Comments:Crowd in Derbyshire, UK, encourages teenager to commit suicide

Should the people encouraging the teen to jump face prosecution?

Disappointed

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I am disappointed in how humans behave now. I thought at the sight of someone so full-grown and healthy about to jump would urge people to encourage the teen not to jump instead of the opposite. Even video cameras were raised, prepared to shoot the last minutes of that boy's life!

I am disappointed.

- Ryoma, Singapore

Should this sort of thing be illegal?

In my opinion, yes, and it sort of is in the US. And this is coming from a girl with anarchist leanings...the problem is, they were messing with someone else's life, it's not a matter of freedom or free speech. Period. While if someone wants to kill themselves, it's their choice, encouraging it is beyond cruel. I personally hope those who videotaped it and encouraged it have their names posted so they can be shunned--sounds harsh, but hey, they're practically murderers. Yes we wanted to kill himself but he could have come down and it was cruel nonetheless. I think people who live in the area and around those people should have the right to know who these people were--how would you like to find out the guy you're dating was one of these people? It's quite a show of human character... --Poisonous (talk) 09:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I would liken it to the oft-cited limit of free speech which is shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

IMO

Those disgusting people should have a pole through their head. I also think the UK should deport them over here and I will personally smash their little skulls opens and use their purported brains as a football after which I will smash it into oblivion. kthxbye. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.82.179.226 (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This was intolerance towards gay people

He was openly gay, so that would add understanding to the crowd's motives. They wanted one less gay person in the world. Period. But still, the method was wrong. Falls short of assisted suicide, murder at the worst. If someone, ANYONE, is about to jump the crowd needs to talk the jumper out of it: "Don't jump!" "You have so much to live for!" "We can work this out!" etc. Instead the crowd shouted "Jump!" It is an intolerant world. This is "merely" the latest form in which it manifests. In america they lynch gay people, now in brittain they coerse them to jump off a roof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.156.225.108 (talk) 15:15, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

How did the crowd know he was gay? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.12.230.196 (talk) 06:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

This had nothing to do with the fact he was gay! Did he have a big sign round his neck proclaiming he was gay? No!

I don't think so.

The situation is absolutely terrible, but I believe that the primary goal for the penal system should be deterrence, and punishing the crowd would not do anything to deter further crime. It is very unlikely that they will be faced with the same situation again. Also, I would not really say that they were the active agents in his death; they did not kill him, nor could we say that they actively assisted him. Rather, they encouraged him, and despite the terrible result, advice should not be a crime.

Two wrongs, I fear, don't make a right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.8.58.76 (talk) 16:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

This is a sad day for mankind

Has mankind lost the moral teachings that have kept us united, alive, and powerful for 2.1 million years? This act of encouragement is a way of hating someone, of course that person may have no life or be a total dork/dweeb/nerd/lowlife(No, I am not saying that that person is, but merely stating that he may be), but that still does not give them the right to launch an emotional attack and show the suicide-commiter that everyone hates him. This has given everyone close to him an emotional attack, and encouraged them to commit suicide. They should be punished, but not through jail, but through hours of community service and physical therapy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EVil-Aer (talk • contribs) 16:56, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

It's in the air

I think this is a modern development of recent societal changes. Sad, but not unexpected. People have generally taken a dislike with what they perceive as "drama queen" and attention-mongering in general. Combined with the fact fact normal changes in the media and other areas make it so that "normal people" increasingly feel they can (and even should) change how things traditionally go makes this not all that unsurprising and even predictable, though no less tragic. Circeus (talk) 18:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

/b/rothers

so it was said back in rome, and so it shall be said today. "jump fag, jump!" it was also reported that as he fell he shouted "amidoinitrite guise?"

~~Anonymous —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.92.21.37 (talk) 22:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, please show more respect to An Heros. Thank you. 204.52.215.14 17:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Shameful and Disgusting

Yes. They should most certainly face prosecution, if only for disturbing the peace, or its British equivalent. Gay male teens face the highest suicide rate of any demographic currently. This story simply disgusts me. I have no other words for it. Shameful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.100.152.51 (talk) 23:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

A sad ending, but...

I do not believe that the crowd of people urging him to die should face prosecution unless the family of the teenager wish to press charges against him. Perhaps it would be different if the police had been a little more assertive in dispersing the crowd and warned them to leave or be charged with disorderly conduct or breaching the peace... but I don't believe that was the case. Though words are powerful, the people in that crowd did not actually physically push him off that building, and so did not cause his death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.143.76.152 (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Unbelievable

It is absolutely outrageous that such an unbelievably discriminatory event would have occurred in a respectful nation like Great Britain! The people who cheered him on most definitely should be charged by the law for assisted murder.

With so many people cheering him on, the boy had not choice but to jump. In another scenario, he might have changed his mind at the last minute. What has mankind gone to? --Haha169 (talk) 05:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

ISLAM is totally against of any type of suicide!! either if it's done by teenagers or by anyone!!!

Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) once said "Allah says: "I had given that person (suicider) a spesified period of life, but he oversided my deision, now he will ever be doing this suicide for the whole of his life."" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.209.115.132 (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It hardly matters. In enlightened Islamic countries like Iran they would have long since strung him up for being a homosexual. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

See? more proof Al Qaeda is un-Islamic. 204.52.215.14 17:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Controversial suggestion

Do I think the people who encouraged it should be prosecuted? Yes. Does it set a slippery precedent for what constitutes murder? Yes. If such a law were created, it should be clearly defined. I am all for freedom of speech, but this goes beyond, because there was a malicious intent to harm another. On the other hand, I believe in assisted suicides in cases of terminal illness or extreme pain or loss of quality of life. If you can define a law that makes encouraging the type of suicide described by this article illegal, while also legalizing assisted suicides for health reasons, I would support that. Raphael s (talk) 20:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I doubt you could in any way class it as 'murder', but there is probably something already on the statute books (eg. breach of the peace) that would have allowed the disruptive element in the crowd to be charged. What they were doing was harassing someone who was obviously mentally disturbed; its sick, and makes them no better than the crowds that turned up to medieval hangings with a basket full of rotten fruit. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:00, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

oh come on...

How many times did our mothers say "If someone asked you to jump of a bridge, would you?" The guy made his choice. If he wasn't a moron, he wouldn't have let anyone influence his opinion. Much less a bunch of random people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.200.27.249 (talk) 22:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If the people weren't a bunch of "morons" as you so plainly put, they wouldn't have been as easily influenced by their own predisposition of the situation.--Nukedoom (talk) 23:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it assisted suicide?

Could you class this as assisted suicide (they are encouraging, therefore assisting him)? 212.219.190.178 09:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Nope, the closest this could be to assisted is if someone in the crowd had carried him to the top of the building. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 10:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Same old excuses and spin.

The top Derby cop makes the excuse about there not being enough officers to sort the crowd out. I am not an expert on policing so it baffles me how a police force can find enough trained officers to control crowds of between 27 and 33 thousand at Pride Park every other Saturday yet not find any to sort out a smaller crowd on a Saturday afternoon when the city's only major professional football team are playing away (as they were on the Saturday of the incident). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnie1971 (talk • contribs) 11:50, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Manslaughter

I think there is enough on the statutes for the group to be charged with involuntary manslaughter. I don't have enough facts about the incident to objectively determine an intent to kill the victim but his death appears to have been caused through recklessness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arnie1971 (talk • contribs) 12:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

These people should be thoroughly ashamed. Their cruel and thoughless actions are vile and sickening. Our society is going down the pan, so it seems. If I could prosecute them I would. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.205.105 (talk) 07:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Shaun & Dylan -- remembered at Suicide Baiting Prevention

Suicide baiting -- the malicious encouragement of suicide -- is a socio-physchological phenomenon first researched in the 1960s by psychologist Dr. Leon Mann, who published his findings in 1981. In a suicide baiting, onlookers provoke an ambivalent victim poised at a dangerous height to jump to his death as entertainment.

A Facebook page -- Suicide Baiting Prevention -- was created in remembrance of victims Shaun Dykes and Dylan Yount who died this way. Our goals are to raise awareness about suicide baiting and to lobby for better police training in their interactions with the suicidal. SBP serves as a resource for research and documented world suicide baiting incidents (see our Notes, arranged by decades).

We are also dedicated to criminalizing suicide baiting and firmly believe the court system must become involved if we are to be successful in eradicating the barbarity.

For this reason, a lawsuit is pending, regarding the public suicide baiting death of Dylan Yount on 2-16-10 at the Forever 21 building in Hallide Plaza, San Francisco, witnessed by 1,000 people and 24 San Francisco police department officers who did nothing to stop it.

In California suicide baiting is illegal but has never been challenged in court. Anyone who "encourages, advises, or assists" in another's suicide is guilty of a felony (CA Penal Code 401). The lawsuit "Yount v. City and County of San Francisco Et Al" has so far been dismissed by both the state and federal courts in California, but is currently filed (as of Sept. 2014) in the First District Court of Appeals, San Francisco. We are hopeful that the case will be remanded back down to a lower court for a jury trial.

Twenty-six published columns regarding suicide baiting (cyber time and real time) are available at iPinion Syndicate under "suicide baiting."

The evil exploitation of the most vulnerable in a suicide baiting is unconscionable. We welcome all dialogue and support at Suicide Baiting Prevention at https://www.facebook.com/SuicideBaitingCrowdPrevention?ref=ts

Kathieyount (talk)Kathie Yount, Dylan's mom, now and foreverKathieyount (talk)