Remember the now infamous Nathan Kotylak? He issued a public apology today:
Open Questions:
1) Do you believe he’s sincere?
2) Do you sense that him coming forward like this was his own idea?
3) Does this change your views on what punishment he should face?
4) If your answer to #3 is ‘Yes’, what do you think would be a fair punishment for him?
Okay good. He’s very sensitive about that. Susan’s okay – actually, true story, his father named him Sue and he turned out fine.
That would explain the black bit…howz about the Mamba?
“That would explain the black bit…”
Would it? I’m a Tarantino blonde. Now, on topic: Should we bring back flogging?
Of course my last post only makes sense if you’re both the prodigy of one J. Cash.
1) Yes I believe he is sincere. Is he sorry for being caught? Well he was nailed almost immediately and we really don’t know if he would go into hiding. A: He waived his right to be a young offender. BIG STEP. B: He faced to music. He stuck around and answered questions.
2)Probably not. But considering he is likely a smart kid who has done something profoundly stupid…a short talk with mom and dad would make things clear enough.
3)Nope: Pay for the car. Make amends. When that is done then we can talk about forgiveness.
Bring it back? I guess you never saw that fine piece of Canadian television that was Kink.
Produced in Vancouver if I remember correctly.
Excuse my ignorance…but what’s a Tarantino blonde?
Ever since Gino Vanelli I’ve been leery…black cars look better in the shade…indeed.
What I’d like to know is what else this kid did. I have a hard time believing lighting a cop car on fire was his first crime that night. I bet he started by say, throwing a brick through a window. Or maybe throwing a paper box around. Then the high fiving and cheering pumped him up. He’d look around and see he’s getting away with it so lets take it up a notch. It also wouldn’t surprize me if after lighting the car on fire, and again getting away with it and even louder cheering, he didn’t do more as the night went on. Until those questions are asked (why weren’t they?) and answered then I reserve judgement on the punishment and “feelings”. Lets see how honest he really is.
S’why God invented Google.
So you are the seriously blonde daughter of Johny Cash and sister of badass bar fighter Sue Cash?
Wow.
Oy.
O.k… the bleached blonde Jewish daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow who was adopted by Jon Stewart and Susan Sarandon?
“And I don’t see any evidence for your conclusion that it wasn’t a ‘mob’ activity -but ‘hooliganism’ without thinking of the camera.”
ET, if a few handfuls of hooligans smashing and burning constitutes a mob in your opinion,then I guess it’s a mob.
As to Egypt, one man’s passionate crowd is another’s “mob”, it depends on whether they support the person asked. To Mubarak,they were a mob,to the Western MSM, a “crowd crying out for democracy”.
I’d consider a “mob” as the people who acted so violently in the take out of Rumanian dictator Ceaucescu,dragged him into the street and executed him. That was a mob,and that was mob violence,and mob solidarity.Everyone was in support of the guys who did the violence.
ET,watch the videos of the Great Post Boston Bruins Victory party and you’ll notice only a few people in each actually doing the violence and vandalism. I noticed some appear to have starred in more than one video.
Thugs acting within a crowd of onlookers. Thugs that did NOT have the support of the crowd for their actions.
It will be interesting to see how many people are actually charged after the investigation is over,and even more interesting to see if any others come from circumstances as fortunate as the young man who is the topic of this post.
It’s not a matter of class consciousness,more the disgust of ordinary people who have had to work hard for their living,for those born with the proverbial silver spoon,and don’t appreciate it.
This is a young man who at 17 had ruined his young life. I believe he is remorseful for his actions. I agree that he should receive at least 2 years of community service and should be made to pay for the vehicle he torched.
dmorris
Well said, but it seems ET is unwilling to engage with the scruffier minds about.
Probably nothing.
Lets be frank. He’s from the upper-middle class. He should know better. Prosecute him as if her were from the hood.
Half C
Do you remember the Dorthy Joudrie case? Dorthy was known as the hostest with the mostest in Calgary’s high society circles.
That was until she pumped five shots from a .22 Beretta into Earl, her beloved.
Earl was at the time a top executive with Canadian Tire and Pan Canadian Resources.
Turns out Dorthy was in an autonomic state cause Earl slapped her back in 73.
A year in the bug house and out.
Only a matter of framing the discussion.
“O.k… the bleached blonde Jewish daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow who was adopted by Jon Stewart and Susan Sarandon?”
Posted by: syncrodox at June 19, 2011 11:41 PM
No wonder I’m so right wing.
Exactly.
Boots amd the rest of you – reading these comments brings me to a new understanding on the “mob mentality”.
I invite you all to review the comments on this issue. Note the absolute intolerance that so many of you harbour in your hearts.
If this were you, standing accused and having admitted to your crime, just what chance would you have at “justice”?
STRING HIM UP!
I am ashamed at the attitudes of so many of you whose opinions I have respected in the past.
To everyone who is saying “Throw him in jail for the max”, I have to ask one question: How is taking a kid, who did something criminal while drunk and part of mob, and putting him in the company of hard core criminals for five years going to make him a decent person when released? Who’s going to hire him? What education will he have? Any guesses as to what he’ll be when he gets out?
I agree with those who suggest restitution and community service, except I think the community service should be this: He should have to spend every Friday and Saturday night, from 8 pm to 4 am, for the next two years cleaning all the puke, blood, and filth from the back of police cruisers at Vancouver’s busiest station. I think this would have a number of salutary effects. First, he’d see first hand what cops have to deal with night after night. Second, being around cops that much must give him a better appreciation of them as human beings. Third, (this is incidental, but..) he won’t be able to go out partying with his friends on Friday and Saturday, so the chances of him doing something stupid again are minimized. Fourth, he’ll have to take some abuse from some cops at the start – well, turnabout is fair play.
I think this would be “punishment that fits the crime”, and still leaves the kid a chance at a reasonable life, whereas imprisoning him in con school for five years is surely retributive, but will most likely result in the development of a career criminal that will cost society (i.e. us) much more down the road.
Oh, and as to the people who said “the car might explode” – not very likely. This was tested and re-tested on the TV show “Mythbusters”, and they were never able to get the gas tank to explode. Start a fire, yes, but explode, never. What you see in the movies and TV isn’t real, and I’ve heard from firemen that they never see it.
a different bob
I don’t believe it is in your purview to be ashamed of others…of course I could be wrong.
As far as lynching, please point out where and when that was suggested.
As far as standing accused..his performance could best be described as leaning…which way I will leave to your vivid imagination.
Different Bob: Why do you say he was sincere? He was wearing a very large backpack. And as a water polo team member, you know he’s a non-smoker, yet he had a lighter.
I think he came to town packin’, with riot on his mind. Those are my two reasons for being very skeptical of his sincerity.
So don’t try to guilt-trip me for not accepting his apology. Guilt-trip yourself for not using your brain.
I take it, a different bob, that you want to be placed in the “Enabler” column with ET.
kevinB
I don’t want to destroy this kid but he should not be sheltered from the consequences of his own behavior.
Some provincial time is in order. So is restitution and community service. Walking away…not so much.
I was neither envious of the young guys I was working with or insinuating that all youth were like that. I was stating a fact about how they acted and what they considered a good time.
These were likable kids, mostly athletes (futbol) but their attitudes are so foreign to anything I was raised with it simply boggles the mind.
The only way I can judge how their peers feel about these actions is from what I heard and they seemed at ease with them, as though nothing untoward had happened.
a different bob
I’m not sure what I posted that could make you ashamed. Maybe you can explain. Robert asked if we thought he was sincere and if his apology changed our opinion somewhat. I basically answered by saying I need to know more about what he did that night. If this wasn’t his only crime that night (it wouldn’t be a stretch to think it wasn’t) then that changes my opinion of his sincerity. By just watching the video and not knowing him, I think he’s sincere as I assume you do. But would your mind not change if it comes out that burning a cop car wasn’t the only crime he did that night? And didn’t come clean when he had the chance? I just have a gut feeling there’s more to this story. Time will tell.
“nothing untoward”…seriously…last time I heard that was from Steve MacKinnon President of the LPC describing Joe Volpe’s fund raising practices…
Yes, the first thing I grab when I try to start a fire is a T shirt.
Having a T shirt is not premeditation for anything other than possibly sweating.
If he set out to burn stuff he’d probably be better prepared than he was, with a $30 shirt and a wonky lighter.
I love this site, but sometimes, it’s patrolled by idiots.
Yukon Gold
So the kid didn’t try to light the cruiser?
Richards in Vancouver
You’re right. If it’s proven he was “packing” for trouble then he loses any credibilty he might have.
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
Yukon Gold
This has been an interesting and controversial thread. I don’t normally get this engaged but this is something in my wheelhouse.
I look forward to your synopsis outlining the idiots and their indiscretions.
As a Boston fan, my heart goes out to the city of Vancouver. Their hockey fans are no different then us Boston fans and are fiercly loyal to their teams. These who caused this riot are NO hockey fans! There is no need to the continued appologies that many Vancouver citizens have been posting on Boston sites. We understand what happened, we’ve had a checkered past when it comes to disturbances as well. You have a beautiful city and great fans and hope we meet again next year in the finals.
As far as Nathan goes, who knows if he appologized only because he was caught online… but it’s time to heal. Have him do his time, community service, etc., then give him and his family their life back. It will be with him his whole life.
“it’s time to heal.”
NO IT IS NOT!!! It is time to send a strong message to mob mentality that there are repercussions for their actions.
After Nathan has lost his scholarship (that Daddy will easily replace), and has lost his place on the National polo team, and has served weekends in jail…
And similar punishments MUST BE given for those caught and convicted of looting and destroying public property.
Once the message has been sent around the schools that there are serious repercussions for attempting to destroy a police car – then it is time to heal…
Syncrodox – you’re quite correct – it is not in my pervue to ashamed of anyone posting on this subject. You are the one who should be ashamed.
Congratulations certain SDA comments your keen sense of human nature, your ability to read minds and intentions have forged one of the most disgusting, unchristian,fossil, knuckle dragging, uncaring, reinforcing stereotypes of conservatives. Applaud yourselves.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Thrust+into+storm/4973868/story.html
If this picture of Nathan and his parents was taken after his escapade, it doesn’t seem to be a very good indicator that this family understands the gravity of the situation. Nathan’s mother looks defiant, his father looks happy with his son, and Nathan has a look that seems to convey, “Poor me”. If I were their lawyer, I’d have suppressed this photo.
I’ve had a lot of experience with defiant, in-denial parents, who seem incapable of entertaining the thought that their child could ever be held responsible for doing anything seriously wrong. When faced with the evidence of such wrong doing, rather than soberly accepting the situation and assisting the teacher in finding a meaningful—and, yes, maybe a somewhat unpleasant, like miss a recess (!), consequence—they project their disappointment and anger at the authority trying to deal with the trouble caused by their kid. And, they circle the wagon re defending their child.
It didn’t used to be that way. In fact, kids used to beg that their parents not be told: they knew getting their parents involved would be double jeopardy for them. These days, too many kids can’t wait to get their parents all riled up about how “mean and unfair” the teacher is. It’s astonishing how many parents take their kids’ one-sided stories at face value.
We don’t know the whole story here. (But I read in the paper this morning that Nathan’s car burning foray happened in the early stages of the riot—before he’d have been “just swept along”.) If Nathan is really sincere, this picture, unfortunately, doesn’t convey that. Time will tell.
But even sincerity doesn’t mean that a slap on the wrist will suffice. Bottom line: what he did was a serious breach of the law; it was a CRIMINAL act, and justice needs to be done and be seen to be done. As this riot’s not the end of the story, the deterrent effect of the consequences for those involved is important. Substantial consequences will send the message that involving oneself in such behaviour will end up badly. Slaps on the wrist will send the message to rabble rousers that they may do this again without too much worry for themselves. Is that what bob and others want?
(I’m absolutely unashamed of anything I’ve written here, and am in agreement with all those, like syncrodox, who don’t want to soft pedal the atrocity that happened in Vancouver.
The riots are a very “outward and visible sign” of a society headed south: violent, destructive, barbaric behaviour by roving bands of self-referential, I-can-do-whatever-I-like, nothing-bad-can-happen-to me thugs, who wreaked havoc on property and caused serious personal injury, of many kinds, to innocent citizens needs to be severely censured and stopped. If it’s not, the criminal perpetrators—ordinary folks by day and Clockwork Orange thugs by night—will be emboldened, and the mayhem will be repeated and will escalate. It’s too late for “A stitch in time saves nine” but maybe we’re at the “saves 12” stage. If we, as a society, remain in denial about this cancer in our midst, we’re going to pay an increasingly dreadful price, including the ruin of the lives of young people, who haven’t managed to learn the meaning of being responsible for their actions. “Teaching our children well” is the responsibility of the adults. We’re failing them on that score. Let’s see if the “adults” in our political and “justice” systems decide to step up and do the right thing.)
1) Do you believe he’s sincere?
Not entirely. Comes across as a spoilt brat. For one I’m pretty sure Daddy’s lawyer wrote the statement not him.
2) Do you sense that him coming forward like this was his own idea?
Absolutely not.
3) Does this change your views on what punishment he should face?
No.
4) If your answer to #3 is ‘Yes’, what do you think would be a fair punishment for him?
I’ll answer anyway. One, Daddy should have to immediately write a cheque (or cheques) for any property damage his useless son caused.
Two, he should be permanently kicked off the polo team. Three, if he knows the names of others who committed property damage he should tell the police. Four, he should be charged for any laws he broke. Five, at least 1 year of community service.
Somewhat unrelated, I predict (as I have always have) that the popularity of Facebook and other such services where one exposes one’s private life for all to see, will wane over time. Indeed, my own kids will likely never touch Facebook and I am proud of them for that.
lookout @10:10
Excellent post, particularly the last paragraph.
I agree with lookout. The punishment and restitution for this isn’t just about Nathan. Nathan isn’t the “victim” here, he’s the perp. He’s given up the anonymity afforded by his young offender status — how magnanimous — after he’s caught redhanded with his face and name plastered all over facebook and youtube!! He’s off the water polo team. Really! Well I say, let him stay on the water polo team . . . and be treated by the coach like any other player on the team who won’t travel (because his passport is suspended) and who doesn’t show up to practice (because he’s busy with court appearances or prison time or his backside is too raw from the caning he deserves to be able to walk, let alone swim competitively).
Who gets to pay for the police car — the ratepayers of Vancouver? Who gets to pay for the smashed windows and stolen merchandise — the store owners? The insurance companies? Who pays for all the additional police presence required at any future events because of the perception by young thugs that arson, vandalism, assault and mayhem will either go unpunished or, assuming one even gets caught, can be resolved with a teary-faced mea culpa and written off to youthful indiscretion? If the message is not sent loud and clear that his type of behaviour will be found out and severely punished, there will be an endless string of Nathans, and an ever-shrinking number of public events law-abiding citizens and their families will feel safe attending.
Fabulous, lookout, just fabulous. That folks is from a woman at the front who knows what of she speaks.
I continue to think about ET’s theory of mobs — the notion that the individual is subsumed by the mob and thereby loses his personhood.
However, I don’t really buy this if it entails recommending a lesser punishment. and I also don’t buy the debate about whether or not his behaviour was pre-meditated.
I’m thinking about the drunk defense here: “I was drunk and therefore not responsbile”. My view has always been “you were sober and made the choice to get drunk”. Therefore, you are fully responsbible for the outcomes of your behaviour and no-one else, including bartenders, is. Nathan made a choice to participate in mob activity. I don’t care if that choice was made hours or days or seconds before.
lookout: Driving with me in our West Point Grey Vancouver neighbourhood, my wife frequently observers that the serious graffiti often seen defacing commercial establishments comes from middle and upper middle class youth who are just not parented. Around the same time as the riot, jogging past the lovely campus of Saint George’s private school, for at the least the 3rd time I saw that its lovely granite and brass sign had been heavily graffitied.
And you are SO RIGHT. In our era we feared parental punishment far more than that from officialdom and therefore certain behaviours were simply not THINKABLE. You would never complain about teacher punishment ‘cos you knew you’d get it again, only harder.
a different bob
I feel no shame at all…none. I’ll tell you why. Earlier in my life I co-founded and ran an employment/behavioral change program for those who have been in conflict with the law.
I came to this vocation because I had done time myself.
One of the key aspects of our program was consequences, both positive and negative. Carrots and sticks if you will.
For instance we offered employability tickets like First Aid, H2S Alive, Asbestos Abatement, Pesticide Application etc… at no charge provided you completed all elements of the program or you got nothing.
Inter/intra personal communication and problem solving skills were dealt with in an experiential format. The program also required participants to do volunteer work in the community.
The food bank, parks and rec, old folks homes, public housing and other worthy organizations benefited from our group efforts.
We did some shitty jobs and I worked right along side each and every group.
We also had a three strikes and your out policy with the group being responsible for terminating members who did not meet our standards.
We were all about real world consequences. And guess what? It worked.
I wonder how many of you who consider me a mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, asshat, can say you have done as much as I have to reintegrate the fallen back into our society.
No, a different bob. I’m not ashamed at all.
MND (ALWAYS great to hear from you!) and Kathryn, thanks so much: you understand what’s going on—as do syncrodox and the other “meanies” here. For decades, I’ve been “up close and personal” to the Nathans of our society, as well as their spineless, enabler parents and our spineless, enabler, public “authorities”: there’s plenty of blame to go around.
I was driving this morning and thinking about this: a really important word, that what I’d call “useful idiots” like bob don’t seem to consider, is “EMPATHY”. Oh, yes, bob has a casual empathy—wait for it—for the perpetrators of the crimes, whom he treats like some kind of victim. How easy for bob, and how utterly arrogant and misguided.
Those non-empathetic thugs—who chose to act out in a criminal way, causing grievous damage—showed no empathy at all for their innocent victims. So, bob, how come you’re all revved up to give these criminals—for that’s what they are now—the benefit of the doubt? Your cheap, mean-spirited, mere assertion—and altogether ironic—put-downs of the reasonable people here, who understand that a serious price needs to paid by these anarchists is tiresome. Why don’t you put some muscle into your contention that out-of-control a**holes—who have no empathy for the rest of us—who violently overturn (and will continue to overturn) the peace and order of our everyday lives, deserve OUR empathy and hugs? (That Nathan has actually had everything going for him, in spades, makes his crime all the more odious. It raises some really serious questions, like, what kind of a society produces privileged kids who have totally turned their backs on the norms—which protect all of us, especially the most vulnerable—of peace and good order?) Justice isn’t always peaches and cream, bob, even for the crème de la crème. Nor should it be, but you seem to think it should. Why? Please explain.
On that note, the nasty social networking response to Nathan and his family is absolutely unacceptable. Guess what—irony, anyone?–it’s being done by the very same, self-referential brats that Nathan seems to be. These social cretins should be identified and charged with uttering threats, another serious crime. Because, apparently, with the approval of Pollyannas like bob, the “authorities” refuse to mete out serious consequences for serious breaches of civility and respect, we’re raising legions of non-empathetic, entitled, utterly spoiled brats. They don’t only treat law-abiding, responsible citizens with contempt*: they treat each other the very same way. (bob, are you there?) As a friend of mine once expressed it (I was shocked by the idea!), these altogether non-Samaritans wouldn’t cross the street to piss on each other if one of them were on fire. (The difference these days is that they probably set the fire!)
Bob, I’m interested about your thoughts on empathy.
* Just an hour ago, I turned onto a one-way street: I nearly hit the cretin heading the wrong way. He was young and wearing earphones. I gave him the horn, a quite legitimate response, I think, as I stopped, just in time, not to be hit by him. Our windows were open: he told me, an older woman following the rules, to “F**k off !” Charming. Just charming. (bob?)
KevinB asks: “How is taking a kid, who did something criminal while drunk and part of mob, and putting him in the company of hard core criminals for five years going to make him a decent person when released?”
Jail is not really there to make him a decent person Kevin. The point of jail is -retribution- upon him from society, and of course to keep him from burning more cop cars by locking him in a small room. Jail is the Bad Thing that happens to you when you deliberately do bad stuff. Jail is there so you make YOURSELF a decent person, mostly to avoid going back to jail.
Personally I don’t like the idea of jail, I don’t like the whole social structure and “justice” system surrounding it, and I’m not at all confident that everyone in jail belongs there.
But.
Absent me regaining my rights to protect myself and my stuff with force, up to and including deadly force, jail is pretty much all that’s keeping little Nathan and his friends from burning -my- car.
The best outcome would have been the cop responsible for the cruiser nailing this idiot punk with a bean-bag from his twelve gauge, or tasing him, or just hitting him in the knee with a nightstick. Kid crawls away, mummy nurses him back to health, kid never even THINKS about doing it again because Pain Hurts. Job done.
Cops aren’t allowed to smack the rioters, Kevin. It has been decided from On High that the cops shall capture the punks -after- the riot and jail them. Its stupid, but its policy.
So yes, I’d like to see Little Nathan have the policy seen through on him, with no special deal because of connections, money, or anything else. I’d like to see him treated the same way -I- would be treated if -I- did that. Maybe if that happens in a large and public way, next time some freakin’ sports team gets in the playoffs local punks won’t burn down a parking garage.
Actions have consequences. Sky is blue, water is wet. Sorry if that’s distressing, but that’s just how it is.
“Actions have consequences. Sky is blue, water is wet. Sorry if that’s distressing, but that’s just how it is.”
Amen, Phantom.
One thing that should be borne in mind (and no, I want not prison but community service here. BTW does anyone know what that means, in practice?) is that, if I understand correctly, Nathan’s family is quite rich. So buying the City another Police car won’t do, because daddy’ll just do that for him. Sure, Nate will be grounded, but that’s not quite what we’re after here.
My family’s middle-middle class, but I’ve come across many upper-middle-class kids. They are usually entitled brats. It is painful; Mommy and Daddy gave them all the pocket money and toys and vacations in the world, but never an ounce of attention. The idea being, I suppose, that when the kid gets caught shoplifting/selling drugs/assaulting a girl/setting fire to a Police car, Mommy and Daddy can say “oh, we gave him everything!”. I know it’s a stereotype, but it’s a frighteningly true one. Kids don’t appreciate “privilege” because they don’t know anything about the world, but they do know when nobody gives a sh*t about them, and that’s the case with so many of these parents. I feel like I’ve met Nathan Kotylak; in a way, I have, too often.
(In England I knew quite well the daughter of a U.S. State Senator who had (the girl, not the Seantor) in highschool been running a shoplifting operation back in Boston; she was charged, but of course daddy a)threw a fit and b)got her a great lawyer. No punishment. She’s one of many; not even a bad girl, or stupid, just a brat. And hardly the worst.)
My point is that, as odd as it sounds, these kids, with their vacations and toys and allowances, and their futures with every potential door opened, are actually deprived. Nathan needs probation and community service; he f*cked up, but I doubt he’s anything other than an idiot overaged child. Forcing him to grow up would be the key here. Sorry if I ramble.
Black Mamba, you don’t ramble. However, I think the wider picture includes far more than Nathan’s life.
He’s now the poster child for the Vancouver riot. He stepped out of entitled (“To whom much has been given, much is expected”) line to involve himself in an act of extremely serious criminality. If Nathan gets only a slap on the wrist, the message will be sent, as usual, that “extenuating circumstances”—used all the time by public school officials—will, effectively, let the miscreant off the hook.
I’ve not said what I think should happen to this young man. However, whatever it is should match the severity of the “dumb”—what a shallow word he used—actions he chose to take. As he actually has goods in his life that can be removed—scholarship, water polo involvement, passport . . .—it seems that just removing those, which others don’t even start with, isn’t quite enough. I do feel sorry for Nathan and his family, but not sorry enough to see him simply be deprived of his privileges. A serious, public consequence, in keeping with what the Criminal Code stipulates, should be imposed.
As I’ve said, if the law is allowed to be breached with no, to minor, implications for the perpetrators, there will be more, and more grievous, infractions. The rest of us don’t deserve to have our safety and security (and bank accounts) severely compromised by those who appear to have no concern or empathy for us. Justice is not a one way street: compassion for lawbreakers only. How about some compassion and justice for the innocent victims, which includes most of the citizenry of this country?
Today on Charles Adler, Charles gave a long dissertation on the amount of hateful commentary directed not only to the young man but also to his parents.
To the high percentage of you who have excoriated not only Nathan but also his parents…….well Charles tore you out a new one. You most certainly deserved it.
Go to his website and link to it. He says it much better than either I or ET ever could. You NEED to read it.
In fact here is the link to listen to it on podcast,
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-new-charlesadler-com/id319988668