The "house of horrors" news story this week from Perris, California, has inspired debate-and-discussion about the meaning of community and people's responsibility to look out for one another, especially for children....
An "if-you-see-something-say-something" moment.
Outrage appears to be worldwide.
Some Commenters on the Internet blame their favorite Subject-they-Like-To-Beat-Up-On: "these horrible parents were living on the taxpayer dime!" etc. Well -- news stories say the father was paid $140,000/year at Northrop Grumman (suppliers to the Pentagon?) until 2011.
Comments also have blamed --
California
liberals
conservatives
home-schooling
public schools
religious extremism
the family's relatives
and the family's neighbors.
D.A. Michael Hestrin said, "In more than 20 years as a prosecutor in Riverside County, this is one of the most disturbing cases I've seen."
One of their neighbors said the family seemed odd, but she didn't like to "think bad of people."
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Some news site Comments
~~ Perris is a weird, podunk desert town. I drove through there once, it was scary. Felt like a perfect setting for one of those Rob Zombie horror movies.
~~ J. Sutton 1 -- "Under federal law, cellphones -- even those that are no longer operational -- must be able to call emergency services."
Thank you, federal government. This is a great law.
~~ Joe Gillis -- sometimes one truly wonders just how abhorrent a human can be to another human being, never mind a parent to a child. It really beggars belief...
~~ voiceofdog -- It's also sad that many people would opt not to call authorities either because they think it will be too disrupting to get personally involved or because they distrust police in general.
Both are a result of a lack of community outreach and facilitation by many police departments and child services in the US.
~~ ZardozSpeakstoYou -- Somebody tell me again why "home schooling" is legal.
~~ Ohio anarcho-capitalist -- Because the state does not own your children, nor can it take away your natural right to educate them as you see fit.
~~ Delta Delta 5 -- You can still educate your kids but the state has a degree of responsibility towards all its citizens and that includes your kids.
~~ How could this happen for so many years without anyone noticing and saying something about it? Even the woman's sister and mother were in shock when they found out!
Have we as a society really become so oblivious to what's going on around us? It's hard to believe they were so good at hiding from the outside world. It's not like they lived out in the woods!
~~ Michael -- People tend to believe what they see. To the outside world, the family at most seemed a bit reclusive. The extended family in this case were kept at such a distance that they weren't allowed to get close enough to see.
Having grown up in an abusive environment where no one -- not even extended family or those at church -- had a clue about it, I speak from experience that it's remarkably easy to miss the signs. We never know what truly goes on behind the closed doors of our neighbors.
~~ Casey Marion -- Personally, if I see lights on in a home and kids marching back and forth in the middle of the night through the window, I'm making a phone call.
~~ B.P. -- "They lived in a regular neighborhood."
I grew up in what at the time was a "regular neighborhood".
Now I live in what is considered a "regular neighborhood" today.
2 vastly different things.
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