A belt buckle that can get your kid killed
Anyone raising a teenage boy, listen up. There are fashion trends, and there are stupid ideas that will get you shot - by a thug or by a cop.
The belt buckle you see here is an example of the latter: The Monroe County Sheriff's Office sent us a news release about a 17-year-old Stock Island boy who was on the business end of a deputy's pistol because he was wearing a belt buckle that looked just like a gun. There's a little more to the story, but fortunately the teenager was sharp enough to follow instructions and the deputy was careful enough to refrain from firing his weapon.
But whose brilliant idea was that gun-shaped belt buckle?
I was one of the first reporters on the scene of the Amadou Diallo shooting in New York 10 years ago. He was shot at 41 times by cops who thought he had a gun (turned out it was a wallet). It was a tragic end to a good life.
A gun-shaped belt buckle isn't tragic: it's poor and dangerous judgment (and that's putting it diplomatically).
Both the teenager and the deputy are okay, but in an era when law enforcement officers are second-guessed for everything they do, I don't know too many people who would have questioned the deputy if he had decided to shoot.
And a life could very easily have been lost.
Over a belt buckle. Is looking tough really worth that risk?
I don't know who deserves the most criticism here: the people who made the belt buckle, the people who sold it, or the people who bought it? I wonder if this kid's parents can shed some light on this: I know I didn't run my fashion choices past my dad when I was a teenager in the Bronx, but I also know what he would have, um, "said" to me if I came home wearing a gun-shaped belt buckle.
Your thoughts?
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Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 15, and Lily, 7, and is married to a journalist, Bob Norman. She covers Broward County government, which is filled with almost as much drama as the Norman household. Almost.
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