The story of a stranger accused of lashing a young boy in a Figtree park after the boy reportedly ran into his dog has angered many Illawarra Mercury readers over the weekend.
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Our website and social media have lit up with comments, shares and angry faces after we reported that an eight-year-old boy – who has autism – had been marked by the metal end of a leash.
He told police – who are looking into the alleged attack – that he was was riding his bike through Roy Johansen Park when he collided with a black and white dog.
Then according to the boy’s mother, the little boy was “whipped across the back with the metal end of the lead” by the dog’s male owner.
The resulting picture – of a deep red outline of a metal clip branded on an eight-year-old’s back – is shocking.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that our story, and the original Facebook post shared by the boy’s mother Kristina Judge, went viral.
But – given the unnecessary violence that sparked this story in the first place – it is a surprise to see some of our readers expressing views that more violence may be the answer to this situation.
“The police better find him first before anyone else because others would string him up,” one man wrote on Facebook.
“I would do more than whip him when I found [the] creep who did this to my kid,” a woman said.
Others wrote the man would “have two broken legs if I found him” or that they “hope they find him and flog him”.
Amid this online fury, it’s worth taking a breath and heeding the boy’s mother’s own wishes that “vigilante justice” should not occur.
Other surprising reactions were from readers who sought to justify the idea of hurting a child in the case that – they said – “the kid hit the dog on purpose”.
It seems impossible that, in 2017, there are still people out there that believe there are any circumstances which would warrant this type of violence towards a child.
Police are now investigating, and hopefully we will soon be able to report that this story has run its course.
But in the meantime, it’s worth remembering that, just as whipping a child and leaving a big red welt – no matter what chain of events leads up to that act – is always barbaric, chasing down strangers to act out violent revenge on such an act can also not be justified.
