Hobo with a Hatchet!

Wonder if the judge is going to smash, smash, smash him in the back of the head with his gavel when he passes sentence? :)

But I agree with Gord, he may well be guilty but his story is plausible even if he did a runner afterwards. And if his story has a kernel of truth, and his reaction to a rape/groping/rejected sexual proposition went too far - well he was kind of given licence to deal with situations in this manner by the social (and otherwise) media. I'm sure he's used the hatchet many times living the way he does both before the original video and since. There's a reason he carries it. And a hatchet is an evocative weapon, if he had used a gun would he be a hero? And assuming wider guilt over association with drugs is often misplaced. Just because many violent criminals use drugs it doesn't follow that many drug users are violent criminals. If that logic worked then a dog would be a cat. Who's to say the victim didn't supply the drugs, luring the homeless surfer home with them. Real life is more complicated than Fox news.
 
Egg Born Son said:
But I agree with Gord, he may well be guilty but his story is plausible even if he did a runner afterwards.
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I would be astonished if the scenario of 'picked up, or taken 'home/hotelroom', by middle class 'gentleman' turns in to something sexual, possibly involving intoxicants', had 'never' occurred to someone who has been out on the highways for years.

And sorry the response to an unwanted sexual advance is not Maxwell's Silver Hammer...
 
I do think its very possible that, had he not gotten so much praise for acting the way he did previously, he might not been as compelled to take the law into his own hands again. I think he even made allusions that he'd been sexually abused as a kid. This is all a perfect storm of bad circumstances.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I would be astonished if the scenario of 'picked up, or taken 'home/hotelroom', by middle class 'gentleman' turns in to something sexual, possibly involving intoxicants', had 'never' occurred to someone who has been out on the highways for years.

And sorry the response to an unwanted sexual advance is not Maxwell's Silver Hammer...
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Well, I disagree. I've been homeless 3 times. "Picked up" is misleading and I'd disregard that comment. I don't think you understand completely the reality of being on the street. I too have stayed in strangers homes and welcomed likewise people into mine but it's more complicated than something that I can express in a few words here. It has nothing to do with being picked up or anything sexual. It's only when a betray of trust happens and in some cases thats when someone makes an unwelcome sexual and aggressive advance. That's doesn't mean he shouldn't be charged with murder if that's what he did. But pyscho? I still don't think so. I mean, what 70 year old kind of person would advance and try taking advantage of a man of this young mans age? You know? It just stinks all over.
 
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j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
I would be astonished if the scenario of 'picked up, or taken 'home/hotelroom', by middle class 'gentleman' turns in to something sexual, possibly involving intoxicants', had 'never' occurred to someone who has been out on the highways for years.

And sorry the response to an unwanted sexual advance is not Maxwell's Silver Hammer...
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I was not in any way suggesting this is what happened, condoning his actions, defending drugs or any other such thing. I didn't even think the guy was justified in the first media story and actually thought it was disgusting on some level (and saying a lot about present society) that he not only escaped jail but was made a celebrity over it in the first place. I don't think his actions were justified then, I don't think they are now.

If I was standing on a soapbox it was was more to comment on the poor state of the media and the apparent inability of the general public to look past the headline. My point was that we don't know what happened, we never will, and that people get into these situations and make these bad decisions. Generally in the moment think they are doing the right thing. And there is a lesson in that for filmmaking because that in many ways is what filmmaking is about. Showing someone in a bad situation, making bad decisions and finding a way to help the audience see it from that person's perspective to the extent that they can sympathise.


Terry_Lasater said:
Comparing choice of weapons and the public's opinion thereof? This wreaks of politics.
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I'm not american, the fact you're having a debate (with a very tenuous link to what I actually said) entirely slipped my mind. It dropped out of our news cycle a while ago. I meant only what I said, no more. I'd be more squeamish at the thought of being hacked up than shot is all I'm saying, even though I suspect medically speaking the gun would be worse. Not that I know either way, this is the cafe - my thoughts are mere opinions.
 
I hear ya, Egg Born. I just find it odd that someone (not me) started a thread here about the 'news coverage' of the Boston Marathon "explosions" when it was just an hour or so old - not yet determined what caused it and no suspects named and it was locked almost immediately. Now, there were a few comments but none had 'gone there' into the political realm. The OP was talking about the immediacy of such a news story in this technological age; asking for thoughts and opinions in the cafe, as you say. Yet, the thread was closed.

I dunno... seems some threads are closed merely for their 'potential' to become political while others go on for several pages dancing around the edge of politics, even dipping their toe into it, and remain open.

Just something I've observed more than once.
 
Gord.T said:
Well, I disagree. I've been homeless 3 times. "Picked up" is misleading and I'd disregard that comment. I don't think you understand completely the reality of being on the street.
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Having started running away from home at 15, I learned faster than greased lighting to 'intuit' the intentions of a person picking me up hitchhiking were. I discontinued hitchhiking when boy body parts started showing up on So. Cal's "Freeway Splendor", in the late 60's early 70's. My life at the time was very
similar in tone/style to "My Private Idaho"(1991). Some of my friends actively cultivated such 'pickups' for cash or other 'benefits' for services rendered.

I learned that I'd rather walk and dumpster dive than take rides and offers of 'food/lodging', etc.
 
Would it be premature to point out that anyone jumping to any conclusions about Kai, is doing so before his side of the story has been told?

You know, that whole "innocent until PROVEN guilty" thing?
 
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