I'm actually halfway through the story now and nobody should be laughing at this. It is fucking tragic.
This is what I posted in the "
Is every action understandable when you know the back story?" thread after I read the full article:
This kid never had a chance.
He was 17! A fucking child who bounced from foster care to the care of his grandmother, who made no effort to find him when he ran away two years before. A kid dealing with schizophrenia, depression and autism, who was off his meds. Who ran away from his loser family that beat the shit out of him so badly his grandmother was taken to jail.
He doesn't deserve prison. He deserves intensive rehabilitation-- therapy, education, mentorship, whatever medication he needs.
Maybe he could be saved, reformed and become a positive contributor to society in 10 years.
Society fucking failed him. He's "paying his debt to society" when it should be reversed.
The last news on him was that his appeal of his life sentence was denied in 2020. They're going to spend more punishing him than they would have attempting to rehabilitate him.