If you want help with your teenager, call an ambulance, or call the fire dept, but don't call the police

Keith Vidal

My father used to say, "If you want help, call an ambulance, call the fire dept, call the dog catcher, call anyone, but don't call the police."

He was right. Why are so few people familiar with this simple bit of common wisdom?

Cop Allegedly Said ‘We Don’t Have Time For This’ Before Shooting Schizophrenic Teen To Death
By Annie-Rose Strasser
Think Progress
January 7, 2014

Schizophrenic 18-year-old Keith Vidal was having an episode on Sunday when his parents called the police for assistance. Instead, an officer shot and killed their son right in front of them.

During Sunday’s incident, Vidal had apparently picked up a small screwdriver — small enough that it couldn’t have caused serious harm, his family says, but enough that they sought law enforcement assistance. Three different police departments’ officers arrived at the scene. The first two were able to restrain Vidal and calm him down, according to Vidal’s father. But then a third entered, and that’s when he says things went sour.

He says the third officer tased Vidal, knocking the 90-pound teenager to the ground. The officer then allegedly stepped forward with a firearm and said, “we don’t have time for this,” before shooting the teen dead.

Southport Police Department, one of the three North Carolina agencies that responded to the call, has put one of its detectives on administrative leave in relation to the case, reports WECT. The department did not say whether the officer was the one who had fired the weapon. The other departments, Boiling Spring Lakes PD and the Brunswick County Sheriff’s office, said that they have not put their responding officers on leave. The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident.

Sadly, families often treat police officers as assistants in home disputes or conflicts. But law enforcement officials have a long history of turning heated situations deadly. Protocol for police who take out their guns is to aim for the head or chest, and that’s exactly what the officer did in this case...

Arrests of teenagers are probably surprising parents of the Stephentown 300 who planned to take the victim to court

How many of these parents are lawyers--or have lawyers--who figure that well-off people deserve good reputations no matter what they do?

"As of the census of 2010...the racial makeup of the town was 96.7% White, 0.31% African American, 0.21% Native American, 0.14% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander,and 0.77% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.11% of the population...About 5.7% of families and 6.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.0% of those under age 18 and 7.0% of those age 65 or over."--Wikipedia

Parents aren't doing their kids a favor when they teach them to ignore the rights of others. And they certainly are not doing the country a favor.

Parents want to sue ex-NFLer for outing brats
[Photos of graffiti, damage]
By Jeane Macintosh
September 20, 2013

Former NFL offensive lineman Brian Holloway initially thought the Twitter photos showing young people partying at his family’s second home in upstate New York were a hoax. Then he saw pictures of teens standing on the dining room table he bought with his Super Bowl bonus.

Parents of the hundreds of teens who broke into and destroyed former NFLer Brian Holloway’s upstate vacation home are threatening to sue him for outing their brats on Twitter — saying he’s spoiling their chances of getting into college.

“You would not believe the calls that have come in, threatening to firebomb me or hurt or sue me — any manner of things,” the stunned Holloway told The Post Thursday as he toiled away cleaning up the damage at his 200-acre spread in Rensselaer County.

The teens defaced Holloway’s home with graffiti.

“Some complained that this will ruin their kids’ college plans. Others have threatened me, saying ‘Take my kid’s name down or I’m gonna press charges against you.’

“You’re going to press charges against me? C’mon, now. If that were one of my children, they would be doing a year’s worth of apologizing,” said Holloway, a father of eight.

Holloway estimates that the teens caused about $20,000 in damages

The former New England Patriots offensive lineman learned of the debauched bash — attended by some 200-300 trespassers — after many of the punks gleefully posted photos and texts on social media from inside the out-of-control crash party that left 10 shattered windows, urine-soaked carpets, gouged oak floors and walls covered in graffiti and holes.

Holloway estimates the damage at more than $20,000 and took to social media to try to track down the vandals so they could be held responsible.

A handful of parents have apologized for their kids’ actions — saying they hadn’t known about the party or that their kids lied to them, he said.

But only one parent and child showed up this week at a planned cleanup of the stately Stephentown home, about 25 miles from Albany and near the Massachusetts border.

Holloway said he has hauled away more than 10 massive trash bags of liquor bottles, and found drug paraphernalia strewn across his property.

“How is this OK? How did we lose our way, that this is acceptable behavior? And how do we find our way back?” said Holloway, who had to delay last week’s planned launch of his new women’s-oriented football site, HerLeague.net, to fly to New York and deal with the mess and an ongoing police probe.

The drama started on Aug. 31, when Holloway — home with his wife and kids at their year-round Lutz, Fla., home — learned from his 19-year-old son that dozens of kids were tweeting about a party at the New York country house.

Holloway watched in disbelief as the scene unfolded on Twitter. The revelers came from at least nine surrounding high schools and a local college.

“They had planned to stay there for three full days, if you can believe that,” Holloway said.

He was trying to reach local cops when someone tweeted that sheriff’s officers were on the scene.

“The sheriff came and got everyone out of the house without injury or violence, which is impressive with the amount of drinking and drugs going down and kids in a very dangerous state of mind,” Holloway said.

Holloway, who found “170 tweets from the party within its first three hours,” re-posted them to a Web site to help identify the house crashers and urge them to change their behavior.


6 Arrests In Vandalism Of Former Patriot Brian Holloway’s Home
George M. Walsh
Associated Press
September 26, 2013

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Six people were arrested Thursday on charges they were among hundreds of young partygoers who trashed a former NFL player’s vacation home, and police said more arrests were expected.

The arrests came after former New England Patriots and Los Angeles Raiders offensive lineman Brian Holloway said he signed papers authorizing the Rensselaer County sheriff to bring charges in the Labor Day weekend party, which was attended by up to 400 teenagers.

Holloway said that among those charged was a young man he had taken into his family for a time as a homeless teen, who’s accused of organizing and promoting the party. He said investigators have told him the number of people charged could end up in the hundreds as they work through the sheer volume of participants.

“Everyone that broke the law, I’m pressing charges against,” Holloway said. “The parents had a chance and students had a chance to come forward, and only four did.”

Holloway, who played offensive tackle for the Patriots and Raiders in the 1980s, gained national attention by reposting party pictures the teens had put on social media websites. He said he posted them on the website helpmesave300.com in an effort to get the teens to come forward, take responsibility for their actions and change their behavior.

[See earlier story below.]

...Police said a ringleader of the party was 19-year-old Seth Hawk, the young man Holloway said he had taken into his family a few years ago. Hawk, of Grafton, faces felony charges of burglary and criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child and unlawfully dealing with a child. He’s accused of advertising the party and providing alcohol.

Three of the other arrested people face felony charges including burglary and larceny, and two are charged with misdemeanors, including trespassing. They range in age from 17 to 21.

A phone number wasn’t available for Hawk, and authorities said they didn’t know the names of the arrested people’s lawyers.

Holloway said Hawk was a classmate of his son and had a troubled youth but found stability living as part of his family when he was about 15. He said hearing about Hawk’s involvement “was a shocker.”

“We’re still pulling for him,” he said. “This may be the thing to get him on track.”

An Open Letter to the Parents of the Stephentown 300
Kelly Lynch
Huff Post
09/24/2013

What planet do you live on?

Last week, word got out that your children had broken into a home in Stephentown, NY and threw a party. More than 300 of them partied and drunkenly smashed windows, urinated on the floors, stood on tables, punched holes in the ceiling and stole a statue that was part of a memorial for the owner's stillborn grandson. Oh, it gets better. Before, during and after the party, they tweeted about it and posted pictures of themselves engaged in this behavior.

Way to go.

The house is owned by former NFL player Brian Holloway. It is his second residence, paid for in part by his Super Bowl bonus. He lives in Florida and the Stephentown house is on the market. He watched this unfold online while at his home in Florida. Instead of demanding the arrest of your kids, he instead created a website, www.helpmesave300.com, where he reposted their photos, identified the people involved, and called for ways to reach out to young people and show them that there are better ways to spend their time than drinking, drugs and vandalism.

He is a better person than I would have been in that position. It takes class and compassion to see beyond the urine stained carpets, broken windows, damaged walls and blatant disrespect to reach out to your kids. He even offered to welcome these derelicts back to his house for a picnic, where they would work together to make repairs and clean up the mess they left behind. I don't know that the rest of us would have been able to react the same way.

And one kid showed up. One, out of the 300 teens who were there.

Instead of dragging your kids back to apologize and clean up the mess, you lashed out at Brian Holloway, threatened to firebomb his house, and are now planning to sue him. For what? For identifying your kids online. Well guess what? Your little Johnny did that himself the minute he tweeted that iPhone photo standing on the dining room table, holding a red solo cup filled with beer.

Look, I don't blame you for what your kids did. Heck, I don't even really blame them. Teens will be teens, and they do stupid things sometimes. We've all been there. It's not fair to judge parents on the mistakes their kids make. It is how you handle that behavior afterwards that reflects on you as a parent...

Teenage drinking raises risk of early dementia, study suggests

Teenage drinking raises risk of early dementia, study suggests
Swedish study identifies heavy drinking as a teenager as the most serious of nine risk factors for young onset dementia
Denis Campbell, health correspondent
The Guardian
12 August 2013

Heavy drinking as a teenager is the single biggest risk factor for developing dementia unusually early, according to new research.

A study of almost 500,000 Swedish men identified "alcohol intoxication" as a late adolescent as the most serious of nine separate risk factors for young onset dementia (YOD) – that is, dementia before reaching 65.

Researchers led by Prof Peter Nordstrom, of Sweden's Umea University, examined the records of 488,484 men conscripted into military service in the country at an average age of 18 between 1969 and 1979, 487 of whom were later diagnosed with YOD at an average age of 54.

About 800,000 people in the UK have dementia, of whom more than 17,000 developed it before they turned 65, according to the Alzheimer's Society. Two-thirds of sufferers are women and a third are men.

Other "late adolescent risk factors" identified by the researchers included stroke, use of amtopsychotic drugs, depression, father's dementia, drugs intoxication other than alcohol, low cognitive function at conscription, low height at conscription and high systolic blood pressure at conscription. Together the nine factors accounted for 68% of the 487 YOD cases found at follow-up.

Men with at least two of the nine risk factors, and who fell in the lowest third of the study participants for overall cognitive function, had a 20-fold increased risk of developing YOD, the researchers found.

"We are a long way off knowing exactly why some people develop dementia and others don't. However, what this study shows once again is that many of the things we are beginning to identify as risk factors are controllable", said Jess Smith, a research officer at the Alzheimer's Society. "Kicking excessive teenage drinking or drug habits into touch and treating conditions such as depression early could be key to reducing your risk of dementia in later life."

Understanding the Zombie Teen's Body Clock

Understanding the Zombie Teen's Body Clock
By SUE SHELLENBARGER
WSJ
October 16, 2012

Many parents know the scene: The groggy, sleep-deprived teenager stumbles through breakfast and falls asleep over afternoon homework, only to spring to life, wide-eyed and alert, at 10 p.m.—just as Mom and Dad are nodding off.

Fortunately for parents, science has gotten more sophisticated at explaining why, starting at puberty, a teen's internal sleep-wake clock seems to go off the rails. Researchers are also connecting the dots between the resulting sleep loss and behavior long chalked up to just "being a teenager." This includes more risk-taking, less self-control, a drop in school performance and a rise in the incidence of depression.

Few parents realize that the common practice of letting teens set their own bedtime can fuel further mutations in the biological processes that knocked them off track. Sue Shellenbarger and Brown University's Dr. Mary Carskadon discuss details on Lunch Break.

Tips for Improving Teens' Sleep

One 2010 study from the University of British Columbia, for example, found that sleep loss can hamper neuron growth in the brain during adolescence, a critical period for cognitive development.

Findings linking sleep loss to adolescent turbulence are "really revelatory," says Michael Terman, a professor of clinical psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and co-author of "Chronotherapy," a forthcoming book on resetting the body clock...