Note To Youthful Idiots: Grow up 

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted from an article that appeared in The Record on Feb. 7.

MARCH 2007 -- To those teenagers and young adults (we use that word with hesitation) who participate in sideshows, scrawl graffiti on walls, fire gunshots from cars, gang bang and take part in so-called pranks.

You are idiots.

You are depraved.

You are the cretins of society.

Many of you are criminals.

You aren’t cool, hip or even hyphy. You aren’t part of a serious group dynamic or acting out of a sense of belonging. You can’t be so blind as to claim there’s nothing else to do in Stockton.

We’ll be succinct: Grow up.

A crescendo of miscreant behavior by young idiots scarred Stockton one weekend.

• Friday night: Occupants of two vehicles exchanged gunfire on Ninth Street in south Stockton. A parked car was sideswiped and a vehicle crashed into two fences. Two teenage gunshot victims were found nearby, and another arrived at a hospital soon after.

• Saturday night: In the upscale Brookside subdivision, four teenagers poured gasoline across sections of Spanish Bay Circle and then called security guards. The teens ignited columns of flames in front and behind the two security guards while chanting racial epithets (one guard was Asian-American, one black). They also tossed a Molotov cocktail.

• Sunday morning: One man was killed and another injured in a shooting during an argument at a sideshow near Arch Road and Frontier Way. That brought the death toll to three (one an innocent bystander who was hit by a stray bullet) in sideshow-related incidents. Stockton, unfortunately, has become the epicenter for these illegal traveling parties that feature dangerous driving stunts as part of the Bay Area hip-hop subculture called hyphy. Such activity has been banned or very strictly policed in Bay Area communities such as Oakland. The trouble has been migrating east.

We’re quite certain others were busy with their spray-paint cans defacing businesses, soundwalls, fences and any other freestanding easel for criminal artwork.

Do you really want to be part of this dynamic?

Are you ready to spend time in jail?

Are you confident you won’t take a bullet the next time you fire a gun or ignite gasoline around law enforcement personnel?

Are you going to be the next person to have his skull crushed in a sideshow mishap?

This certainly isn’t intended for all teenagers and young adults in the Stockton area. Most of them are transitioning responsibly into adulthood.

There are many who go to college, learn skills through vocational education or computer training and get jobs.

They volunteer for groups or churches, help tutor fellow students and reach out to the community’s needy.

They “play” in a responsible manner, bonding with friends at nightspots, movies, sports events or in their neighborhoods.

They don’t make excuses or act out their frustrations and immaturity with publicly dangerous behavior. These young people should be thanked and emulated.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish in life when you don’t act like a criminally irresponsible idiot.

Think about that. And grow up. Now.

Sincerely,

Your Community