I’m very annoyed by the insistent use of the word “teen” in reports of increased gang activity. Even conservative reporters repeat “teen, teen, teen” like crazed parrots.
The criminal in question is an adult repeat offender. In all of the videos of gang riots, most of the criminals look very adult.
Whoever invented the term “teen takeover”, with its air of playfulness supported by the use of alliteration, is a skilled propagandist. Let’s not buy into the propaganda and repeat the terminology unthinkingly. These are violent gang riots. We don’t know the age of the gangsters and we shouldn’t care anyway. If it’s not ok to mention the very obvious race of the rioters, it should definitely be out of the question to fixate on their assumed age.
Clarissa's Blog 
” the word “teen” in reports of increased gang activity”
It’s like European usage of “youth” or “Grimsby man” to refer to someone born in Mogadishu or “German national” to refer to somone from Afghanistan granted citizenship by the addlepated idiots running Germany into the ground…
Media are absolutely devoted to gaslighting people now.
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Pleased to report: “Florida man” still usually an authentic Floridian.
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““Florida man” still usually an authentic Floridian”
Stealing school buses and driving them through the dining areas of Taco Bells may not be a grand profession but… its their own.
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For every “Florida man” story out there in the news, we all know a handful more among friends, relatives, and acquaintances that would qualify, if it had ever showed up on a police blotter. Some boneheaded escapade that seemed like a good idea at the time due to hormones, youth, alcohol, drugs, or any combination thereof.
One of my seventh grade classmates got bitten by a snake, on the chin, during class. He of course had brought the snake with him to school (it was just a corn snake he caught in his yard) for funsies. Everybody, including the teacher (unflappable lady, and also good at rapid snake ID) knew he had it at his desk, and just rolled with it. OK, what a lovely snake. Moving on. So when it got fed up with being a bracelet and struck the kid’s chin and drew blood, he just put it back in the pillowcase. Same kid grew up to be one of those “intoxicated men play dumb games with shotguns in woods: one injured” cautionary tales.
ethyl
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“we all know a handful more among friends”
You get it. And we all know a handful more of things that could have gone spectacularly wrong but didn’t for reasons of pure dumb luck or the kind of temporary sanity that sometimes occurs to people in crises…
My father, brother and a couple of his friends were building a stable for our horses when somehow a small fire got started (I can’t remember how) which in dry Florida scrub was… not good.
I was told firmly to stay away and they went to furious work trying to contain it, someone saw and called the fire department and by the time a truck arrived it was basically out (having spread across an acre or so). It could have easily been a news story and/or gotten 100 times worse but for…. fate? luck? quick thinking?
post-script: At least one of my brother’s friends who was helping later ended up in prison for reasons I never researched, but given the time and location were probably drug related. One of the smartest things my brother ever did (while working at a small local airfield at night) was deciding not to investigate a plane that landed without lights late at night…
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“deciding not to investigate a plane that landed without lights late at night…”
(shudders)
ref: Sandy Creek murders.
Your brother made the right call.
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…and yeah 100%. I know the rest of the country clicks on “Florida Man” headlines for the sheer wacky amusement value, but we click on them to find out if it was somebody we know.
ethyl
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It’s just a way to avoid saying young black men. The St. Louis City cops used to call them Canadians.
Walnut
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