I came across this news article recently. It made me mad. Being mad accomplishes nothing. So instead let's try to learn from it.
Wesley Martin & Deondre Jackson
An article from the Star Tribune
Two men have been charged with first-degree aggravated robbery in the video-recorded assault of an elderly woman at a south Minneapolis transit center that investigators called "appalling."
Charges say Wesley N. Martin, 21, of Blaine, and Deondre R. Jackson, 20, of Minneapolis, participated in the assault on Feb. 12 that was posted on Facebook the next day, according to the allegations filed Tuesday.
A court filing Tuesday said the victim was heard on the video yelling, "Help me!" yet "there are many people in the shelter who do nothing."
"The video is appalling," transit police officer Michael Leubner wrote in the complaint.
According to charges:
Police reviewed surveillance footage from the shelter, which showed the victim sitting on a bench inside the Chicago-Lake Transit Center.
Martin, Jackson and an unnamed accomplice approach the woman and yell at her. She ignores them at first, then tries to get up and is repeatedly shoved back onto the bench.
Martin steals a liquor bottle from the woman's jacket. When a bystander tries to intervene, Martin pushes her aside. He then gropes the victim, who tries to escape as the two hold and take her jacket.
Jackson can be seen holding a cellphone "and records the brutalization of victim," the complaint read. Martin groped her as she lay on the ground while Jackson used his phone to get a close-up of her face.
"Jackson can be heard on the video yelling racial epithets about Victim and commenting that 'that lady like a hundred years old,' " the charges read.
An older man stepped in and pushed Martin away. Martin and the man fight, with Martin kicking and punching the man in the face while he's down.
Jackson records the fight while the unnamed accomplice holds the woman to the ground and tears her shirt off.
Records show Martin is on probation for an assault conviction from last month. Jackson has 2016 convictions for robbery and terroristic threats.
Prosecutors said they will seek a stiffer sentence than called for under the state guidelines, citing the victim's age and vulnerability, the "particular cruelty" of the offense and as well as the video recording.
Both remain jailed with court dates pending.
Here is the video that they posted
Are you pissed off? Are you scared? It is an infuriating and scary situation. However, it can be made less scary if you understand it better.
This will be a two part blog. The first breaking down the situation from the criminal's perspective. The second going through the conflict strategy model in dealing with violence.
Let's start by examining what type of violence this is.
It seems to me that this is primarily social violence in the form of a status seeking show.
There are asocial elements in the form of resource predation, (they stole her alcohol and jacket)
and process predation (she was groped).
You maybe asking yourself, Kasey how can something be both social and asocial?
A status seeking show is social for the perpetrator. However, it can be predatory for the victim. So it has properties in common with asocial violence.
What is a status seeking show?
In criminal subculture, you don't really have friends. You have associates that will prey on you if and when the opportunity presents itself.
In that environment being "hard" or "loco" - having a reputation of being too crazy to fuck with can be very valuable.
To earn that reputation you disregard the social violence norms.
So instead of selecting someone of similar status that you think you can take, like a typical monkey dance for status within the group, the threat will choose someone they perceive as higher status, say the biggest / toughest guy in the room, and go berserk. This attack won’t follow the monkey dance rules, and because it doesn't, maybe they’ll catch him off guard. What do they have to lose? If the tough guy wins BFD he is supposed to win. If the threat wins, he just punked the toughest guy in here. Either way the threat develops a rep of being too crazy to fuck with.
However, clearly this has risks. The threat could get severely injured.
How can the threat get a reputation for being too crazy to be fucked with, without the risk of being maimed?
Choose a victim you perceive couldn't possibly hurt you and do crazy things to them.
A savage beating, knifing, or killing serves the purpose of seeking status by showing how crazy you are.
As was the case at the train stop.
So this is social for the perpetrator. The purpose of the violence is to improve their status within their group.
The violence requires an audience. In this case not only the other two perpetrators but they also also broadcast the assault on Facebook live and now it is available on YouTube.
It is asocial or predatory for the victim. The damage is much greater.
I believe this case was a status seeking show, that did predatory actions to show how crazy they are.
The victim was from a totally different group / tribe, and was not only assaulted, but robbed and sexually assaulted.
To help understand this type of violence further, let's do a logic of violence exercise and look at the asocial aspects of this attack through predator eyes
Who (Victim Profile):
This victim was clearly from a different tribe. On the video you can here the criminals further "other" the victim calling her "European" and "Blue eyed devil"
Where:
An area where the the people that fit the victim profile gather, that also provides an opportunity to isolate the victim.
People gather at train stops, but train stops are isolated from the rest of the city
Isolation Method:
A crowd was needed, but a specific crowd ether unwilling or incapable of intervening.
The Attack:
Blitz - harder, faster, closer, and more sudden then most training accounts for.
Why do Wesley Martin and Deondre Jackson need to engage in a status seeking show?
Because clearly they are pussies, when an elderly man a foot shorter than tough guy intervened he could barely handle him. So of course they needed to attack an elderly woman, fondle her breasts and steal her booze on Facebook live to earn a reputation.
This covers the how, and the why.
Next week we will discuss what can be done about it
Train hard, train smart, be safe.
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