By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--July 24, 2017
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A Florida police chief said he will recommend criminal charges be filed against five teenagers who taunted a drowning man while recording his death from afar. Stressing that the state attorney will ultimately decide whether to file charges, Cocoa Police Chief Michael Cantaloupe told CNN on Friday afternoon that he will recommend the teens be prosecuted under a statute that requires the reporting of a death to a medical examiner. The chief's statement was a shift. In previous days, authorities said the teens wouldn't be charged because Florida does not have a law that obligates a citizen to render aid or call for help for anyone in distress.
On Friday, the office of State Attorney Phil Archer issued a statement, though not in response to the chief's comments about recommending charges. "We were asked to make a preliminary review of the video regarding any potential charges for failure to provide aid," the state attorney's office said. "Unfortunately, there is currently no statute in Florida law that compels an individual to render, request or seek aid for a person in distress. We are, however, continuing to research whether any other statute may apply to the facts of this case."That last sentence seems to give away the game, and as much as I think these horrible people deserve the worst that can be done to them, this is troubling. What you have here is a group of people who have suddenly become the target of public outrage - deservedly, to be sure - and police as a result looking for a pretext to charge them with a crime when it isn't apparent that one exists. This is mob rule. Worse, it's the police taking their cue from the mob. It would be one thing if police had immediately, upon seeing this news, moved to charge them with not reporting the death. But in this case it appears they rarely if ever enforce that statute, and only are thinking of doing so in this case because they're concerned about public opinion if they don't come up with some way to put these kids behind bars.
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