commentary by Patrick H. Moore
A Modest Proposal: All teenage boys between the ages of 14 and 21 should be placed in suspended animation until they turn 21, at which point, if and only if they can pass the “good sense” test, they can then be released into society at large.
I realize that my proposal is a bit extreme and I’m painfully aware that we do not yet have the necessary technology to place millions of teens into a kind of enforced hibernation. But it would be a good idea. Why? Because all to often teenage boys conduct themselves with such extreme stupidity that it makes one shakes one’s head in disbelief.
What triggers this uncharacteristic diatribe on my part? Simple. On Sunday in South St. Louis four male teens, three of them between 15 and 17 years of age, assaulted an innocent Bosnian man named Zemir Begic and beat him to death with hammers. There are rumors that the kids were black and/or Latino and some have suggested that the murder of Mr. Begic was a revenge killing based on the death of Michael Brown.
No one really knows for sure why the kids did it, however, and it is my contention that whatever their rationale may be, it is the undoubtedly the sort of fallacious reasoning that plagues far too many emotional young people and militates powerfully toward adopting my Modest Proposal and placing these misguided fools in the deep freeze until they’re at least 21.
According to Mr. Begic’s wife, Arijana Mujkanovic, her husband placed himself in harm’s way to protect her during the confrontation.
Andres Jaurequi writes for the Huffiungton Post:
The wife of a Bosnian man who was brutally beaten to death Sunday says that her husband’s final act was to protect her from her attackers.
Police said Zemir Begic, 32, was allegedly beaten to death by a group of four teens wielding hammers in a confrontation in South St. Louis early Sunday morning.
Speaking at a Bosnian community rally on Sunday night, Arijana told KSDK:
“The last thing he did before he actually died was pull me out of the way and put himself in front of me, basically giving up his life for me.”
Doc Rivers — coach of Los Angeles Clippers
According to reports, the couple were in their car at 1:15 am when the teens allegedly advanced on them and began striking their vehicle (with the hammers). It was at this juncture, for unexplained reasons, that Mr. Begic made the fateful decision that was to cost him his life. Instead of staying in his vehicle and driving away from the teens at the earliest possible moment, even if he had to drag a few of them with him on his bumper, the Bosnian got out of his car to confront them. And when I consider the fact it was freakin’ 1:15 am when this happened, I am completely astounded by Mr. Begic’s poor decision. It is possible that he had never heard Doc Rivers explain that Nothing Good Ever Happens after Midnight.
What we are dealing with here are the basic twin issues of bravery and competence. Mr. Begic undoubtedly demonstrated real courage in getting out of his car to deal with the teens. Yet doing so made absolutely no sense unless he was capable of taking on all four teens in a pitched battle — whether by shooting them, stabbing them or beating the living hell out of them.
It turned out that he had no such capability. He had barely gotten out of the car, apparently using himself as a human shield to protect his wife (it’s unknown whether she actually exited the vehicle), when the boys set upon him with hammers, beating him on the head, the face, the mouth and the abdomen. By the time he arrived at the hospital, he was dead.
The moronic teenagers may have scared themselves with their own savagery. In any event, immediately after the attack, they fled on foot. Investigators arrested two suspects, ages 15 and 16, on Sunday, and a 17-year-old suspect turned himself in later that day, according to KMOV. As of Monday, the fourth suspect was still at large.
It appears that Mr. Begic may have been the second man the teens confronted that night. Seldin Dzananovic, 24, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he was attacked by a group of teens with hammers in Bevo Mill an hour before Begic was killed, but that he managed to fight the boys off.
“I’m just lucky. God is on my side,” Dzananovic, who suffered only cuts to his neck and hands, told the paper.
God was clearly not on Mr. Begic’s side.
According to family members, Begic had come to the States from Bosnia in 1996 and settled in Iowa. It was his bad luck to move to St. Louis a few months ago in order to marry Arijana Mujkanovic ,whose family lives in the area.
“He loved America,” his sister, Denisa Begic, 23, told the newspaper. “We come from Bosnia because we were getting killed and our homes and families were getting destroyed. Never in my life did I think he would get murdered.”
Mr. Begic’s death sparked a spontaneous protest in the Bosnian community. Demonstrators blocked off traffic at Gravois and Itaska Sunday night stating the protests were in response to recent violence the neighborhood. It is noted that in early November, a robbery occurred at a local Bosnian cafe, and in the summer of 2013, a Bosnian store clerk was murdered.
A memorial of flowers and teddy bears is growing at the edge of the parking lot where Begic was killed.
“I want everybody to know I take your safety and everyone in the community’s safety very seriously,” said St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson. “I heard your message loud and clear. You want to make sure you are safe. I want to make sure you are safe in every neighborhood in our city.”
Chief Dotson also said that there was no indication that Begic was targeted because he was Bosnian.
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So why was Mr. Begic targeted? Chances are it was random; that is, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the moronic children (AKA teenagers) decided they were going to f___ somebody up and it was just his bad luck to be that somebody. Sure, the kids may have had a reason in their collective pea-brains. Maybe it was misdirected anger over the death of Michael Brown. Maybe it was something else. I would bet that they weren’t even planning on killing Mr. Begic and simply got carried away once they started raining down hammer blows. None of that does the victim any good, though, and now we have four teens who have — for all intents and purposes — thrown their lives away while taking the life of an innocent man, simply because he made the bad decision to do the macho thing and get out of his car when he should have stayed put.
Bravery does not necessarily equal competence, and one can be extremely competent without being particularly brave.