Highway assaults blamed on teens (Horror in Atlanta)

[brentspeak]

By Greg Bluestein
Associated Press
Published July 8, 2005

ATLANTA -- Rafael Diaz was driving his oil tanker through an Atlanta neighborhood this week when a bottle rocket flew into the cab and struck him in the face, sending the truck careening out of control.

What happened next was even more disturbing: The same band of teens who shot the bottle rocket quickly swarmed the overturned rig, dragged out Diaz, stole his wallet and beat him senseless.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0507080188jul08,1,5390017.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. What the fuck? n/t

[blue sky at night]

2. welcome to Bush World.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Anything for a buck, n/t

[ConfuZed]

12. Actually this brainless animal like behavior existed way before bush.

[Psephos]

40. I'm glad to hammer *, but what does this have to do with politics? nt

[blue sky at night]

41. what, you don't believe in.....

monkey see, monkey do?? Criminals are surrounding us, running our government......come on, why not join in? My repug brother says we should just kill anyone who disagrees with us......
Have you ever heard of the * administration prosecuting Corporate Criminals?? I think it all comes from the top.

[rayofreason]

50. not much, methinks

[CottonBear]

3. This was front page news in the AJC a few days ago.

Apparently, this group of thugs and delinquents has been doing this crap for months, maybe longer. Neighbors have complained but nothing has been done about the situation. I smell a lawsuit against the Atlanta police department. I realize that they may be short staffed and over worked but this was sociopathic behavior that resulted in severe injuries and property destruction. The poor man might die. :(

[blue sky at night]

21. selective enforcement.........

welcome to bushworld.

[Kraklen]

4. That's a little hard to swallow.

Anybody ever try to actually hit something with a bottlerocket?

[DonP]

6. From my misspent youth ...

They can be kind of accurate, if you tuck them into a piece of conduit and aim them at something.

Used to launch them at my friend Russell's bedroom window and have them pop against the screen.

[Kraklen]

7. From my misspent this last week end...

You can point them in a general direction and with a number of shots hope to hit the broadside of whatever it is you're aiming at, but to hit a guys face throw the window of a moving truck on purpose seems ridiculously unlikely.

[IA_Seth]

8. "You just have to lead them further"

Not to make light of the situation, but I know from my wild days as a kid that you CAN hit moving objects quite easily, it just takes a little practice.

[Debi]

10. Um, Seth, quit promoting violence....

:eyes:

Hehehehehehe

[IA_Seth]

24. Ah! You caught me!

I wouldn't say promoting violence as much as remembering some past indescretions.

I should tell you about my teens sometime, quite the adventure.

[Debi]

27. Those may get you kicked off the Central Committee!

Unless you learned some skills that will come in handy...:7

[sendero]

9. You can aim..

.... one (or even better, several) at something and you can get lucky.

[napi21]

15. I guess you've never driven on I85 in Atlanta during heavy traffic, huh?

I don't unless i have to, but when you say moving truck, you're talking about not moving very fast!!!!!

A number of years ago, in another City, I was driving home from work, and in similar ruch hour traffic. A schoolbuss was on my right. Suddenly, a glass pop bottle slammed into my rear side window and through the open passenger door window. Scared the sh*t out of me!!! There was no real damage, but as traffic picked up, there was all those junior high aged kids waving their arms out the bus windows and yelling obcenities!

I thought about pulling in front of the bus to block in and go bitch to the driver, but I weigh 115# and that was a busload full of teens! I chickened out, and just went on home.

Sad to say, but kinds just don't think about the possible consequences of their actions!!!!

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. If it ain't moving fast, how does it careen out of control?

Gnaw mean?

[Up2Late]

36. I don't think the Truck drivers get much training here

This was a 29 year old guy, it was 2:00am and these kids were also throwing bricks and chunks of Concrete.

It's sounds crazy, but they Jack-knife and roll over 18-Wheelers here all the time.

I posted some Local stories below that have more details.

[KansDem]

22. Once when I was driving from Phoenix AZ to San Diego CA

I was hit in the ear by a pea from a pea-shooter somewhere west of Phoenix. I had pulled up next to a school bus at an intersection and--*POP--became a target. I looked over to the bus driver who saw what had happened and he just smiled in a "too bad--they're kids--get over it" kind of way. I drove on, happy in the thought the kid didn't have a .357...

[greyl]

17. They were probably aiming for the tank

and missed, hitting the driver. It's definitely possible, just not probable.

[lumpy]

38. So it didn't happen?

Is that it?

[doni_georgia]

19. yep - did it, too (funny story)

About twenty years ago, I was a student at a major southern university and living in a complex of several dormitories. The dorm rooms in these buildings each had small outside patios, but each patio was closed in with breezeblocks, presumably to keep overimbibing students from attempting to take flight from the upper floors, or from tossing or excreting sundry substances onto the passersby below.

One night before the semester had started, when we were at a loose end, a buddy of my roommate's came by with a pack of bottle rockets. Since we were all majoring in physics or engineering, we decided to see whether we could fire off a rocket and land it on the patio of a dorm room in the building directly across from our own. We got out a pad and paper, did a few eyeball measurements, made a couple of guesses, did a few quick equations, lined up our first rocket, and lit the fuse. Whhhhhoooooossshhh.

The rocket, as we hoped, got through the veilblock wall of the patio opposite ours. What we didn't realize was that the patio door of that room was open. The rocket went through the opened door and exploded within a foot of the (three-dimensional) geometric center of the room - without ever hitting the ground. It really was an incredible shot. Even we couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately, the young lady who lived in the room - I swear, we didn't know about this part - had recently emerged from the shower and had just taken off her bathrobe when we lit the fuse. When the rocket exploded, we heard an earsplitting shriek as the cloud of smoke from the explosion billowed out of the room. At that point, we noticed that this unfortunate young lady had also emerged onto the patio and was looking out to see where the offending missile had come from. We also realized at that point that a nice, straight trail of smoke from the rocket's flight led directly back from her patio...to our own. Duhhhhh.... oops.

Even worse - this same young lady was the hall advisor for that floor of her dormitory. Within five minutes, we had a knock at our door, and we opened it to discover that what appeared to be the entire administrative staff of the Student Housing authorities had come to pay us a small visit. They were very polite, asking first whether we knew anything about what had just happened. None of us could see the point in a denial, given the fact that our entire room smelled of gunpowder. We admitted our wrongdoing, and wound up receiving the first housing probation in the entire university for that semester. At least they believed us when we said that we never dreamed the thing would get into the room. (We were only trying to hit the patio.)

So, yeah, a few engineering students, with a calculator and about ten minutes' work, could certainly hit a stationary target with a bottle rocket with some degree of accuracy. However, I suspect that the local neighborhood thugs in question on this thread are not engineering students, that they don't use calculators, and probably would never have been able to hit a moving window two feet square with a rocket equipped with a fuse of indefinite length and burn speed. I have to assume that either (a) these kids fired off a lot of rockets, on multiple occasions, and finally got lucky with one, or (b) a kid jumped on the truck's side ladder and tossed the thing into the cab after lighting it. In short - this probably wasn't a first try, and it sure as hell was intentional. That being the case, the Atlanta P.D. had better have some good documentation on why these clowns were still on the streets after whatever happened the first time.

And no, I wouldn't try that again today for any money. Or for kicks, either.
Mac in Ga

::edited for fatfingered typing

[damnthetorpedoes]

23. all you need is

a nice long copper pipe. it's like shooting them from a gun. used to fire them over my nazi neighbor's house at night when i was 13 and bored and bad.

seriously though, shouldn't we brand these kids terrorists? sounds like it to me. send 'em to GITMO!

[doni_georgia]

26. Welcome to DU!! ::EOM

[ovidsen]

31. Lucky shot.

Kind of like hitting a Huey helicopter with an RPG.

It's difficult, but it's been done.

[tuckessee]

43. Yes, I got to be quite accurate with bottle rockets...

...when I was a kid.

We didn't use bottles to launch them. We launched them by hand with an underhanded toss - a quick, short flick sort of thing.

All you have to do is learn the fuse burn time so that you toss them just before the propellant ignites. An ideal toss would have almost simultaneous release/ignition.
The rest is simple eye-hand coordination.

While we never worked on moving targets, we could nail garbage can sized targets with a fair degree of accuracy at long ranges.

I have no doubt that with a little practice/experience, at close range I could put a bottle rocket through the window of a vehicle moving at a moderate rate of speed at least one out of three times.

[rayofreason]

51. experience

I wish I could have played with bottle rockets when I was a kid. But I did make my own black gunpowder once. It didn't work too well.

[Voltaire99]

11. Your fellow Murricans: more dangerous than Al Qaeda

Read the article: one 18-year old has been charged with--wait for it--"reckless conduct."

Now, even setting aside the lethal viciousness, Diaz was driving an oil tanker. A fucking oil tanker. You know, the kind that can go kaboom?

Here's one reason Murricans need the terrorism narrative in which they are soaked daily by their rotten media and even worse leaders: the mythology of terrorism is a distraction. It distracts us from ourselves.

We need a big bad menacing Other so that we don't see who, or rather what, we have become.

The next time a pol tells you he or she is going to fight Big Terra?

Tell them the fight against terrorism begins at home. In the most violent "advanced" society on earth.

[ConfuZed]

13. I agree

Look like the murders to date on the LA County website http://lacountymurders.com/

[Pystoff]

14. Advanced???

More de-evolved if you ask me. We are going backwards in this country as far as societies go. Ad in the fundy attack on evolution and it starts making sense....they WANT us to go backwards. I guess so we can better fight like terrorists (animalistic). Instead of sending these little shits to jail make them go into the army and use them as cannon fodder (point man) if they want to act like this.

[doni_georgia]

25. Yeah, send them to the front

Something tells me these kids would have a really good eye for spotting an IED.

On second thought, maybe not. Since our prisons are all being privatized, they'd be contractors, and we'd be paying more to have them there than to have them here in the cooler.

Mac in Ga

[Pystoff]

52. Nah

"Induct" them into the army first hehe. Base pay is cheaper...anyways they wouldn't last long :evilgrin:

[CottonBear]

29. There is some sort of oil and gas terminbal nearby

which is why the fuel trucks drive on the local road. When the police arrived they found 50 youths crawling all over the OVERTURNED tanker. The driver's head was split open and he was crying for help. :cry: I hope that he will live. :(

These young people are animals and deserve to go to jail for a long time. I say lock them all up for inhumane behavior. They caused another trucker to veer and almost wreck the very same day.

[Endangered Specie]

16. Either throw the fuckers in prison...

or straight jacket them into a padded room.

I dont care which, just as long as its at least 40 years.

[Straight Shooter]

20. We know the kids are criminals. But just how stupid are they?

A matter of time until a driver with a gun in his or her car decides the reptile-brains have gone too far, either because a "bottle rocket" hits their car or they are a witness and decide to put a stop to it, especially if they see an attack in progress.

And I agree with the OP about the war in Iraq, etc. I was just thinking about that this morning, how bush has totally failed to address the problem of violence in our own communities.

[bleedingheart]

28. I was in heavy traffic on the parkway outside of Pittsburgh

and some idiot kid was on an overpass throwing rocks onto cars...

He hit a mercedes ...it sticks out in my mind because the guy in the Benz got out and started walking towards the overpass and the kid ran..

I was really pissed that some kid would have so little respect for people's property...or lives for that matter...

[rocktivity]

30. Maybe they're practing for when they get drafted.

:grr:
rocknation

[Gyre]

32. Somebody needs to shoot a few of these killers in training.

That might make the rest of them think twice. The little darlings.

Gyre

[Up2Late]

33. God, this is just awful

I'm going to have to find a local story, this story leaves out critical facts, but that's becoming common from the AP.

[mbperrin]

Reckless conduct?

"Police have cited an 18-year-old with reckless conduct in the case, and they are searching for other suspects, including a 16-year-old, police spokeswoman Sylvia Abernathy said."

What about 1)attempted manslaughter 2) a RICO charge?

18 is an adult and a large group of organized criminals engaging in behavior which they have every reason to believe would result in bodily harm is a bit more serious than reckless conduct, which in our neck of the woods is what failing to fasten your seatbelt is....

[truthisfreedom]

34. moral of the story: KEEP YOUR WINDOWS ROLLED UP IN ATLANTA.

crazy punks.

[Up2Late]

35. I found some Local stories, AP left out a lot of details

Here's two Local stories from the same day and one from the next day. The first one is from WXIA Channel 11 (11 Alive), the other two are from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This happened about 5 miles from where I live. I should note: This was the first year that ANY Fireworks were made legal, but bottle rockets are still illegal.

Fireworks Injure Tanker Driver

Reported By: Jon Shirek
Web Editor: Sean Rowe
Web Editor: Tracey Christensen
Last Modified: 7/5/2005 8:35:17 PM

Juveniles armed with rocks and fireworks caused a tanker truck accident that forced evacuations and left the driver with serious head injuries in Northwest Atlanta early Tuesday morning, police said. The driver of the tanker truck suffered a fractured skull, the victim's sister told 11Alive's Jon Shirek. At 3 p.m., Rafael Diaz Jr. had been in surgery for five hours as doctors worked to save his life. Diaz also suffered a bruised and swollen brain and his left cheek was also shattered, according to Kristine Diaz.

(clip)

The bizarre incident that led Diaz to overturn his tanker while under fire by youths tossing fireworks and concrete blocks also left nearby residents and his supervisor in shock. Other people who live nearby even jumped on top of the fuel-leaking tanker while ignoring the injured 29-year-old driver, according to Atlanta firefighters who were first to arrive at the scene. Bill Nothdorft with Penn Tank Lines expressed disbelief at the, "kids throwing rocks and running around and jumping on the tanker after it rolled over" on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway. Both Diaz Jr., 29, and his father work at the same company. "He's a great worker. He's a young fellow. His father works for me. Just pray for him, that's all," said Nothdorft.

According to investigators, between eight and 11 teenagers were shooting off fireworks and throwing chunks of concrete and rocks at passing motorists about 2 a.m. A bottle rocket struck Diaz Jr. in the head and exploded inside the cab of the truck as he drove eastbound along Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, just a mile west of I-285. Diaz, of Roswell, Ga., crossed the roadway, hit a curb and levelled a fire hydrant. The tanker truck flipped completely over while careening down a slight embankment, into a parking lot and slamming into a stand of pine trees. The tanker started to leak some of its 7,500 gallons of fuel.

Atlanta firefighters arrived at the scene about 2:30 a.m. and saw people standing on top of the overturned, fuel-leaking tanker as the critically-injured Diaz tried to crawl out of the cab. At least two people from nearby apartments were helping Diaz escape. "The gentleman was trying to crawl out of the tanker and people were on top of it at the time of the incident. I'm not quite understanding why," said Atlanta fire spokeswoman Jolene Butts Freeman said. "It was extremely dangerous. What if something had happened or if there was an ignition source nearby? It could have just blown up, a big explosion. It would have been fatal. It wasn't a smart thing to do."

<http://www.11alive.com/news/usnews_article.aspx?storyid=65702>
(more at link above)

Tanker overturns after people throw rocks, fireworks

Crowd climbs atop cab after wreck in southwest Atlanta
By MIKE MORRIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/05/05
<http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/0705/05overturn.html>

Charges near in attack on trucker

Driver was beaten and robbed

By By SAEED AHMED and MIKE MORRIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/06/05

Diaz lost control of the truck, which then careened down an embankment, overturning in a stand of pine trees. His mother, Evelyn Wilson, said her son told her that after the truck flipped, "this guy comes and is banging on the glass and broke the glass and pulled him out and started kicking him."

"When they pulled him out, one of them took their foot and kicked him in the head and tried to go through his pockets," Wilson said, adding that her son told her he was attacked by several people. "They tried to get his wallet, and I think they succeeded because he said his wallet is missing."

Diaz, who remained in critical condition Wednesday in the intensive care unit at Grady Memorial Hospital, suffered serious skull injuries that required seven hours of brain surgery. "Whether the skull injuries are from them beating on him, or whether that was from the wreck itself, we don't know yet," Nothdorft said. Abernathy said police are investigating the report that Diaz was beaten by the group after his truck overturned.

<http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/0705/07tanker.html>
(more at link above)

[Logansquare]

44. I am POSITIVE that neighborhood residents and motorists called 911 BEFORE

this incident. And because it's a low-income neighborhood, nothing was done. We (in the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago) are having difficulties with July 4 "celebrations" that are starting to become violent, with M-80s being thrown at people, rock fights etc.,Do the police respond? Nah, let the poor folk kill each other. So all of the law-abiding people in the neighborhood cower in their homes for days while the thugs party outside.

[AlphaCentauri]

37. It reminded me of the Reginald Denny beating n/t

[Logansquare]

45. Yeah, neighborhood residents actually saved his life from the thugs

that time, as well. It was completely underplayed by the press--they were creaming themselves over the Black People=Violent Animals spin, and couldn't be bothered with the ordinary African American heroes who saved Denny's life. The people who rescued him were especially heroic because the gang members who were assaulting Denny may have recognized them and retaliated later.

[lumpy]

39. Bush policies creating homegrown terrorists.

Monkey see monkey do.

[SouthernDem2004]

42. Ah yes, there was no crime before Bush. /nt

[RebelOne]

46. I live just northwest of Atlanta and I try to avoid

driving into Atlanta, if possible.

[Up2Late]

47. Are you in Cobb County or Cherokee?

I live just South of Marietta, but North of Powder Springs and Austell.

[left hand man]

48. these are thugs that deserve what they get

who is in power has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS-----young punks are going to do as they wish --------they could not tell you who was president

[WhiteTara]

49. wow this is really a world gone mad

Making their own fun? Is this the thunderdome?
:shrug: