Warning: This post contains coarse language and other things that some readers might find offensive.
A couple days ago we reported one of our routine crime stories, which included the arrests of three teens from West Boca High. Two of them were Tommy Covella and Joey Lutz, who responded to the article by posting comments on Facebook. Their responses, along with comments from others, prompted this editorial.
Their comments didn’t start off that bad:
While Covella claimed he was innocent in the above comment, he’s still not helping himself. As any lawyer would tell you, you should not be making public comments about your arrest. It’s not going help your case. It also doesn’t help you with the public when you use coarse language and, as Lutz did in his comment, say that you’re laughing about it. Getting arrested is not funny.
Mr. Covella and Mr. Lutz: When I was your age and we got caught doing something wrong, we didn’t shoot our mouths off in public about it. We were embarrassed. By the way, I was your age once and my friends and I did do things we shouldn’t have. But we were mostly smarter about it than you and never got caught for anything anywhere near this serious.
Of course it got worse. Covella contradicted himself in a mini-rant:
Here Mr. Covella admits he had a weapon on him, asserting that it wasn’t nunchucks but rather brass knuckles. Why would you admit that you had a weapon on you at all? That doesn’t help your case.
Next Covella decided to threaten us with legal action. Since posting it Covella deleted this comment and a couple others, but not before we took screenshots:
We had a similar experience when we wrote our Spanish River Thugs article. And we previously wrote an article about why we will continue to cover crime stories on West Boca News.
But this is the kind of moment that led to this editorial and its headline: How Stupid Are You?
Mr. Covella, if you had read the whole article you might have noticed that I am a lawyer. I am not impressed when teen criminals offer their opinions about what’s illegal. You make yourself look like an idiot when you say stupid things like this.
If you made the extra effort to do a little research about me you’d realize you want me on your side. I’m a criminal defense lawyer. The way you’re going, you may need someone like me at some point in your life.
In another now-deleted comment, Mr. Covella tried to talk tough:
This one has a lot in it. First of all, nothing we said was false. We report the facts as we find them. We asked Mr. Covella to let us know what was false and he had no response. Second, we’re not telling “random people”. We are telling our readers, most of whom live in West Boca.
Now, to the meat of it:
Mr. Covella, four kids smoking pot in a van is not a team. I’m not hiding. My name is on the article – in three places. And manly? You have no idea what it means to be a man. A man takes responsibility for his actions. A man stands by his family and supports them – he doesn’t embarrass them like you’re doing now. Getting caught smoking pot in a van with your friends doesn’t make you manly.
Lutz and others used a variation of the “N word” in their comments:
Are you kids that clueless? You don’t say that word publicly. Maybe you can say it with your friends while you’re smoking in the van. But you say it in public and it makes you look like stupid racists. Shut up!
For more on the use of the word, here’s a video with Charles Barkley and Shaq:
As for Ms. Rodgriguez’ comment, a lot of people seem to care. Nearly 5000 people have read the article so far. No one is acting like they murdered someone. We just had that with the murder at Jimmy the Greek. We get the difference. Do you?
We had a comment on our website that was similar to hers:
Dear John: Yes it’s news. And no it’s not “real gay” to write a story about it. Gay? You sound like another prejudiced moron. Get a vocabulary. Use higher level language. Call it “pedestrian.” Look it up – it has another meaning besides a person walking. And while I personally agree with you that driving after marijuana is not particularly dangerous, saying that doesn’t help your credibility with most readers.
Cinn’s comment was another inspiration for the headline:
“Are you dumb or something?” No Cinn, you’re the dumb one here. Getting arrested is a big deal. With all the stupid things I did as a kid, I never got arrested. Lutz is charged with a felony. That’s a really big deal.
Stuff like this does happen all the time. Fortunately it only seems to involve a small segment of the population. Being in that group is a bad place to be.
The last comment of note came from Mr. Trevor Evans, who wins the prize for stupid:
Mr. Evans, publicly threatening a journalist with violence violates two Florida statutes: Stalking and Assault, and as a result you may be getting a visit from PBSO in the near future. A man was arrested for making a joke on Twitter that a reporter took as a threat back in December, and what he did is less than what you just did. You also just made yourself the first suspect if any harm should come to me. And to top all that off, you just gave a George Zimmerman defense to anyone who shoots you.
Let’s all hope for Mr. Evans’ sake that we don’t read about him in the Darwin Awards next year.
There’s a moral to this story:
1. Don’t commit crimes.
2. If you ignore #1 and get arrested, your mugshot and story will probably appear in West Boca News or some other media.
3. Don’t talk publicly – or even privately – about any of it unless your lawyer gives the okay.
