The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

Author:Dashka Slater
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

COURT DATE

On November 7, the day Richard made his first court appearance, reporters packed the hallways.

“What kind of boy is he?” one shouted as Jasmine and her sister Juliette stepped into the elevator with Richard’s grandmother.

“He’s a good kid. A very good kid,” the grandmother, also named Juliette, said.

“Why do you think he did this?” another reporter asked.

“I don’t know. He was with his friends, joking around, that’s all,” she said.

“He’s not a bad person. If you knew him you’d know he’s always joking around,” Richard’s aunt Juliette said in a separate interview. “He shouldn’t have did what he did. I feel so bad.”

Jasmine spoke to the press too, off camera. “I am very sorry for my son’s actions,” she said. “I did not raise my son that way.”

That’s what they said.

But all anyone seemed to hear was this: “He was joking around.”

“Setting someone on fire because of their clothes is not a joke or prank gone awry,” editorialized the Bay Area Reporter, a newspaper serving the LGBTQ community. “As Alameda County prosecutors correctly see it, it’s a felony, and [Richard] surely isn’t laughing at the possibility of life in prison because he apparently couldn’t handle someone dressing differently.”

Online forums seethed with outrage.

To the Mother of the 16 year old who set the fire. You call that just joking around? Suppose some kid set you on fire, burned say 90% of your body. Would that be joking around? Your son needs life in prison! For attempted murder! a man named Brian Weil wrote on an anti-bullying Facebook page. The comment received 160 “likes.”

On news sites, blogs, and forums around the country, the conclusion was the same: Lock him up. Throw away the key. Lock up the mother too while you’re at it.

Many suggested far worse.

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