Eye for an eye, thumb for a cellphone
We know it's a little macabre for a Thursday (or any day really), but what's up with these crazies flipping out over consumer electronics in our fair city? This poor 17 year old kid Robert Bell actually got his thumb hacked off with a machete because some Bronx high school students mistakenly believed he'd swiped one of their cellphones. What, was that whole thing supposed to be poetic justice so he'll never text again, or something?
Filed under: Cellphones
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
xVariable @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Fucking animals. Lousy, no good, sub-human fucking savages.
Buzzcut @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
There ain't nothin "fair" in the Bronx. Yankees suck.
Mad Anthony @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Umm, you misread the article. They didn't leave the finger in the back of the car. They left the finger on the hood of the car they attacked him on.
Fuzz @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
wow, over a god dmaned cellphone some kid lost his thumb, sad.
Yankees suck, go boston.
Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
he thought someone left a fake thumb on the hood of his car, so he paid it no mind.
KBS @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
bronx. keeping it real! plain and simple.
xVariable @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
At least they didn't kill the person. They could just as well have done, though, given the impulsive, and utterly capricious behavior of these kinds of people.
What can I say? People like this will always be how they are, just like everyone else. We ought to simply rescue the few good people left there, then herd the remaining animals into a large, enclosed, and inescapable space, deprive them of food and shelter, and let nature take its course. Some people seem to prefer to live like that (and, no, poverty is an excuse, NOT a reason, why people resort to this kind of behavior. Not everyone chooses to resort to violence as an innovative solution to desparate circumstances.
Noone in Western civilization is so abjectly poor that their lives are in jeporady, yet we bend-over backwards to justify such utterly brutish behavior. Disgusting. What do you think will happen to people like this, as the world becomes increasingly populated? Will humanity be more accomodating, or less? Wht's that? They'll take-over and kill all the so-called civilized people off? We'll see. If they resort to such tactics, they will be EXTERMINATED by "the so-called civilized people".)
KBS @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
bottom line. he's lucky he's not dead. brutes or whatever. it's the bronx what you expect them to go to arbitration or people's court? dang. we have primal instincts in all of us. especially when one is in poverty, deprived of food, common health treatments and etc. lets not talk about separating the good and the bad...aka "apartheid"... look at what you're saying... it's out of a text book in the middle of the civil war. lets open our eyes and face our problems. instead of proposing "holocaust", "apartheid" and "extermination" ideas. ok? wow just amazes me your isolationistic views.
Improvolone @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Who was this guy? Tarzan?
Who the fuck carries a machete unless you live in the jungle?
Louie @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Here in DC a couple of years back, a kid got shot on a Metro platform because he wouldn't give up his boots to a group of other teens.
Dan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
"At least they didn't kill the person. They could just as well have done, though, given the impulsive, and utterly capricious behavior of these kinds of people.
"What can I say? People like this will always be how they are, just like everyone else. We ought to simply rescue the few good people left there, then herd the remaining animals into a large, enclosed, and inescapable space, deprive them of food and shelter, and let nature take its course. Some people seem to prefer to live like that (and, no, poverty is an excuse, NOT a reason, why people resort to this kind of behavior. Not everyone chooses to resort to violence as an innovative solution to desparate circumstances.
"Noone in Western civilization is so abjectly poor that their lives are in jeporady, yet we bend-over backwards to justify such utterly brutish behavior. Disgusting. What do you think will happen to people like this, as the world becomes increasingly populated? Will humanity be more accomodating, or less? Wht's that? They'll take-over and kill all the so-called civilized people off? We'll see. If they resort to such tactics, they will be EXTERMINATED by "the so-called civilized people".)"
Whoa.
I think you need to ratchet the crazy WAY down.
I mean, dude, "Herd together the undesireables, wall them up, then starve and exterminate them - for Civilization!" ?
Jesus, just... I don't know, have a cigarette or something and chill out.
xVariable @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Dan: That's about it. To civilized society undesireables are, by defintion, the anti-social. It has nothing to do with skin colour or some other physical attribute. It has everything to do with conduct. Nothing, other than a threat to someone's life and/or limb, justifies the use of such violence. People that engage in such behavior represent a clear and present danger to the life and limb of every indivdual of a civilized society, and of the society as a whole. Ergo they should, at the very least, be contained, and maybe even eliminated. I won't alogize if that's offensive to you, but I'm sick of the terrorizing effect people like this have on the world.
Jonathan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
This shit sounds like the japanese tradition of YUBITSUME (finger cutting) where a disgraced Yakuza offers up a pinky as penance.
Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
First of all KBS is a moron. Yes we all have "primal instincts" however, we are no longer living in the Fucking stone age. We don't carry machetes while we are out hunting food. There is no way someone can rationalize a person taking a machete to someone's hand just because they stole something, I don't care if they do live in the Bronx. The only thing "Keeping it Real" about that is keeping the stereotype real.
token @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
For all you people turning this into a baseball thing...shut up. I mean, what the hell does this have to do with the yankees/red sox rivalry? Because the Red Sox won the world series for the first time in 86 years, does that negate the fact that the Yankees have one 26 of them? Are you so insecure about your city and team that you need to take every oppurtunity to bash NY? It is lame.
Besides, I will take a few thumb cuttings by street thugs over, I dunno..say...priests touching little boys and then other priests covering it up. Chew on that.
Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
yo need a thumb, dude? i can get you a thumb.
Timmah!!! @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Hey Token, I'm not quite sure how the Yankees have "one" 26 of anything? Doesn't quite make "cents" to me. I don't know about you, but I don't take "oppurtunity", because I don't know what that is. I try and take every "oppOrtunity" to point out the lack of intelligence epitomized by typical yankee fans.
Typical mongoloid Yankee fan living in the past.....
Go look up 'mongoloid', you know you want to.
Go Sox!!
Yankees Suck.
xVariable @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Wow, comparing the extermination of an ethnic group to that of incoragable violent thugs. I'm sure they appreciate your support, and they'll meet you at the "anti-thug holocaust" rally tonight, where they'll aggrevatedly assualt and rape you, dismember you, steal your wallet, and leave you or dead. "What do we want?" "Stop the senseless murder of sadistic criminals!" "When do we want it?" "Now!" Idiot.
leo @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TOUCH THEIR PSP!!!
if you think the thumb is bad.......
furtim @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Lighten up, token. Nobody doubts that the Yankees are one of the winningest teams in all of baseball. They just suck. It's a fact of life, something I instinctively knew even before I moved to Boston. Some things are just givens. The sky is blue, water is wet, the Yankees suck. Law of nature, I tells ya.
Nate MC @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
GTA made them do it. The game has a machete... think about it... Oh wait my phones ringing.. I think it's Hillary.
Kids need to learn it's just a cell phone, no stupid piece of consumer goods is worth spending time in jail over. Even if the kid did steal the phone it's no reason to assault someone with a deadly weapon.
KBS @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
i'm not trying to rationalize what happened. but saying you can't say exterminate "those kind of ppl" to solve the problem. i think that's extreme. don't you think? haha mike you're words hurt my feelings=)
Lenbot @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
We know when we stopped enjoying things and things started owning us. If we don't have em with us or someone took it then someone must have there finger hacked off. You know I dont like like how jail systems work but In the USA and canada we have to little lee way on justice. People dont even think any more before they do something. The kid will say he didn't know and get like 2 months in juvy maybe. When really he should be bitch slapped and his thumb should be cut off and then re attached. SEE HOW THAT ONE FEELS. maybe they will think twice before reacting for no reason.
Timerider @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Man, the ******** that did that should go to ****, even if he did steal his cellphone. I hope he sues them $10 million and they go to jail for at least 8 years
xVariable @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
KBS: I take a pragmatic view of it.
Within 20 years or less there will be 10 billion people on the planet (the estimates were recently revised. It turns out we'll reach that number far sooner than 2050). If the last 20 years or so is any indication, with the rise of Neoconservatism and the comming of age of Generation X (to which I belong), humanity will become increasingly irrational and savage.
In the modern world, we are faced with a plethora of truly devastating ways in which we can ruin ourselves and our world, and they all come down to the simple, core fact that our undoing will be our fault and noone or no thing else's. It's not a question of if, but of when. Think about how you live your own life. I am assuming that, since you read Engadget, you are probably in your 20s-30s. Given what you know about yourself, can you really say you and yours are in any position to to take respnsibility for the world? For world peace, for the environment, for... nuclear weapons, and all they imply?
More likely than not, you are probably more or less a slacker, in as far as you are FAR less accountable for your own behvior than your parents or grandparets were. And yet, our obligations are exponentially greater than theirs ever were. The world is quickly filling-up with people that are far less responsible than, likely, any previous generation, EVER.
Given that we've already had 2 world wars involving those previous, more responsible generations, and that world world stability is rapidly crumblng (with no indication that the trend will ever reverse), how long do you think it will be before we have a third? Generations that are comming of age now couldn't even begin to take stewardship of the world in which we live. They're too busy rationlizing the chopping-off of fingers by a, relatively speaking, spoiled child that won the existential lottery by luckily being born in America, instead of, say, Ethopia.
You are averse to the "radical" idea of exterminating a group, ANY group. Where would you draw the line, then? You may think it's a absurd question, but it's an increasingly absurd world we live in. I humbly submit that it's only a matter of time before extermintions or one or another sort starts happening wholesale (despite your proclivities), given the apparently unstoppable downward spiral the world is currently in. Things are not going to get better, only worse. I, for one, have no problem getting rid of violent criminals. The problem would be in effectively weeding them out of the population. Soon we'll have the technology. I say, make it so.
Buzzcut @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
#15, why are Yankees fans so thinned skinned? I mean, if you're so great, why respond to the message?
Yankees suck, and so do New Yorkers. Pussies. Well, except for the guy with the machete.
William Tafe @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
This gives a whole new meaning to the words "Thumb Drive"
Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Thank you Capt. Picard.
Look KBS I am not suggesting what we exterminate "those kind of ppl", but I do think that the punishment should fit the crime. Eye for and eye, right?
#24 is right. This kid will probably get nothing more than a few months in Juvenile Hall, some community service hours and then be released back in society where he can graduate to bigger and badder crimes like armed robbery or murder. I say, if they can't reattach that finger then the one who did it should lose his.
Oh and #25, even if they did sue him for $10 million where do you think he would get the money? If he is willing to chop someone's finger off over a Cell phone chances are he doesn't have anything else to lose. (Probably on one of those pre-paid services as well.)
Steven Smith @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Black people...
Ploop @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
I'm kinda hungry for some Wendy's chili after reading this.
Michelle @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
Speaking of texting...
Looking for T9 text messaging users in Chicago!
We are conducting a study in downtown Chicago in August. If you are interested, please email us at:
michellew@infocousa.com
Please reply with the brand and model of your mobile phone AND please also include your daytime contact telephone number.
Each participant will be paid $75 for a 1 hour session.
If you qualify, I will call you and take you through the screening process. You will be required to bring the phone to the session.
The study is for market research only, and no sales of any kind will be involved. If you feel this study is better suited to a colleague or friend, please feel free to pass on this information.
Thanks!
Finished.Law.School @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM
That thumb will show up in Wendy's chili in about a month.