I speak, of course, of the kids in Polk County, FL, who beat up a classmate and videotaped it for airing on YouTube. I was curious to see how the group felt, here are my initial thoughts:

1) If you haven't seen the video, let me say (and I apologize, Gae) that...well....it's kinda hot. If they'd had their cheerleader uniforms on, it might have gone down at the greatest video ever.

2) All kidding aside, while I'm not a parent, I did represent roughly 400 juveniles or so and I think I am quasi-qualified to offer a few observations about this. First and foremost, the one uniting force among parents in juvey world is DENIAL. If you go up to a parent, and say "Johhny Doe hit a student at school, what do you think should be done?" they'll jump all over it, they should do this with Johnny, they should do that with Johnny, he's just a little smart-alleck punk.

But...

You go up to them and tell them that their kid is the one who hit the student, and you'll get either a) no, he didn't, or b) even if he did, the other kid had it comin' to him.

I've been reading the various stories about this, and one of the defendant's mother said that the victim had gone onto MySpace and started talking smack about the girls. (as if a forced beatdown could ever be justified by something that was posted on MySpace).

There are (unfortunately) two boys involved in this, and I say unfortunately because it would be hotter if it was all chicks. But anyway, the father of one of the boys said that his son may have been there but didn't know what was going on.

UM.........SORRY, WRONG ANSWER. SELECT AGAIN.

I'm telling you, I've represented the kids who've been beaten, I've represented the kids who've done the beatin', and I can tell you with all certainty- they all knew what was going on. If not prior to the fact, certainly while it was going on.

And, truth be told, the juvenile courts aren't much help. I represented some kids that had some absolutely despicable things done to them, but nothing was done about it. And, I'll admit, I represented some kids who, quite honestly, deserved to get punished far more than they did.

Now I'm reading where they may charge these kids as adults, and that would be great if they did (I'm sorry, planning to videotape a beatdown and laying a trap for the victim, that's as "adult" a crime as you can have). But even then, presumably they have no prior record, and the victim (fortunately) doesn't appear to be injured, so even then they'll still get over.

But like I said, I'm not a parent, by all means tell me if I'm being too harsh here (or not harsh enough, Gae and Trav).