Flash Mobs and Felonies

In just two days of hearings, Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty accepted guilty pleas from 17 boys and convicted 12 more of felony-level counts of rioting and conspiracy for their participation in “flash mobs.” Only one of the boys brought before him has managed to win an acquittal. He told one kid his mother’s conduct is “childlike” and that the family’s problem was not that they suffered from homelessness, but that his mother “… thinks of you as the man of the house.” He ordered Human Services to investigate the family. All of the kids are stuck with a felony crime on their records—something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives as they endeavor to pursue careers and higher education. They all face up to four years in a state facility, although those who plead guilty will likely end up in a boot camp, and receive electronic monitoring and probation (complete with twice monthly drug tests).

I don’t want to downplay the capacity of flash mobs to engage in criminal harm. Good grief, I’ve been to enough Philly sporting events to know better. However, I also don’t want to contribute to what seems to be a growing “mob mentality” (pun intended) on the part of police and prosecutors regarding youth groups converging and meeting in a given area. It happens all the time in Philadelphia… think of all the goes on along the sidelines of the Mummers parade, in the parking lots outside of Citizens Bank Park, and, most recently along the pub crawl route of the St. Patrick’s Day Erin Express. In each of these events, criminal damage to property, illicit drug use, and fights are not uncommon. In cases of serious criminal harm (like the beating death of David Sale that occurred during a fight outside the Phillies ballpark), prosecutors have responded swiftly and appropriately, making it clear that violence will not be tolerated in the city. In the case of non-violent crimes, however, prosecutors and police have largely endeavored to give drunken fans, exuberant two street revelers, and others a break. Doing so is an appropriate use of their discretion. They recognize that charging fans and others with felonies or even serious misdemeanors often does more harm than good.

Which brings me to the following question—are the flash mob incidents we’ve seen in Philadelphia really operating at the level of felonious riot? The origin of felony riot law in the US comes from Britain—in its earliest guise, felony rioting involved behavior that was of a “violent” and “turbulent” nature, carried out by three or more persons, and producing “terror” among the people. Groups of teenagers can be obnoxious and scary—I avoid malls for this reason. However, I think there is a qualitative distinction between what we’ve seen in Philadelphia and the kind of violence that is typically associated with felonious mobs (think of the LA riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict). Frankly, I also think there is serious distinction between the Philly flash mobs and recent blog postings from Mike Vanderboegh in Alabama. In the latter case, Vanderboegh calls on his readers to break the windows of Democratic Party offices in response to the health care reform legislation. His internet hue and cry reads,

"So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows…. Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM."

I raise this not for the purposes of drubbing on Vanderboegh (who has not been investigated by local law enforcement for his postings despite the fact that a number of Party offices have had their windows broken) or calling for restrictions on speech; rather, I just want to point out that the Philadelphia teens are not using twitter or facebook to encourage one another to converge for the purposes of engaging in criminal property damage or violence.

Police and prosecutors should not ignore teens behavior. Indeed, I think it’s important that the city take a clear and strong position on this kind of stuff. But let’s not succumb to hysteria. These are kids who did something stupid. Some of them caused harm. If the harm was serious, go ahead and prosecute. But for the lesser stuff, the petty stuff… stern warnings and restitution should suffice. Let’s not ruin their futures simply because they made use of relatively new technology (in the form of twitter) to do something that teenagers have always done.