COMMENTARY | A judge in Syracuse, N.Y., gave what may have seemed like a harsh sentence to a 15-year-old teen for his part in the robbery of an elderly man. According to the New York Daily News, Anthony Stewart faces two to six years in a juvenile detention center and will be considered a felon for the rest of his life.
Stewart and his cohort only netted seven cents from their crime. The boy’s lawyer, Laurin Haddad, commented, “For 7 cents, now you’re making someone a felon for the rest of his life.”
The amount of money that was taken in the crime might make it seem like Stewart’s punishment is too severe. However, the way the crime was perpetrated was likely more of a concern to the judge when he handed down the sentence.
Stewart and his friend, Skyler Ninham, were carrying BB guns that resembled real revolvers when they knocked an elderly man to the ground and broke his glasses. They were probably dismayed to find out the man had only seven cents in change on him, and didn’t even have the decency to leave that.
Crimes against the elderly seem especially heinous to me — probably to most people. The man wasn’t able to defend himself against two strong teenagers, and the incident must have been especially humiliating for the victim.
To attack a vulnerable senior citizen is no doubt one of the cruelest of inequities. A 15-year-old is old enough to know what he is doing, and he surely realized that injuring his victim by throwing him to the ground could potentially even cause his death.
Taking advantage of a weaker person in order to make a selfish gain shows the way Stewart’s brain works. His punishment of two to six years will hopefully come with intensive counseling, or he is likely to return to the streets as a grown man who will be capable of doing more harm once he is outside the walls of his cell.
It breaks my heart to see this type of crime, as it truly goes against the moral foundation of human beings. Our elderly should be honored and respected for their wisdom and experience, but the unfortunate fact is that crimes against our senior citizens are increasing every year.
The judge in this case against the Syracuse teenager made a good decision. If it stops just one teenager from committing a crime against a person, elderly or otherwise, that will be one less victim subject to a heinous act of cruelty.