Fist, v.

I remember, many years ago — and how many of these entries contain that soporific phrase? — a great reporter I worked with was doing a story about a teenage kid whose death some months before had become a cause for his parents.

The boy had been found hanging from a tree at a nearby park, his pants pulled down. Police ruled it a suicide, but the parents were insistent he had done nothing of the sort. It had to have been some strange assault that had turned into a homicide. My colleague was preparing a story on a third possibility — it was an accident.

Accidental because, as you sophisticates out there surely know by now, the death was caused by autoerotic asphyxiation. He was choking himself while masturbating, and lost control of the situation. It’s pretty common among those who practice “breath play” alone. It’s the ultimate “kids, don’t try this at home” sex game.

We’ve all heard about it by now; it’s almost common knowledge, but in the early ’80s, I found it astounding. The reporter was similarly amazed by the practice, and found only a few experts who could explain it to him. At the time, some sex researchers were on a campaign to educate law enforcement and coroners, because an incorrect cause-of-death determination could mean the difference between a life insurance payout and a denial. The people who do this aren’t suicidal; in fact, you might say they’re filled with a lust for life. They just chose a foolish way to masturbate.

I thought of that today when a local artist/provocateur played a prank, installing a giant can of Crisco under the Joe Louis memorial known everywhere as the Fist. Photo at the link. To “ease the pain of bankruptcy.” It was naughty, obviously, but I was amazed at how widely it was understood. In the years since my introduction to autoerotic asphyxiation, almost all non-Amish adults know now that some people like to stick their whole hand into some other person’s body, and it requires some heavy-duty lubricant.

I blame AIDS and the internet. Although some remain innocent. This was on the local Fox affiliate’s Facebook page, under a picture of the installation:

Local artist Jerry Vile has created something he calls “Vessel of Hope”. He hopes it may in some way ease the pain of having the Detroit bankruptcy shoved into our faces. Can anyone explain what this means???

At last count, it had been shared 1,545 times. I’m glad there are a few people left in the world who’ve never heard of such a thing. Long may they run.

Brian Stouder alert: Here’s a link to a podcast of an Indianapolis radio show last week, on the current charter/voucher school situation in Indiana. One of the guests is my old radio co-host Mark the Shark, who is also a school board member, and I am pleased to say he came out guns blazing and didn’t give an inch the whole hour. I find it hard to listen to many podcasts while I’m doing something else — something about the concentration required — but this one held my interest.

Wednesday already? Time flies when you’re working.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events, Detroit life |
 

66 responses to “Fist, v.”

  1. Brandon said on July 31, 2013 at 1:32 am

    This website is very educational.:)

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  2. Sherri said on July 31, 2013 at 2:45 am

    A review of a book that looks like it might be interesting on the education front: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july_august_2013/on_political_books/a_for_effort045644.php?page=all

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  3. Dexter said on July 31, 2013 at 2:56 am

    David Carradine, “Caine” on the old Kung Fu YV show, knew all about this. From Wikipedia: “On June 4, 2009, David Carradine was found dead in his room … in central Bangkok, Thailand. He was in Bangkok to shoot his latest film, entitled Stretch. A police official said that Carradine was found hanging by a rope naked in the room’s closet, causing immediate speculation that his death was suicide. However, reported evidence suggested that his death was the result of autoerotic asphyxiation. Two autopsies were conducted and concluded that the death was not a suicide. The cause of death became widely accepted as “accidental asphyxiation”.

    Immediately following his death, two of his former wives stated publicly that his sexual interests included the practice of self-bondage. (One ex said) “There was a dark side to David, there was a very intense side to David. People around him know that… it was the continuation of abhorrent and deviant sexual behavior which was potentially deadly.”

    I have been around the world 🙂 (literally, NOT figuratively!) but I did not know the sexual practice of “fisting” existed until I was past fifty years of age. It was a bit hard to grasp, the idea of ramming a human adult fist all the way up another human butt, but there are many things that surprise me, like a modern pope and Cardinal Dolan agreeing that they are not to judge gays.

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  4. Dave said on July 31, 2013 at 5:53 am

    There was a MD in Frankfort, IN, who also met his demise this way, in his basement, as I recall. It was quite the shocking story in that small city at the time.

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  5. ROGirl said on July 31, 2013 at 6:32 am

    I remember when Oprah had a show about this. The mother of a boy who had died was featured. For about the first 15 minutes they discussed all the details of the case, except for what he was doing when he died. Oprah finally revealed the truth, along with the “don’t try this at home” speech.

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  6. David C. said on July 31, 2013 at 7:19 am

    Oh, bloody hell. RIP Doghouse Riley.

    http://world-o-crap.blogspot.com/2013/07/farewell-doghouse-riley.html

    A link from Bats Left/Throws Right led me to NN.com for the first time.

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  7. beb said on July 31, 2013 at 7:48 am

    I’m hoping that Doghouse Riley died the regular way.

    The great artist Vaughin Bode died from autoerotic asphyxiation. For the life of me I don’t get the appeal.

    I hope San Diego has brought enough popcorn for everybody because their mayor is turning into quite the soap opera.

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  8. Heather said on July 31, 2013 at 8:55 am

    That sounds like a fun addition to sex ed for boys. “Touching yourself is fine. Strangling yourself while doing so is not.”

    An ex does sound for many bands and bars in town. Arriving early at a gay bar to set up, he noticed a raw chicken on a table in back. Apparently it was used for demonstrations at a fisting class earlier. I always wonder if someone took the chicken home later to cook it.

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  9. Mark P said on July 31, 2013 at 8:58 am

    You know how on the internet, there is a site dedicated to anything you can think of, and everything else? Well, I guess sex is kind of like that: if it’s possible to do it, someone will do it; if it’s not possible to do it, someone will still try to do it.

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  10. nancy said on July 31, 2013 at 9:11 am

    For a while, law enforcement agencies were having training sessions on autoerotic asphyxia, which were frequently followed by deaths, because one or two of these guys always had to go out and give it a try. This happened in Huntington, Ind. More than once.

    Very sad about Doghouse Riley. He was one of the good ones.

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  11. Julie Robinson said on July 31, 2013 at 9:14 am

    I’m with Brandon.

    Hope to check in later today or tomorrow and catch up on my reading.

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  12. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 9:14 am

    I found this helpful in explaining it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_asphyxiation

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  13. Julie Robinson said on July 31, 2013 at 9:33 am

    Deborah, I should clarify, I knew about the erotic asphyxiation, just not the Crisco thing. And all I can say is ewww.

    Actually, our daughter came across another version when she was a camp counselor. A fellow counselor frantically woke her in the middle of the night; it seemed that in his cabin they were practicing the version where someone flicks the light off and on very fast while the rest are, um, indulging. It triggered a seizure in one camper and a visit to the ER. The camper was traumatized and asked for her to accompany him to the hospital rather than his counselor, where she stayed until his parents arrived. The other counselor? Got his sorry immature self fired.

    I went to camp many times. This stuff never happened in the girls’ cabins. At least not in my era.

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  14. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 9:34 am

    Pam thinks I’m becoming strange in my old age, but Friend-of-NN.c (or at least, Friend of NND) Mark the Shark is at least .445 of the reason I attend FWCS school board meetings.

    At the end of the meetings, each board member has the opportunity to comment on whatever they want, and this is when an observer can see who is “plugged in” and who is a potted plant.

    GQ will occasionally (but not always) wind up and just absolutely flatten whatever the subject matter is. You can see the trial lawyer in him as he builds his case (with speed and efficiency), point by point, until he reaches the (rhetorical) climax.

    Truly, on evenings that end that way, it is not uncommon to exit the Grile building while exchanging nods and genuine smiles with the back-of-the-room administrative types.

    Get GQ started, and you know that it will be good. He doesn’t rely on canned truisms or trusty old information; he always tosses things he just read into the mix….much the way our Proprietress does, every day, come to think of it!

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  15. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 9:47 am

    Julie, I wasn’t necessarily responding to your comment, I just wanted to know what was so pleasurable about it, because it always sounded horrible, and thought maybe others here would find the link helpful in understanding exactly what it does. I also looked up fisting on Wikipedia but won’t link to it. There are pictures.

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  16. Julie Robinson said on July 31, 2013 at 10:04 am

    Sure thing, Deborah, and thank you for not linking. I dunno, and I hesitate to ask the room, do women do these too? The ick factor is overwhelming.

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  17. alex said on July 31, 2013 at 10:38 am

    The Wikipedia entry shows only women, and they’re taking it the easier way.

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  18. coozledad said on July 31, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Women tend to have smaller hands, too, making it less likely there’ll be an awkward emergency room scenario.

    Some guy at my wife’s former place of employment was found dead in a mobile home he had set up for sexual adventure. His method of asphyxiation involved helium.

    Passerby could not hear his tinny, high pitched cries for help through the laundry bag.

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  19. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 10:59 am

    Passerby could not hear his tinny, high pitched cries for help through the laundry bag.

    Ladies and gentlemen, thread-win, yes?

    And now, I propose to go get an icy cold Diet Pepsi, and forget all about this discussion!

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  20. nancy said on July 31, 2013 at 10:59 am

    Yes, win.

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  21. Kath said on July 31, 2013 at 11:41 am

    When I was a clerk for the public defender’s office we had a police procedure handbook published in the 1970s that had a chapter on investigating sex-related deaths. Needless to say, this made for popular lunch time reading. The author had collected crime scene photos and descriptions from as far back as the 1930s. One of the most memorable was about bizarre deaths at gas stations. Police would find men who had been working alone late at night in the station dead on the floor in the car repair bay. Sometimes the victims survived and then tried to convince police that someone had come in, attacked them, forced the grease gun up their ass, and pulled the trigger.

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  22. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 11:46 am

    Talk about your jiffy lube!

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  23. Bitter Scribe said on July 31, 2013 at 11:50 am

    This is officially the grossest thread I have ever seen on NN.

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  24. alex said on July 31, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    The local paper is about due for an update of that perennial favorite: The things people put up their asses and the explanations they give when they show up at the hospital. Another great story idea, from an emergency room nurse of my acquaintance, is dumb things people do to themselves with guns. More men accidentally shoot themselves in their junk than you might realize.

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  25. Dexter said on July 31, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Hey Iron Man, big boy…wanna come out and play?
    http://www.redbull.com/cs/RedBull/RBImages/000/000/664/412/photo610x343a/Fist%20of%20a%20Champion%20Detroit.jpg

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  26. Dexter said on July 31, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    My daughter works a Las Vegas, Nevada ER as a nurse practitioner. You can imagine the depth of creativity people employ deciding what items to insert up their backsides. She doesn’t relish talking about her job, mainly for all the young drug-deaths she sees, but she did say once that not much time goes by between patients reporting in with all sorts of items inserted up the old hole. I once read that shot glasses were the most common item. Here’s a list from the UBM Medica Network:
    bottles
    sex toys
    vegetables
    broomstick
    axe handle
    curtain rod
    light bulb / fluorescent tube
    frozen pig’s tail
    toothbrush
    and, a few months ago, a story went viral: someone had inserted a LIVE EEL inside their cavity to relieve constipation. Grossed out enough now, Bitter Scribe? 🙂

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  27. Sherri said on July 31, 2013 at 12:24 pm

    The writer of the long NYTimes magazine profile on Weiner “just assumed” he had stopped sexting when he was caught: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/07/29/new-york-times-magazine-writer-assumed-weiners-naughtiness-had-stopped/

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  28. BigHank53 said on July 31, 2013 at 1:08 pm

    For those who are wondering “Why on earth would somebody do that?” here’s a first-hand account on living with a fetish:

    http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/having-my-cake-and-eating-it-too/Content?oid=17107202

    Safe for work, even, and no squicky images.

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  29. nancy said on July 31, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    The grossest thing I ever read was a many-Xeroxed article from a medical journal, about the surgical project required when a man working some sort of factory line slipped in during his lunch hour to rub his junk on the fast-moving conveyer belt. You can imagine what happened.

    Apparently the guy was able to get himself back into his pants and drive himself to the ER. Although I don’t know how.

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  30. nancy said on July 31, 2013 at 1:36 pm

    Just looked at my alma mater’s opinion page. What did I tell you about how they’d spin the Tony Bennett email story? Ahem:

    Emails unearthed by The Associated Press show that then-Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett and his staff scrambled to change the grade of a charter school founded by an influential Republican donor after it was learned the school was getting a C on the state’s A-F grading system.

    …whether Bennett acted improperly to aid a political benefactor will have to be argued out; it wouldn’t be the first time a public official let a friend go around the rules, and it won’t be the last.

    In other words: Ho-hum.

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  31. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    pssst – we shared that GQ/public education versus voucher link with several PTA friends, and it’s a huge hit!; and indeed, we credited Nancynall.com, which will probably bring a few of them here.

    And I just wanted to say, usually the conversation around here is more about knockout food/recipes, and/or articles that make you laugh ’til you can’t breathe, with only the very occasional foray into deviant behavior and/or self-mutilation…

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  32. Deggjr said on July 31, 2013 at 1:56 pm

    There was a question the other day about what to do with the parents of a nine year old who shot his sister to death. Here is one approach.

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  33. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    While there may be only the occasional foray into deviant behavior and self mutilation on nn.c it certainly has me laughing out loud when it happens. One of these days I may grow up, but I hope not.

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  34. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 2:06 pm

    Deggjr, stories like that remind me of my former life in an iffy neighborhood in St. Louis that became gentrified eventually. But before the gentrification, one night we called the authorities because a few kids in diapers were playing with old tires in the alley behind our house at midnight with no adults in sight. Sad.

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  35. nancy said on July 31, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    Just read that Stranger article. It so happened that I learned about that particular kink — feeding — a few years back, not long before a friend of friend went on one of those ghastly daytime talk shows, to display her 90-pound two-year-old. I was watching the show with my friend, and they teased the segment at a break, and showed the kid in the green room with her parents. The mother was sitting on a chair, and the father was literally shoving food into the little girl’s mouth. He would catch her as she ran around the room and stuff a cheese cracker into her maw.

    I told my friend that she was morally obligated to tell her friend what dad was all about, and get that poor child away from him a.s.a.p. Involve grownups however you like, but that was straight-up child abuse.

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  36. alex said on July 31, 2013 at 2:20 pm

    In other words: Ho-hum.

    And if a Democrat had done anything one-tenth as egregious, they’d be calling for his arrest.

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  37. alex said on July 31, 2013 at 2:38 pm

    Not only did they spin the Bennett story as no big deal, they buried it deep within an opinion piece about something else entirely.

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  38. Jolene said on July 31, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    These stories of kids who kill themselves or someone else because someone left a gun unattended are legion. After Newtown, Joe Nocera of the NYT began keeping a record of shootings in the US, and he said, in discussing his efforts, that he was finding at least one such incident every single day. In most such stories that I’ve seen, it seems like the incident is declared an accident, and there is no prosecution of anybody for anything.

    Seems like some rethinking of public policy in this area might be called for. I know that children (and grown-ups) too die in accidents all the time, and I’m not sure we want to prosecute people whose children drown in the family swimming pool, but it seems like the presence of lethal weapons imposes a different level of responsibility.

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  39. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 3:17 pm

    Jolene, I could not agree more.

    An 8 year old shooting his 4 year old sister isn’t just terrible, it is also unacceptable.

    I think that’s what put me off yesterday; the shrugging acceptance of this as “a terrible tragedy” instead of the criminal negligence that it must be (like the Spanish train operator who neglected his duties a few days ago, or the Italian sea captain last summer)

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  40. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 3:28 pm

    Couldn’t agree more with Jolene and Brian today and many of you that there really needs to be some parental accountability when little kids get shot “accidentally”. When will it stop? There oughta be a law.

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  41. mark said on July 31, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    Jolene- Why distinguish between pools and guns, or motor vehicles, when assessing criminal responsibility for injury or death to children? Far more kids die by drowning and motor vehicle accident than by gunshot. Why not imprison all of the people who make mistakes that cause the death of a child?

    And while brian can bluster about “criminal negligence” concerning the local accident, he knows absolutely nothing about what happened and nothing that would justify such a conclusion. I don’t plan on owning a pool, so it’s ok with me if we give a little jail time to those who do and who manage to have somebody drown in it. After all, the dangers are well known so “it must be criminal negligence” if a kid drowns in your pool.

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  42. Connie said on July 31, 2013 at 3:46 pm

    Today’s post is quoted in Deadline Detroit. http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/5850/fox_2_teased_widely_for_naive_facebook_post_on_crisco_can_at_fist#.UflpWKwRNs4

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  43. Brandon said on July 31, 2013 at 3:49 pm

    Kids just do crazy things:

    http://www.abpnews.com/ministry/organizations/item/8718-prank-backfires-at-baptist-camp

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  44. beb said on July 31, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    This is an example of how the gun culture in our country distorts our thinking. A kid shoots another kid and we say its an accident.

    But if this had involved and 8 year old driving a car the parent of that kid would have been changed with child endangerment for not properly supervising their child and manslaughter because as the adult in the situation they are responsible for their child’s behavior, and if their child kills someone it’s the parent fault that it happened.

    And since these are gun related incidents the parent should be charged as well for not properly securing their gun, and for unlawful discharge of a gun.

    The other story coming out of Florida is a woman sentenced to 20 years for fighting a waring shoot towards her abusive husband. Despite a clear case of self-defence / stand your ground she’s going to prison. Of course she’s black…

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  45. beb said on July 31, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    Must.Not.Feed.The.Troll.

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  46. mark said on July 31, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    I dislike baptists as much as I dislike guns, thetrefore there should be crimal responnsibility for the injuries inflicted by the inadequately supervised campers.

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  47. adrianne said on July 31, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    Mark, I wouldn’t call a pool a lethal weapon. Guns are designed for one thing only: to hurt or kill something. Big difference.

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  48. mark said on July 31, 2013 at 4:05 pm

    “But if this had involved and 8 year old driving a car the parent of that kid would have been changed with child endangerment for not properly supervising their child and manslaughter because as the adult in the situation they are responsible for their child’s behavior, and if their child kills someone it’s the parent fault that it happened.”

    beb you are wrong on just about every point. We don’t impose vicarious criminal responsibility on parents for crimes by children or criminal responsibility for mere negligence by the parent. Some circumstances are sufficiently egregious to warrant a criminal charge, but that is relatively rare. Without examining actual facts, you can’t draw a conclusion.

    Thousands die in car accidents caused by the negligence of somebody. We don’t charge criminally unless the facts suggest an extraordinary dereliction of duty or disregard for human life. Why would we use a lower standard to punish parents for being merely inattentive or even dumb? Our prisons are already far too full of people who are often primarily guilty of being stupid.

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  49. mark said on July 31, 2013 at 4:09 pm

    adrianne- I think I said yesterday that I’m in favor of re-examining the laws pertaining to firearms and children. For better or worse, you are (in Indiana) presently allowed to permit your eight year-old to fire a weapon but not operate your car.

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  50. Sherri said on July 31, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    Even when the parent is charged with manslaughter for failing to secure their gun, it can be hard to get a conviction if the parent is the right kind of person. A law enforcement officer out here left a gun (not his service weapon) in the cupholder in his minivan with his 4 kids under the age of 8 while he and his wife stepped out of the car for a minute on an errand. His three year old son picked up the gun and shot his seven year old daughter, who died the next day. Derek Carlile was charged with manslaughter, but the jury deadlocked 7-4 in favor of acquittal with one undecided, the judge declared a mistrial, and the prosecutor elected not to retry. The defense was that it was just a tragic accident, that he meant to put the weapon on his ankle but got distracted and never meant to put his family in danger.

    He did at least lose his job as a police officer.

    As for pools, mark, ever heard of “attractive nuisance”? You can be charged with criminal negligence for failure to secure a swimming pool.

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  51. Brandon said on July 31, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    Must.Not.Feed.The.Troll.

    beb, I hope you’re not talking about me.:) I decided to share that article about the prank gone awry at the youth camp because this thread is really about the strange and foolish things people do.

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  52. Brandon said on July 31, 2013 at 4:19 pm

    On this shooting being written off as an accident: To me, it shows that racism ultimately harms everyone, even those in the dominant or favored group (i.e., whites).

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  53. mark said on July 31, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    Yes, sherri, criminal negligence can arise from an unlimited number of scenarios. But you cannot, as some want to do, merely invoke the word “gun” (or “pool” or “car”) as something sufficient for such a charge, as distasteful as the particular instrumentality or activity may be.

    A decade ago I concluded a multi-year struggle to get the Indiana courts to recognize that a gun owner has a common law duty to exercise reasonable care not merely in how they shoot, or to whom they entrust the weapon, but also in how they store the gun. This was only in connection with civil liability. The success that we finally achieved http://caselaw.findlaw.com/in-supreme-court/1479927.html , was quickly undone by a very pro gun legislature.

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  54. Deborah said on July 31, 2013 at 4:27 pm

    While I can imagine how devastated a parent would be by the death of a child after a shooting accident or the death of a child after a pool drowning, I still maintain that the death of a child by accidental shooting points to more negligence and there should be accountability. I actually know a couple who lost one of their toddler twin sons in a pool drowning. They were never the same after that, and neither were the rest of us.

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  55. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 4:46 pm

    mark, you offered a particularly interesting link; thanks.

    For the record, I don’t think you’re anymore of a troll than I am… and given that the late-great Ashley Morris immediately identified me as such, bodes ill for you.

    Aside from that, when you say:

    But you cannot, as some want to do, merely invoke the word “gun” (or “pool” or “car”) as something sufficient for such a charge, as distasteful as the particular instrumentality or activity may be.

    my first impulse is to react to the (seemingly asserted) equivalence between guns, cars, and swimming pools – when guns are, by definition and by design, much more dangerous when properly operated, let alone in the hands of a child.

    Anyway, it has been an interesting discussion. It simply hit me wrong (and continues to) that the Jay county police said (essentially) “nothing to see here, move right along”.

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  56. adrianne said on July 31, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    Mark, all I can say is, thank God I don’t live in Indiana anymore.

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  57. Sherri said on July 31, 2013 at 5:22 pm

    On a totally different note, why Pacific Northwesterners put up with the dark rainy winters – we have the best summers in the country: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/07/secret-revealed-northwest-has-best.html

    My favorite reason is number 10 – heat waves just can’t last long here, it’s not physically possible.

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  58. Joe K said on July 31, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    I not sure if this relates, but Chuck Yeager, in his first book related that his brother accidentally shot and killed their younger sister, he stated that instead of being punished his father took his brother out and showed him the PROPER WAY to treat fire arms, perhaps this is what the family in Jay county should have done, punishing the parents will not bring this child back, I imagine they are suffering terribly why make it worse by sending some one else to jail for this FAMILY accident, and I emphasize FAMILY.
    Pilot Joe

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  59. alex said on July 31, 2013 at 6:28 pm

    It has always struck me that the very paranoiacs who worry about their weapons being confiscated probably aren’t mentally fit to possess them. As I’ve probably said here before, I consider myself a very sane person and wouldn’t dare to have one in my home. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for keeping it out of the wrong hands and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any carnage that might occur because of its presence. Handguns are of absolutely no use unless they’re always at the ready. The nightmare scenario where an intruder is standing over you while you’re in bed isn’t going to allow you time to go open the safe, but having it on the same nightstand where you swat the snooze button is just plain stupid because you’re more likely to kill yourself or your bed partner than to ever experience a home invasion.

    The concealed carry laws should be a cause for concern because I’ve seen plenty of crazy hotheads going figuratively ballistic in public places and these are not the sort of people I would want to see packing, and yet they’re the very sort who might feel the need to be armed at all times.

    A few years ago in a local bowling alley, there was a three-year-old girl who spilled her Pepsi on the pantleg of another patron, who promptly stood up to the girl’s father and, when he wasn’t deferential or apologetic enough, blew him away with a concealed handgun. This was before it was legal to pack in public. God help us.

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  60. ROGirl said on July 31, 2013 at 6:47 pm

    The gross stuff in this thread continue: a skunk sprayed somewhere around my house last night and the stink is on everything. When I opened my purse at work after it had been sitting in a drawer for most of the day, I could smell the skunk scent inside it. Same thing when I got in my car at the end of the day, and the garage reeked when I got home.

    And the cat puked on my bedroom floor.

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  61. MichaelG said on July 31, 2013 at 7:14 pm

    Cat didn’t like the skunk smell any more than you did, ROGirl!

    Brian @22: Jiffy lube! Haw!

    I don’t think anybody here is advocating summarily tossing people into jail for any of these gun or pool or automobile related deaths. But there are laws relating directly to these things in some places and there are generally laws relating to child abuse, child endangerment and so forth. If a child gains access to a firearm, it having been left around where the child can get hold of it is child endangerment. I believe that parents in these situations need to be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted. You can’t just walk away, shrug your shoulders and say “Oh well”. Folks are always talking about accountability until it comes time for somebody to be held accountable.

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  62. Sherri said on July 31, 2013 at 8:01 pm

    In particular, MichaelG, people are always talking about accountability until it comes time for somebody like themselves to be held accountable. Those other people, they should be held accountable.

    It’s a lot easier to say “they’ve suffered enough” when it’s a mistake you can imagine making. It’s much easier to say “throw the book at them” when you think it’s a stupid mistake you’d never make.

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  63. MichaelG said on July 31, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    Truly said, Sherri.

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  64. Suzanne said on July 31, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    Absolutely, Sherri.

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  65. Brandon said on July 31, 2013 at 11:04 pm

    http://gawker.com/an-armed-george-zimmerman-caught-speeding-in-texas-979176068

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  66. brian stouder said on July 31, 2013 at 11:16 pm

    Brandon, wow.

    To me, here are the two most striking passages from that article:

    “Just take it easy,” the officer can be heard telling Zimmerman in dashcam footage obtained by inForney.com. “[G]o ahead and shut your glove compartment and don’t play with your firearm, ok?”

    and

    UPDATE: the weapon in Zimmerman’s possession was initially strapped to his body. It was the police officer who instructed Zimmerman to put it in the glove compartment.

    I’m thinking that Las Vegas might have a pool going on how long it is before the wandering Z-man pumps lead into yet another human being. This is like one of those western movies, where some sad-sack cow-poke rides from town to town, and always seems to be where the trouble is

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