Troll jailed for 5 years after swatting of Twitter handle owner ends in death A teenager in the US has been jailed for five years for his role in the harassment and swatting of the owner of a desirable Twitter handle – a swoop that led to the netizen's death. Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, Tennessee, wanted the username @Tennessee that had been registered on Twitter years prior by Mark "Sparky" …
If he wasn't a minor when the offence was committed, then I'd 100% agree 5 years is too short for basically amounted to ordering a contract killing.
As he was... I'm struggling to feel what the appropriate amount of time is - it feels too short at a gut level, but he's age being under the responsibility threshold should count towards some mitigation
either way, he's a pretty scummy person, and I'm sure this will follow and marr him through life so... natural justice, I guess?
"but he's age being under the responsibility threshold should count towards some mitigation"
Why? In a world where 3- and 4-year olds are apparently self-aware and intelligent enough to decide they want gender reassignment surgery, how old do you need to be to realise that sending SWAT teams to somebody's address - especially if you have explicitly told them the person is armed and will resist - is likely to end in a very bad way?
If he's smart enough to work out which Twitter handles are the most valuable for his purposes, and he can work out how to get a group of like-minded thugs to go along with his plan, and he can work out where to get addresses, telephone numbers etc, then how do you figure his age has any relevance on how guilty the little piece of human excrement is? If it had been the first and only thig he did, and it had been to a "random stranger", then maybe - just maybe - he could claim to have not fully understood the potential consequences of his actions. But as it was part of an ongoing campaign - which only ended prematurely as it did because the victim DIED - there is absolutely no room for doubt that Sonderman knew exactly what he was doing. Five years is nowhere near long enough, especially if you remember Herring wasn't his only target.
Still think his age is any sort of defence?
Gender re-assignment surgery is only given to adults. Younger people may change their gender expression (totally reversable) or when old enough to need it, take puberty-blocking medications (again totally reversable) until they reach adult age and then can have surgery if they still want. (Going through puberty in the usual way is not reversable. )
@EngineerAI
I'm Not a medic, but my understanding is that certain effects of puberty blockers are not reversible, as you can't wind back the clock and some things that are meant to grow won't grow later on.
Given the suceptability of the young to peer pressure and fashion, the common misconception that they are reversible can be harmful.
Could be wrong but I remember a case on the Beeb involving the Tavistock clinic in Bristol being sued because boy wanted to be girl but now wanted to be boy again (could have been the other way round). Part of the justification for suing was he/she was underage at the time.
I'm well past the age of majority (read old and knackered) so memory could well be deficient here.
They weren't under-age which has left a lot of people wondering why the Tavistock ended up being involved; and by all accounts it's virtually impossible to get any treatment out of them anyway, which seemed to make the case rather superfluous. But the BBC has quite serious "issues" about their handling of this subject so the reporting was rather imbalanced. The court ruling has been overturned since then anyway... er, I think, but the BBC etc seem less than keen to report that development.
Correct. The Tavistock is appealing, so this has got a way to run yet.
If society wasn't fixated on the pigeon hole thing and people didn't get their knickers in a twist when they saw a boy playing with Barbie or a girl playing with Action Man, then perhaps the kids could just grow up as kids and things wouldn't get so out of whack.
I believe that companies wanting to make a profit are behind some of the pressure that people feel today. This is a worthwhile 7 minute watch in my personal opinion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JDmb_f3E2c
The other problem is that they're using a single case to dictate the treatment available to everybody. And that is just screwy. It's manipulation by people who don't know what they're talking about, trying to get the world to work the way they want it to work, but at least the Tavistock is fighting back.
TLDR: The adults are the problem. Not the kids.
It is correct to say that "some" of the effects of hormone blocking are not "totally" irreversible, but it depends on timing and age. It is also a balance. There are short men, just as there are tall women. Those kinds of things are not a complete deal breaker for someone's life.
Firstly, some of the numbers put out by the press are misleading. For example, the numbers of people transitioning. The legal method to change birth certificate had been in existence for more than a decade when I changed mine, and my certificate number was mid two hundreds. So you're looking at a shave over 20 people changing their birth certificate every year. We're not dealing with a massive rush here.
It is difficult to get treatment out of the Tavistock for a reason. Surgery is definitely irreversible.
The problem is one of the person melding into society and the harder this is, the more difficult it is to get employment...
For F->M people, hormones later in life will break the voice and trigger dormant hair follicles so they can grow a beard, etc.
For M->F no amount of hormones can un-break the voice, un-square the jaw and bone structure.... so it's a balance. Get it right while young and the person will blend into society and have a worthwhile life. Get it wrong, and they'll suffer a life of exclusion and ridicule.
Which is why a ban on hormone blockers for all, spells disaster for some for whom it is the right way to go.
Honestly - His parents or carers should be held partially accountable for this. Instead, they buy a PC or laptop for the little shit(s), and as long as they're not seen or making a nuisance, everything is good - I see this all the time!
Teaching kids right from wrong, it's part of the price for dipping the wick!
"As he was... I'm struggling to feel what the appropriate amount of time is - it feels too short at a gut level, but he's age being under the responsibility threshold should count towards some mitigation"
"Last April", he was a minor, when the crime was committed. But he's since turned 18. He's bloody lucky, in that respect. On the other hand, he's old enough to drive, old enough to enlist in the military (but not be sent to fight until over 18), but he's still legally a minor with little to no sense of right and wrong in the eyes of the judiciary.
Maybe there needs to be a sliding scale for mid to late teens in terms of judicial punishment rather than a hard and fast cut off point between child and adult. After all, it's just an arbitrary point set in law anyway. People are different and mature at different rates. Gangs in particular are aware of the age 18 cut-offf and deliberately use their younger members where the risk of being caught is high.
On the other hand, because people mature at different rates/ages, can even a sliding scale work? It's more likely need someone independent to carefully judge the maturity levels and awareness of reasonability in the convicted offender.
Don't worry about it! He's going to a State-level Medium Security or Maximum Security prison!
And as the "New Fish" on intake, his tush is gonna be examined waaaay up close. And based upon what I have seen in media reports, he's a lanky kid who just doesn't have the size or ferocity to survive long-term in a U.S. prison. He's gonna be someone's prison b&*^^tch soon enough.
His REAL PUNISHMENT will start on the 2nd day of his 'Nickel' (i.e. 5 year prison term) when the OTHER prisoners begin testing him for gumption and fight! If he shows ANY FEAR or weakness, he is TOAST!
That 5 years will turn into 20 once he gets the focus of the cruel and vicious attentions all the OTHER prisoners. Then you add-in the disdain and beatings from the guards! He either will last two years and suicide out OR he gets secondary detentions from all the rule breakings he will have to do JUST TO SURVIVE another night!
Realistically, he'll be DEAD in two years or less OR be imprisoned for 20+ years because of all the add-on charges and sentence-extensions he will be getting just trying to live another day!
American prisons ARE NO PICNIC --- That five year IS HARD TIME! Only China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Russia are Worse for the amount of prisoner-on-prisoner violence and guard-on-prisoner violence taking place EVERY SINGLE DAY of his prison term!
There's a reason Kotex Menstrual Pads and Opioids are a popular item in the underground prison black market. He's gonna need them!
v
Since 5 years was the maximum sentence, I suggest that after this douchenozzle gets out, he gets a sentence that will really make him cry: 10 additional years with no computer, tablet, video game console, television, or internet allowed. Make him live near the radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia where the natural landscape and government mandate blocks any terrestrial radio waves.
That seems to be the other side of the plea system. It might result in many wrongful convictions but it can also result in inadequate sentences.
It appears that he was one of a conspiracy. It would be good to think that the other conspirators have also been traced and dealt with.
"Punishment" cures virtually nothing - Rehabilitation, placing him in an environment that might eventually cause him to realize that he'd been an idiot and that life would be better at the end of the rehabilitation, if he never made a similar error, has the chance of improving life for everyone.
After harrassing someone to death and intimidating others, this arsehole gets a five year, live in Master's degree course in scumbaggery.
He will only be in his twenties when he comes out and more likely than not, have a full lifetime of recidavism to look forward to.
And people say 'there is no justice'....... They're right!
Well I'd certainly take the opinion of a random internet poster over whatever the so-called "Judge" might have handed down. Surely all the detail we need is in the report we just read?
Why do we even bother with trials? We could just have a survey underneath a news report. Soon as we get 12 guilty clicks, job done!
Upvote for the idea of a 21st century Judge Judy.
Both sides present their cases, the internet judges "guilty as hell! execution!".
Kill a guy by swatting? Execution! Run a red light? Execution! Copy a DVD? Execution! Let's watch the crime rate plummet faster than a lead balloon enjoying the force of gravity.
Sorry, you fail to understand "Cancel Culture." According to the right wing, the real victim of "cancel culture" here would be Shane Sonderman, who was just using his free speech rights as carved into stone by God Himself when He wrote the US Constitution and handed the tablets down to Jefferson Davis at Stony Mountain.
" It was alleged someone with a British accent made the actual 911 call."
Was bemused why this detail was included in such dramatic fashion. Is this the penchant for casting all criminal baddies in the world as being Eurotrash ? BTW it would be much more convincing if they'd said an English accent, or Welsh accent for instance. Accents of the British Isles are so diverse, calling someone's accent British makes little sense.
But even Americans cant always spot the difference between accents from very different parts of their country, where as here 10 miles can make all the difference. I say this as a British person who has family in Canada and the USA, its easy to spot a New York vs Newfoundland vs Quebec, but there is almost no difference in accent between Victoria Vancouver island vs Chilliwack British Columbia, yet the distance is similar to that of Southampton England to Cardiff in Wales.
@niksgarage
Why the perp attempted an accent, I can't guess. I suppose that the report said "British" because the person taking the call was a 911 operator, not a successor to Henry Higgins. The American ear used to be pretty bad when it came to distinguishing accents from Great Britain. It could be that all those years of BBC comedies have improved that ear, but apparently not universally.
Maybe because 'English' can be ambiguous* as to whether you mean English the language, or English the regional dialect of English the language. 'British' makes it clear that they mean those people over on this side of the pond, at least.
* If there's one language that does ambiguity well, it's English, after all.
Very true, but Americans are conditioned in far too many movies to know that the bad guy/evil genius speaks with a "British accent" ... by which they probably mean "sounds like Hugh Grant" as I can't imagine them coping with a stronger accent like Scouse or Glaswegian at all.
Why is there a need to invent a name for this, especially one that makes it sound like nothing more than something you'd do to an annoying fly?
It should be described as premeditated murder : it seems that rather then bother with the fuss and risk of hiring a contractor to do the evil deed, you can try to outsource it to the police in a trigger happy country. A victim of this deserves much more respect than saying they've been "swatted". It sounds like saying that their life was worthless.
"Swatting" is in reference to the use of SWAT teams, so it's not as if the name was just plucked out of thin air, or deliberately chosen to sound inconsequential relative to the actual effects of the act to which it applies.
The question might be better asked as to whether "SWAT" itself is an appropriate name for the firearms squad, as it manages to quite neatly gloss over the rather lethal nature of what that group of officers are expected to do when ordered into action.
Yes, I'm aware of what SWAT expands into, the point is that its the rather cutesy acronym rather than the expansion of it which is used as a matter of routine both officially and unofficially when referring to the team and its use. The fact that it can be pronounced as a word, and a single syllable one at that, rather than having to be spelled out initial by initial, doesn't help either.
e.g. Try saying "Eff Bee Eye" without it sounding like you're talking about a serious bunch of people. For bonus points, try saying it without sounding like Alan Rickman in Die Hard.
Now try saying "swat" and make it sound like you're conjuring up a bunch of paramilitaries armed to the teeth and ready to kick criminal butt, rather than sounding more like you're just being bothered by a pesky fly...
>It should be described as premeditated murder :
Perhaps if interactions with US law enforcement didn't automatically always end in civilians being killed ?
Although it could lead to savings in police budgets. Have one centrally mounted naval gun per town and a website for you to enter the coordinates of an address and the freedom gun applies 16inch freedom shells to the address.
my sister's a cop in the UK and let me tell you she's not much over 8 stone and has never ever wanted a gun, because it's never come up. her big stick is enough if she waves it around a bit without even hitting anyone.
unfortunately the US is slightly different, you could pull a guy up for urinating beside the bins out the back of a chippy and oh dear, legally-held AK47. the cops over there must be stressed to breaking point about how the slightest callout might end up
my sympathies, but at least you escaped such monstrosities as socialised healthcare free at the point of need and greggs
"SWAT" in this case doesn't actually refer to fly swats.
It's about setting a SWAT team on someone.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT
Which in a country where shoot first and ask later ( if they survive) is a matter of course is pretty significant. Virtually the same as pulling the trigger yourself
I hope Twitter disable that username and make it completely unavailable for use. Preserve Mr. Herring's posts (unless his surviving family chooses to delete them), but otherwise disable that handle forever. I am so sad and disgusted at this whole episode, from the first glint of Sonderman's stupid "gimme!" greed to Mr. Herring's totally needless passing to the five-year wrist slap. I can not imagine the grief his family is suffering.
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