasty little cunt in the country reads this, maybe some of them will think twice. Its fucking wrong that they were allowed to push him to that point.

And 18 (as he was at the time) is not a man. My brother is 18 next month. He might have the physical form of a man but emotionally he is not. Not even close.

I have a real problem with the provocative "Man attacked two girls" descriptions.

Topaz

How do you feel about those victims of bullies that killed themselves whilst they were "safe at home".

Surely if your premise is to have any truth if they felt safe from their bullies they wouldn't have killed themselves.

My ds (who's only involvement with gangs is as their victim) was 'safe' indoors when some of his bullies got hold of a gun and shot at him through the window. Fleeing to next door got their windows taken out too.

Hearing your child ask a firearms officer if "the next time it happens would I have more chance of surviving if I turned sideways or stayed face on", seeing the impact that question had on grown men and hearing them try to convince him they'd get them before they harmed him again. Then listening to him saying that he knew they meant well but he knew it wasn't true, and it was only a matter of time, left me thinking the only way left to protect my child was to kill these feral *s.

Sometimes it's only by acting in an entirely 'improper fashion' that it ends.

Sometimes, just sometimes, violence is the only answer.

I am genuinely sorry to hear that happened to your son but don't you think it's a very different case? These girls didn't have a gun.

Or at least a very real belief that it will happen and that it is they who will be held to have brought tragedy to them and their families door.

It serves them right for being so nasty, they'll think twice before doing it again. All parents should teach their children that you're vile enough to bully people, one day you'll pick on the wrong person and get a well deserved response.

The boy was repeatedly bullied by horribly parented little shits until he finally snapped. If anybody should be punished it should be those who tormented him to that point and their parents for raising them that way. They should be dealt with severely.

He should be given a pat on the back and lots of sympathy.

FlockOfTwats
What is my weird agenda? I am genuinely horrified by the level of violence in this attack and that the attacker will be back on the streets, probably in a couple of years. I am shocked that everyone is excusing what he did. I don't have an agenda. I have been bullied myself, that is probably why I am terrified of being attacked. I just want to feel safe and I don't feel safe in a society that excuses this level of violence. His reaction was totally out of proportion to being insulted. What if he gets worse and next time it's enough for someone to just look at him wrong?

Topaz I don't see much difference because those girls are exactly like the ones who joined in the constant harrasment of my ds and made themselves part and parcel of the problem until nowhere was safe in his mind. They aren't just a couple of random girls who happened to do something wrong, they're part of the local youth who target individuals relentlessly for kicks.
I really don't think you understand what happens in people's minds when it's been years and years of it.

Topaz I don't find what he did acceptable, it was completely over the top, and he knows that and is paying for it, but I do think just seeing him as 'some violent weirdo', and them as random girls who 'went a bit far' is very dangerous indeed.

anyone who thinks this was 'just' over a harry potter insult is very bloody daft.

I don't think it was just the insults but his actions were a complete overreaction to the whole situation. He was in his house. If it was as threatening as you claim he could have called the police. Instead he armed himself and went back out. At the end of the day, he wasn't physically harmed and those girls are lucky to be alive.

He stabbed her in the face so hard the blade broke. If he had stabbed her in the neck she could have died. Nothing she said or did justified that.

no, but you probably wouldn't find many victims of bullying feeling anything more than indifference, if not triumph, if their bullies died.

My son was suicidal due to bullying, from girls, younger than him

I'd need to know whole story before commenting on this case