18 year old pees on kids leg on JetBlue flight

[Imprl59]

As the resident drunk, I have to comment a bit further on this.

I am not proud of any of this, but I use to make this point: I have never, ever, EVER been so fucked up that I actually peed on someone else!
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Apparently neiither did he. According to the attorney for the family he peed on the floor beside the girl, not actually on the girl as previously reported. Minor difference in the end since she was still right there. I once passed out at someones house and peed in their closet. No recollection of doing so but i was the only person in that room so chances are good it was me. If there happened to be another person in the room or sitting in the closet they probably would have gotten wet.

And if I did, I would (once I sobered up) taken responsibility for my actions, and accepted whatever punishment I received, be it legal or professional.

And, if I had ever been so fortunate and so blessed as to be a member of an elite athletic team representing my country, I would not get so damn fucked up in public. He may not have known what he was doing because he was too drunk, but no one forced the liquor down his throat....he made a conscious choice to drink.

In the end, there was only one person responsible for his actions, and that was him.

Actually I think there were two. Someone served him the alcohol. He made the concious able minded deision to have the first drink probably the second and maybe the third and I'll even stretch it to the fourth, but after that point some able minded bartender made the concious choice to continue serving him. I would be interested to know if his ID was checked. It would also be interesting to see if he had any recourse under dram shop laws.

[Imprl59]

What it all boils down to for me is that your average 18 year old kid isn't going to have the experience to know what alcohol does to a person and isn't mature enough to deal with it. Lifted from the MADD website "The age limit for alcohol is based on research which shows that young people react differently to alcohol. Teens get drunk twice as fast as adults,but have more trouble knowing when to stop. Teens naturally overdo it and binge more often than adults."

So we as a society have decided that a person isn't mature enough to drink until 21, this person was able to acquire alcohol before he was 21 and wasn't mature enough to deal with it and we are all shocked and amazed he did something stupid.

What if he took a prescription drug that had caused this behavior. In 2009 some guy took an ambien then tore off his shirt and started threatening other passengers on a flight to England. Should he have been fired too? Would this teen also be kicked off the team if an Ambien had caused this behavior?

I think he should face some serious repercussions for drinking but not what he's getting.

[Ginger Tea]

AFAIK you cannot bring your own booze into the cabin, so he, or a team mate was served, if he himself was served lets hope he had some really good fake ID.

If a team mate gave him the booze, then s/he are responsible for him getting drunk in the first place, he is also responsible for getting himself drunk and everything he did afterwards, but without someone else giving him the means, we would not have had this incident.

Now I don't know all the details to the peeing in public = sex offenders register, which states, is it the worst case or the absolute minimum etc. Nor do I know the differences in the law regarding the same incident on a domestic flight, but if it was the same and plays out how I'm led to believe, then it didn't matter if he peed on her or not, it was the public peeing that would land him with the charge, If she was 8 or 80 male or female, it matters not, she was just unfortunate to be peed on, or in another report, next to the puddle. The charge of public urination (on the ground) gets you this sentance, in the air well I have no idea. and even if it was a wall and not a person, still public urination.

edit

I think he should face some serious repercusions for drinking but not what he's getting.

This post wasn't up when I started typing this.
It's not the under aged drinking thats the problem.
It's not that he pissed on a girl thats the problem, although to the passengers it is.

If the law in the air is like the law on the ground, he has landed himself on the sex offenders register just for getting his dick out, let alone what comes out of it, in public and get caught doing so.
If he was tripping balls and stood on his chair and dropped trou and started waving his hips around yelling "Watch it dance!" he would still be exposing himself, eevn if there were no children present on the flight, he would (if like ground law) be disqualified from working with children and even being left unsupervised with children, this also applies to people whos 'crime' had nothing to do with children.

And also, can someone say if the law regarding this is or is not the same as on the ground as I think it was a domestic flight not international.

[Hyena Dandy]

I think its clear that, yes, everybody makes mistakes, and yes, the sex offender registry is a bad system. But honestly, this guy is at fault. Not everyone is at fault, and I'm not sure why he chose to pee on a girl (it might not have to do with hating women, there are all sorts of reasons he could have) but in the end, it still comes back to HE PEED ON A KID. That is NOT APPROPRIATE. I wouldn't call him a monster, he's not necessarily one of the worst people alive, but I can't honestly believe that people are saying we should let him get away with that. Maybe he thought nobody would notice and the bathroom was full. Maybe he just likes peeing on people. It depends. But he's old enough to know right from wrong. Its on him. And he without a doubt should be punished for it.

Maybe he should get another chance. Maybe not. Depends on why he did it. But I think without a doubt that, at the very least, we can say he fucked up THIS chance. He should be kicked off the team. Perhaps he can try again another time, I don't know everything that was going on in his head. I definitely don't think he deserves to die or anything like that. But he still needs severe punishments.

[jackfaire]

What it all boils down to for me is that your average 18 year old kid isn't going to have the experience to know what alcohol does to a person and isn't mature enough to deal with it.

They also don't live in a bubble. I knew what alcohol does to a person by the age of 13. Simply by the things I learned in Health class, TV shows appropriate to my age, etc I knew what the affects on teens were. I turned 13 in 1993. Unless he lives in a bubble he knew.

[kibbles]

I don't think he should be beaten to death. I can guarantee you, though, if that had been my niece that he peed on and I had been there, he would have been beaten to death, or damn close to it. At that point, my objective logic would have gone flying right out the window as launched myself at him. Since it was not me or my niece, I can be more objective, though, and agree with you that that is not what should happen.

I totally understand this statement and understand anyone reacting to something as it is happening in the moment What has gotten scary is how people totally removed from the situation cannot remain objective and instantly turn vigilante.

I definitely think he deserves punishment because it was his own actions that brought on these consequences.

[jackfaire]

What has gotten scary is how people totally removed from the situation cannot remain objective and instantly turn vigilante.

Yeah those people suck we need to track them down right now and punish them!!!

[Nyoibo]

One thing he may not have counted on is that alcohol effects are increased at altitude, not an excuse, but he may not have realised how fucked up 6 drinks would get him.

[jackfaire]

One thing he may not have counted on is that alcohol effects are increased at altitude, not an excuse, but he may not have realised how fucked up 6 drinks would get him.

I would say six drinks of what. If it was six drinks of something that wouldn't normally get you that smashed fine but if it's like Everclear then yeah.

[Evandril]

The big thing is, as an Olympic team member, you are an ambassador for your country, an as such, are held to a higher standard. Heck, as an Active Duty member of the military, if I'm overseas, I will get punished more for doing something dumb than I would stateside, because it reflects badly on the United States as a whole, and we are briefed that we represent the USA in all our actions. I find it incredibly hard to believe he was not told something similar. At 18 years old, you should know that alcohol affects your behavior, and makes you more likely to do something ill-fitting an ambassador, and therefore *NOT DRINK*. Even if he'd have been able to hold it just fine, if he was caught drinking, that's breaking the law, and an action unbecoming of a member of the US Olympic team...That, in and of itself, would be enough to remove him from the team. The fact he showed why people don't feel 18 year olds are mature enough to drink just adds highlighting to the point. Is this really the type of person we want to show as a hero to the youth of today? Do we want to give young kids who idolize the Olympic team the message that it's ok if you break the law, as long as you're an athlete? There has been noone posting here who has said they would NOT have lost their job if they'd have done this, why should he get a free pass, just because he literally pissed away his dreams?

[Jester]

Actually I think there were two. Someone served him the alcohol. He made the concious able minded deision to have the first drink probably the second and maybe the third and I'll even stretch it to the fourth, but after that point some able minded bartender made the concious choice to continue serving him. I would be interested to know if his ID was checked. It would also be interesting to see if he had any recourse under dram shop laws.

There may be someone else to blame, there may not.

As someone who started drinking at 17, and who drank for four years before I was legally allowed to do so, I can tell you straight out that there are a lot of ways to get alcohol, and not all of them involve a bartender.

Hey may have smuggled his own booze aboard. Not at all that tough, really. He may have been supplied the booze by an of-age teammate or friend purchasing it in the airport or on the plane. He may have had a very good fake ID.

Yes, I'm a bartender, so I'm going to defend the bartenders here. But this is not merely a point of professional pride, it's something that has to be examined. Yes, a bartender or server may have served this minor, and/or overserved him. But even when every alcohol service personnel does their job, underaged people WILL still get alcohol. And WILL still get fucked up beyond their expectations. Just like any other law, there are ways around alcohol laws. And I'd be willing to be that this athlete exploited one of them for his own selfish desires, i.e., getting drunk. And thus brought about these results.

And even if there WAS a negligent or incompetent server, bartender, or flight attendant, in the end, the person MOST responsible for this numbskull's actions was, of course, himself.

What it all boils down to for me is that your average 18 year old kid isn't going to have the experience to know what alcohol does to a person and isn't mature enough to deal with it.

As a legal adult, though, whether he knows it or not (and as many judges have said, including at least one to me, ignorance of the law is not an excuse), he IS responsible for his actions, and his actions were drinking to excess and then draining the main vein in public on an airplane. As a legal adult, he must be held as accountable as any other legal adult would be for the same actions.

So we as a society have decided that a person isn't mature enough to drink until 21, this person was able to acquire alcohol before he was 21 and wasn't mature enough to deal with it and we are all shocked and amazed he did something stupid.

We as a society have also determined that once people have reached their 18th birthday, they are legal adults, and should be held responsible for their actions.

And by the way, I was neither shocked nor amazed that an 18-year old dumbass drunk did this. Not a bit.

I think he should face some serious repercussions for drinking but not what he's getting.

He is facing two different things. One is legal. I have no idea what the courts will determine is the appropriate punishment for him. Frankly, I think a fine and/or community service would be appropriate.

The other one, which may be bigger to him, is the team's reaction. Not his teammates, but the people who govern the team, as they can remove him, either permanently or temporarily, from the team. This is not a legal decision, it is a team decision, and most such teams have in their by-laws that they can remove a team member from the team for actions detrimental to the team, including impugning their reputation, as he did.

Personally, I think he absolutely should be thrown off the team, and with prejudice. To do less would be to send the worst message to athletes and those who look up to those athletes, such as children. "That's right, Virginia, it's wrong to whip out your pecker on a plane and whiz all over the place....but if you're a talented athlete, it will be overlooked, and you'll still be able to compete." Athletes have been reprimanded and removed from teams for far less than this nonsense.

The big thing is, as an Olympic team member, you are an ambassador for your country, an as such, are held to a higher standard.

I find it incredibly hard to believe he was not told something similar.

I guarantee you that he was not only told something of this nature, he probably read something similar and/or signed something to the effect that he would not do anything to make the team and/or the nation look bad, as he IS a representative of both.

I find it remarkable that there are people who think he should be held to a LOWER standard than what any average person would face if they were caught doing the Yellow Airborne Lambada. "But he's worked so hard to get where he is." Well, then he shouldn't have been such a fuckhead, huh? And by the way, there are a lot of average people, i.e., non-elite athletes, who have also worked damn hard to get where they are (myself included, for the record), and if they did something this BONEHEADED, they'd face equally serious repercussions.

Should we stone him to death? Clearly not. Should he be put on a sex offender registry? I don't believe so. Should he be removed from the team and face some legal consequences? In my opinion, absofreakinglutely.

[Eisa]

He should be thrown off the team. That was beyond fucked-up stupid.

[Shangri-laschild]

The big thing is, as an Olympic team member, you are an ambassador for your country, an as such, are held to a higher standard.

I agree. Plus he was traveling with the team from training. As far as I'm concerned, especially given the public face that this kind of career has, he was on the job. If your average person suddenly peed on or next to a child while on the job, I'm having trouble seeing why the people in charge of their employment wouldn't have every right to fire them.

This was his dream. And he had to have understood that this would mean a certain level of making sure to behave well in public. I would be surprised if there wasn't actually something in their contract about it even. Yet he decided to risk it by drinking. The fact that he was willing to risk everything by drinking, let alone getting more than just slightly buzzed says a lot.

It's lucky that he just thought that he was in the bathroom and had to pee. If he had been attempting to go to the bathroom to jack off instead? And saying he's only 18 and doesn't know any better doesn't really cut it. What if an 18 year old gets drunk and drives and someone dies. The 18 year old was too drunk to realize that he shouldn't be driving and he didn't hit the person on purpose. It doesn't matter. They are still held accountable. Just because in this case no one was physically hurt doesn't change the idea that if someone does something they should be held accountable for it. If he didn't have enough experience with the effects of alcohol then drinking on the plane especially as a public figure was a dumb move at all.

[lordlundar]

To the people saying his punishment was too light, remember Nagano? For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here goes:

After the US Men's hockey team was eliminated by the Czech team, three players proceeded to trash their rooms and cause various forms of property damage. The punishment included being barred from the presidential meeting awarded to all USA Olympic athletes and no Olympic ring, also granted to the athletes. This in effect rendered that the country, if not the world, refused to acknowledge their efforts. As far as is concerned, the US Men's hockey team did not compete in the 1998 Olympics.

Now all that said, had this incident occur BEFORE their final loss, I am quite sure that the entire team would have been disqualified, kicked out of the Village, and sent home within 24 hours. And I'm quite sure that their arrival home would not be met with happy smiles and good will.

My point is, when you do something like that when you represent someone or something other than yourself, you taint not only your own image, but that of which you represent.

[Ginger Tea]

Gerard Depardieu does something similar and the world goes meh.

Luckily it seems no one was urinated on, but aside from being turfed off the plane, no one seemed to care past the initial shock of it happening.
I have no idea on French law re this, but I'm guessing you don't have the threat of the sex offenders register hanging over you for public urination over there, but a famed actor (well semi famouse outside of france) just gets booted off the plane, gonna seem light in comparison.

Maybe he's like Oliver Reed, after a while more famous for his antics than anything else, so this would not harm his career at all judicial rulings notwithstanding., if he was a new actor, he might find work drying up due to this.