Most of us wouldn’t think that Maricopa County District Attorney Rachel Mitchell had much in common with former first ladies Nancy Reagan and Melania Trump, other than being a Republican.
Mitchell then held a press conference where she introduced a campaign ostensibly designed to reduce teen violence by making young people less self-centered and more socially responsible. The campaign is called “Report, Don’t Repost.”
Like Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug campaign “Just Say No” and Melania Trump’s anti-cyberbullying campaign called “Be Best,” Mitchell’s campaign is a feeble attempt by well-meaning adults to encourage teens to do the right thing.
The idea behind “Report, Don’t Repost” is to encourage teens who witness teen violence to call the police instead of filming a brutal free-for-all and sharing the video on social media, which unfortunately happens all too often.
So the authorities came up with the principle: “Report, don’t repost.”
I can imagine young people would respond to this with: Okay, Boomer. (And yes, I’ve been told that.)
An attempt to stem a wave of teenage violence
Mitchell reported that there has been a significant increase in violence committed by young people recently.
“The number of teens and minors being brought before the police is increasing. The increase is particularly evident in violent crimes,” Mitchell said.
It is also true that law enforcement and prosecutors do not appear to be well prepared to deal with some of these problems.
We saw evidence of this in the East Valley attacks linked to the hybrid street gang of mostly white, upper-middle-class teens known as the “Gilbert Goons.” They brutally attacked other teens and posted photos and videos of their attacks on social media.
The Arizona Republic was the first to publish an analysis of more than a dozen videos posted to social media linking the Goons to attacks including the beating of Preston Lord, the 16-year-old boy who was fatally beaten in Queen Creek.
The paper also recently reported on a spate of vandalism and crimes by young people, including the torching of a barn in the Morrison Ranch neighborhood of Gilbert. Residents say the response in their neighborhood has not been the one they had hoped for.
In a statement, Mitchell said: “When a video appears online or on social media, we only know what we can see. We may not have the names of the people in the video or know where the fight took place. We also may not know what happened immediately before or after the video began and ended. It makes it infinitely more difficult for law enforcement to investigate and for my attorneys to prosecute.”
However, it is not just about reaching young people, but also their parents
But again, kids aren’t posting these videos to help law enforcement. They’re doing it for fun.
They get a kick out of posting them and a kick out of watching them, which shows how clearly the core of the problem lies not only with the young people involved, but also with their parents.
Where the hell are they?
What lessons about civic responsibility, decency, and doing what’s right have they failed to pass on? How closely, if at all, do they monitor where and with whom their children interact? And what their social media accounts are?
And if asking these kinds of questions seems a little old-fashioned, that’s fine with me, Boomer.
Contact Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: District Attorney Makes Weak Request to Teenage Thugs and Gawkers
