In contrast.... By MICHAEL WINERIP (NYTIMES) Published: June 24, 2007 LONG BRANCH, N.J. HOW to explain a teenager like Ed Kwiatkowski? Ed?s dad, a postal worker, died eight years ago. After that, Ed, his younger sister, Danielle, and their mother lived on the father?s Social Security check in a rundown trailer off Route 35 near here. Ed?s mother had a drug habit, went to jail for drug use at one point and died of a drug overdose last Dec. 2 at their trailer. School officials who arrived after the police answered the children?s 911 call were surprised at how bad conditions were in the trailer: no heat, a hole in the floor, frozen pipes, broken windows. No one from Long Branch High who knew 18-year-old Ed or his 16-year-old sister, Danielle, would have guessed. They are both top students. Ed ranked No. 7 in this year?s senior class. He won an award for perfect attendance. He was the No. 1 player on the tennis team until he quit to work two jobs after school to help support his family. Shortly after starting at Staples last fall, he was named employee of the month. On the Saturday morning his mother died last December, Ed was working the 3 a.m. to noon shift at the Dunkin? Donuts near the trailer park. Because of his mother?s drug use, Ed was afraid of what the police might do when they responded to the 911 call. While they investigated the trailer, Ed sent an e-mail message to his AP history teacher, Noah Lipman, from a neighbor?s trailer. ?We can?t even get into our house, ?cause *sigh* there was drugs present,? Ed wrote. Before becoming a teacher, Mr. Lipman had been a criminal lawyer for 25 years. ?I told Eddie flat out, ?Don?t make any statement to the police until we?ve talked,? ? said Mr. Lipman. As it turned out, the police were very understanding. ?The cops come into Dunkin? Donuts all the time,? said Ed. ?When they saw me they said, ?Hey, you?re the Dunkin? Donuts guy.? ? By nightfall, Ed and Danielle were back in the trailer, and on Monday morning, the Kwiatkowski orphans went to school. As Ed told Mr. Lipman, ?I?m going to keep doing the two things I do best, go to school and work.? How is it that some children falter, even with all the parental support in the world, and Ed and Danielle Kwiatkowski just keep going? While a few teachers like Mr. Lipman recognized how much more purposeful Ed and Danielle were than most teenagers, no one here truly understood it until the mother?s death. That morning, Terry Janeczek, the high school?s guidance director, made calls to see if the two needed help. ?Over the next six hours,? she said, ?as I pieced this together, my mouth dropped.? To this day, few here understand. ?Ed?s usually very shy,? says Mr. Lipman. ?He doesn?t talk much.? ?I never told anyone,? says Ed. ?I would suppose a few adults know the story of what happened,? says Danielle, who works after school at Domino?s Pizza. ?They know kind of we?re on our own but I?m not going to boast or anything,? says Ed. ?If I?m asked, I give an honest answer, like: ?Do you work a lot?? ?Yeah.? ? Ms. Janeczek and Mr. Lipman made sure the two had what they needed. Ms. Janeczek got them social services support and helped raise money to pay off creditors and do repairs on the trailer. Mr. Lipman had them to his home for Christmas Eve and Easter. He took them ziti and chicken dinners that his wife, Judy, cooked. He and his daughter Elizabeth, a high school senior, took Ed shopping for clothes. ?Eddie?s not very clothes-conscious,? says Mr. Lipman. ?He needed a little guidance.? They also helped arrange for Ed to become his sister?s guardian. Ed says it is no big deal parenting Danielle. ?Like, we know what to do,? he says. ?Eat stuff, clean up, do the dishes afterward, do our laundry.? Mainly, he says, he has to drive her because she doesn?t have her license, and he signs papers for her. ?She needs a permission slip, I sign it,? he says. The thing that has amazed the adults is how little help they really need. ?The foundations in the two children, the taking care of each other, were put in place before Mr. Lipman or I ever came around,? says Ms. Janeczek. As to how that came to be, even after asking them, it?s hard to know. Ed says: ?We didn?t have people to ask for help. Like homework ? we learned to look it up. We were not living in this good situation, so if we wanted to get out of that, we had to strive to do better.? Danielle calls it ?motivation to have a better future, like to try to get everything we haven?t had.? ?I want a good job, a good career so I can support my own family, live somewhere decent,? she says. ?I don?t want my kids spoiled, but I want them to have a nice life and be able to afford everything.? To this end, Danielle is taking a vocational program so that by time she graduates from high school she will have 40 college credits toward becoming a registered nurse. How does she know that?s what she wants? ?I researched on the computer,? she says, ?and I talked to two people who were nurses and liked it.? Ed is interested in business. He was planning on attending the local community college. Long Branch is a school with a lot of poor children, and Mr. Lipman says that last year, only 51 of 240 seniors went to four-year colleges. But after the teacher pestered Ed, he won a full scholarship to nearby Monmouth University. That would include living in the dorms, although he will stay in the trailer so he can continue as Danielle?s guardian. Mr. Lipman has tried to get them to move to an apartment, but Ed prefers the trailer because it?s cheaper. ?I just need a place to sleep,? Ed says, ?and I really sleep just five hours.? School nights, Ed works the 6 p.m. to midnight shift at Dunkin? Donuts. On the morning of the senior trip to Black Bear Lake, when Ed got off work, he filled the ?96 Ford Windstar minivan that he bought for $1,500 with the surplus from the store ? eight dozen boxes of doughnuts, eight dozen bagels and four boxes of Munchkins ? and treated the whole Long Branch Class of ?07 to breakfast. Most days, Mr. Lipman arrives at school by 6:30. Often, Ed comes early, too, and they talk. One recent morning, Ed brought in two photos he?d taken of himself in the mirror at his trailer. He?d rented a white tux for the prom, but wasn?t sure if he should wear a white or a red shirt. Mr. Lipman studied the photos of Ed in the two shirts and the red tie he?d rented. Then he offered a piece of advice that fathers have been giving sons almost since the beginning of time: ?Eddie,? he said, ?you can?t wear a red shirt with a red tie, it doesn?t look good.?

yeah. i'm with you. not everyone's life is fantastic. lots of people grow up in shit conditions. its no excuse or reason to hurt other people, rob, mug, rape, etc.

so much for trying to rise above it. #OOPS#ing scumbags. thats all there is too it. there is no excuse for this thuggery.

New Jersey Man Attacked by Teen with Brick

Saturday, 23 Jun

A New Jersey handy man is recovering from an attack by a teenager who smashed him in the face with a brick.
Jersey City -- A New Jersey handy man is recovering from an attack by a teenager who smashed him in the face with a brick.

It happened in Jersey City. 53-year-old Gilberto Negron was walking down a street during his lunch break earlier this week when the teenager jumped him and started beating him with a cinder block.

The victim says, "[He] hit me on the side of the jaw first and then I went down unconscious. I got up again and when I pulled my hand up, that's when he got me again, he hit me in the forehead. I tried to defend myself. He hit me the third time on the opposite side of the head."

Several other teenagers crowded around and cheered the attacker on. Police told Negron he may have been targeted by a gang.

Click here to see Fox News

I guess all we can hope for is that he gets his first DUI before he can hurt anyone again.

I don't give a shit what the hell their living conditions are like.The bottom line is that they have no right to beat up on anybody.Damm animals.

Oh forgot to mention one additional thing, if you see the conditions these kids live in, its no wonder their never home. If they do get arrested they dont care because jail is a step up for them, 3 hots and a cot as they say. And the jail is much cleaner and nicer then their home.

Of course anyone can sue anyone for anything, but what will it get you? The parents probably are crackheads or alcoholics, one may be in jail, the other to high or drunk all the time to properly supervise this kid, probably on public assistance, ...etc. You get the idea. As for the school, they will point the finger at the parents and say the kid is in school at most 36 hours a week, and thats on a good week, and they will be right, teaching and supervising a kid is up to the parents, not the community, it dosent take a village, it only takes 2 parents, one preferably with a leather belt. As for the criminal justice system, the police catch these kids but the courts and judges keep letting them out in their parents custody. How many times does it take for the cops to catch these kids and see the system keep letting them out for the cops to just throw up their hands and say screw it, no one else cares why should I? And as for the judges, this is where the true problem is, judges are immune from any lawsuits for any actions they take or dont take while on the bench, bet you didnt know that. The only way to effect change would be to write letters to your state seators and assembly people, and schedule meetings with them to air out this problem and perhaps come up with solutions, one of those solutions would be a revamping of the juvenile justice laws in this state. But dont hold your breath, its a lot of work rewriting laws, its much easier to just write one or 2 anti-gun laws, maybe a anti-smoking law here and there and maybe a law against quick release bicycle tires, and collect a paycheck and pension and call it a term, you get the idea.

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If this is the case, then more reason to take civil action.
I mentioned suing the kid, parents and school, what about the teacher in charge during lunch-time, the principal and even the board of education - to at least force change.
If this happened to me, I'd go after everyone to highlight what a serious problem juvenile crime really is and needs to be addressed across the board. I'd even look at suing the city and police to see if they were not doing all that can be to curb juvenile crime..........enough is enough.

Thank the judges for for treating this as juvenile delinquency instead of the crime it is. Ask a judge what they do with kids like this when they appear before the bench. I'll tell you, once they are arrested they most likely will be released to their parents and given a court date to appear, court date comes and goes and the parent and kid do not appear in court, no warrant is issued because its family court and the matter is considered a juvenile delinquency charge. The kid goes on to commit other more serious crimes and turns into a little monster. Then the day arrives when they commit a more serious crime. The juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice laws in this state need to be revamped to reflect the realities of this new day and age of juvenile crime and gang initiation. This little monster probably has a very extensive criminal record, however those records are not allowed into evidence for trial or sentencing purposes. And the best part, once a juvenile turns 18, the slate is wiped clean and they start from scratch, no criminal record whatsoever, all the juvenile records are permanently sealed.

Anyone else thing that the kids that laughed and dared this kid to beat a man with a brick should be equally responsible?

I know peer pressure is not an excuse for violence however it seems to me that some of these kids would be guilty by association.

Do the police even know these kids by name?

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I was thinking the same thing!

This kid thinks blunt force trauma to the head with a brick is fun? I think it's attempted murder.

Imagine what this kid will think is fun when he's 20 or 30.

It seems that kids who live more than a five minute walk from school should NOT be allowed to leave school grounds at lunch time!

I also hope they arrest the other four or five kids involved!

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Can't we at the VERY least make these other kids do community service and force them to go to thearpy -- I can't believe that nothing will happen to these five or more accessories to attempted murder! What about the kid who first dared the attacker to do it? What about the rest of these kids cheering him on?

wonderful idea, aren't there any lawyers who can offer their services for the good of society and mankind in a situation like this, let's prove some points, please people, come on!

Sue the kid, parents and school for not supervising the kids during their lunch break properly

If I was an attorney, I would focus my practice on helping victims like this.

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I agree that his parents should be held responsible, and I cant even begin to imagine the horrible, abusive, and violent crimes that will be committed when these 15 yr olds have kids of their own to abuse and neglect...its only going to get worse.

We need someone like Bob Barker to take up a cause and encourage elected officials to pass laws to "Spay and Nuter your local violent criminals" A good deal of the people having kids these days are not mentally or financially mature and responsible enough to raise them in a socially acceptable manner. Too many people think that having a child is a right....we have tests and standards if you want to buy a house or drive a car, yet ANYONE who feels like it can have a kid....or 6.

via above link -
Hey fat-ass Comey, I like your new hair color and make-over job to your face so you might look good on camera, but its what comes out of your mouth and the action you take on crime that gives you credibility.

It reminds me of wanker golfers with all the latest gear and attire, but play like crap and cheat on their score card.

There's a video here.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_173164654.html

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What the ffccuukk - Please tell me what the definition of a 'wolf pack' is Eason, you pencil pushing ass? Sure crime is down in every category if you play with the figures, not record the crime, change and re-interpret crime. Would a kid bashing a guy with a brick be classified as a construction accident!

If there were no consequences in life, I'd sneak into your office, the police chief's office and the mayor's office and have a shit on your computer keyboard. You know that with all the crap going on within city hall and the police regarding staff, that your reputation sucks - you know it and the public know it.

The crime figures are down in ALL CATEGORIES because you want to make sure you guys get your bonuses.

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Let's throw bricks at their parents, too.

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Wow. From a city councilman.

Just thought that quote bare repeating.

These news stories are just too hideous and
frightening. One wonders why our kids are
so overflowing with hatred and malice.
My hard-earned school tax dollars produce
this?
The worse things that took place when I
went to public school in Rhinebeck, NY
were gum chewing and skipping gym.
Admittedly, that was like a hundred
years ago, ... but I
can't help feeling:
My, how the world has changed.

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In Soviet Russia bike rides you!

This City has no idea how to address this problem of juvenile crime and policing is not the answer, just a tool to hide the bigger issues. Does the City have a strategy to address this issue? if not, why not?

It would normally be a huge bonus and an investment 'plus' to purchase a property near a school - unfortunately in Jersey City this sort of proximity would devalue your property!

What ever happen to riding bikes and playing marbles at the age of 15?

what happened to the good old days where kids just tortured little animals and grew up to be serial killers?

Quote:

Obviously, one thing that the state should do is eliminate the practice of protecting the identities of kids over age 14 who are convicted of committing depraved acts of violence. If kids over 14 (or maybe even younger, at the judge's discretion) are convicted of crimes like this, then their names and pictures ought to show up on the Web and, ideally, in the local paper, once they're convicted.

On the other hand, from a prevention point of view, it seems to me that something else the city has to do is to send counselors out to interview the kids and the people who know the kids, to figure out why we're seeing so many of these crimes all of a sudden.

If the kids are clearly rotten kids from rotten homes, then that would be a sign that the city and schools have to be a lot more forceful about forcing help on troubled families.

If, in reality, the kids turn out to be kids who, on paper, seem to be fairly normal kids from normal homes, that would be a sign that we have have to be aggressive about dealing with the community forces (such as video games, the rise of a new gang culture, turmoil in the middle schools, weaknesses in youth activity programs, or something else) that have turned people hunting into a popular pastime.

The main thing is that, unless someone goes out and does the interviews and some other work to figure out what's really going on with these kids, we have no way of knowing.

The good news is that this kid probably gets charged as an adult and spends the next few years in an adult prison getting gang raped a dozen times a day.

From Journal:
Eason said police are responding to the problem, and all other crimes, saying it is reflected in statistics showing crime is down in nearly every category.

"We do not say that the incident of juvenile crime is not serious, but we do not categorize every incident as a wolf pack when they are not wolf packs," Eason said.



"responding to the problem"...? how?

are random juvenile attacks with bricks statistically lower this year?

kill this boy.

kill him.

and then kill him again.

I would like to know when an ordinance is passed to shame the parents of this kid ala dog owners who don't clean up their dog's mess. I would like to see a website or a section of the newspaper dedicated to shaming parents of kids who do this kind of garbage. Someone is not raising their kid right if they think this is funny stuff.

Also I no longer want to protect the identity of these kids. I want to know specifically which kids are doing this, because its apparent they are becoming a danger to the community.

I also agree with CapnJon but it won't fly unfortunately.

i think we should take this little prick and all his spineless buddies and line them up and let us throw bricks at them.

this makes me so angry. arrest his parents.