Say you're minding your business hanging out at a coffee shop and some punk kid swipes your smartphone out of your hand. You chase him down, catch him -- unfortunately only after he handed off the phone to a much swifter accomplice who got away -- physically detain him and press charges after the police arrive. Good for you, right? Not if you're a white woman and the perp is a black youth, at least not to Gawker.com's Jordan Sargent.
Sargent took it upon himself to list "All the Things Not to Do When You Capture Your Own Child Mugger," inspired by the rage he felt reading the story of one Clara Vondrich in the New York Post. Having excerpted from the Post's coverage, Sargent went on a tear chiding Ms. Vondrich as a heartless sociopath, chiding her for, among other things, calling the perpetrator fat. Here's an excerpt [emphasis mine; h/t fellow NewsBuster Clay Waters]:
3. Don't call the kid fat in the newspaper
Here is why Clara Vondrich was able to catch the 13-year-old boy, despite wearing clogs.
"He was so pudgy and was slowing down, so that's why I caught up to him," Vondrich said, adding she felt sorry for the kid.
This kid has enough problems—he was booked on charges of grand larceny, his Mom is probably really mad at him, kids at school will definitely make fun of him endlessly for being caught from behind by a white lady wearing zany sunglasses. The last thing he needs is to be called fat in the newspaper. Have a heart, Clara Vondrich.4. Have the kid arrested for stealing your phone
Now, granted, it's not entirely Clara Vondrich's fault that this 13-year-old boy was arrested by police for stealing her phone. But, she did, by her own admission, willingly cause the commotion that led up to police being summoned, and she did—as the photos show—keep the kid pinned to a car until police arrived despite already knowing that he didn't posses her phone.
Vondrich says that she "felt sorry" for the kid, but not enough to not have him arrested and charged with grand larceny. The boy will now enter New York's vaunted juvenile justice system, which will likely fuck up his life even further, simply because he snatched a white lady's iPhone in Williamsburg.
If you are nonviolently mugged by a child, continue to let him run along with his friends. The world will be a better place.
No, this is not a parody. Sargent is deadly serious. Fortunately even many of the left-leaning commenters who lurk on Gawker's pages are not buying into Sargent's white guilt-on-steroids. Here are a few of them:
- No, it is not "pretty agreeable." He broke the fucking law. Jesus *CHRIST*. People like you are the reason I keep saying "I'm a leftist, not a liberal."
- ...You're saying she should just let him get away. And what kind of attitude is that? He gets away with a phone today, he'll have head blown off by an unforgiving bodega owner tomorrow. Getting charged with grand larceny might have saved his life.
- No, actually you did say "Let him just run along with his friends," as if he was playing tag, not stealing a several-hundred dollar item and then handing it off to an accomplice. You also put the word *crime* in scare quotes to suggest that brazen theft in broad daylight from the victim's hands is not really a big deal.
- First of all, she didn't get her phone back, because he passed it off to his friend, so getting him arrested is the only way to find out who the other kid is, and where he lives. Second of all, people who steal cell-phones should be arrested, and they should be charged with crimes, even if they're kids. A cell phone is valuable property. If you're on a contract and your phone is stolen, you have to pay the full unsubsidized cost to replace it, which is $600. That's serious money, and that impacts somebody's life. If there aren't consequences for stealing people's valuables, then there's really nothing stopping people from stealing wallets and jewelry and phones. Getting caught for stealing has to make your life a lot worse, because the consequences of getting caught have got to outweigh the benefits of getting away.
