- 7/4/2025
A look at violent crimes committed by young children centers on a Richmond, California case in which a 6-year-old badly beat an infant neighbor while stealing a tricycle from the infant's home.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Thanks.
00:07Hey Brent, my name is Steve.
00:11And you know what?
00:13We need to talk about some things, okay?
00:16The first thing I want to let you know is that nobody here is going to beat you up,
00:20nobody here is going to hurt you,
00:22nobody here is going to do anything like that to you, okay?
00:25You're safe. All we're interested in doing is finding out the truth.
00:29In the spring of 1996, in the juvenile interrogation room,
00:34police sat down to question a six-year-old.
00:37They would later charge the boy with the attempted murder of a one-month-old baby.
00:43The six-year-old kicked, punched, and beat the baby with a broomstick.
00:47An attempted killer.
00:48There's literally no hope for the baby right now.
00:51Everyone involved is stunned.
00:54It was a case that shattered the very idea of childhood.
01:04How could someone so young be so violent?
01:09Some neighbors had described the boy as mean and a troublemaker.
01:13Very, very bad.
01:14He was the victim of a broken home, allowed to run the streets.
01:17He was not an evil child.
01:19And police say showed no remorse for the beating.
01:21He was mean sometimes.
01:23Can you show me how you kicked the baby?
01:25Show me.
01:27The crime set off a national debate.
01:33Should the six-year-old be treated as a disturbed child or punished like a criminal?
01:39Good morning. I'm Ron Owens. This is KGO.
01:41He should be put away permanently if necessary because he is a danger.
01:45I don't think the kid knows exactly what he was doing.
01:47You've got to do something with this child.
01:51This is not an anomaly.
01:53This is, in some ways, a very classic case.
01:55We've seen a big downshift in the age at which people are committing murder.
02:01And over the past year, I think the statistics would show that there's something like 100 children under the age of 10 who have been charged in some way with murder.
02:11Can you show me how you hit her?
02:13Like that three times?
02:17Okay, so you hit her like that three times after you kicked her two times.
02:21Then what else?
02:27Funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
02:33And by annual financial support from viewers like you.
02:39This is Frontline.
02:43It all happened in Richmond, California, near San Francisco, in a poor neighborhood of blacks and Latinos, called the Iron Triangle.
03:11It began with a six-year-old boy who wanted a big wheel, the favorite tricycle in his neighborhood.
03:21Late on a hot day, the boy's grandmother led him out to play while he waited for his mother to come home from work.
03:29The six-year-old was soon joined by eight-year-old twin brothers who were being watched by their older sister, Roxanne.
03:39The day that this incident happened, it was my birthday, so I came home from work, which was 5.30 or something like that.
03:47And they was in the house, and it was hot outside, and I told them they can go outside.
03:55They was good, normal kids. I mean, I ain't saying they was perfect kids, but they was normal kids.
04:01Over here! Ricky!
04:03Down the street, the three boys were spotted by a neighbor, Ophelia Stringer.
04:09Rick!
04:10I was sitting on my porch. It was an average day, you know, everybody sitting outside, kids playing.
04:16Get the ball back!
04:18You know, we were just sitting there. We saw them playing out all day.
04:22Later, outside this apartment building, another neighbor saw one of the boys hiding a big wheel tricycle in a bush.
04:30Suspicious, he rushed inside where he discovered a baby, bloody and unconscious.
04:36He ran outside and started screaming at the three boys.
04:40You know, they ran down here, and they were like, um, I didn't, you know, it wasn't me, it wasn't me.
04:47Because, you know, of course you react to a man coming outside yelling at you, and adults are going to ask questions like,
04:53what did you do to make a man react like that? And they were just like, I didn't do it, I didn't do it.
04:58But I didn't do it, and laughing, laughing and joking, and they ran up and down the street.
05:02And then when they saw the police, they got scared, and they ran in the backyard of the twins' house.
05:12Ignacio Bermudez and his wife had left the baby with their older daughter while they went shopping.
05:21I saw a lot of police by the house, and people were gathered around the house, right?
05:25And then, then I got closer, and I asked the children, what happened?
05:29Your boy, they said. They hit him.
05:32But all my children are here. It's not my child. All my children are here.
05:37I never, I never imagined it was my youngest child.
05:42Bermudez rushed to the hospital, where his month-old baby boy was in critical condition with severe head injuries.
05:52A little while later, my wife arrived. She was crying by then, and she tells me.
06:03Nacho, she says. They're saying that the boy was hit.
06:07They say he was hit really bad with the stick, they say.
06:10No, that can be. That someone would hit a child. A child doesn't do anything, right?
06:21I got near him, and I told him, you're going to get better. You're not going to die.
06:27I want you to come home with me. He just blinked his little eyes.
06:31I touched his face and his feet, and he shrunk away.
06:40As the baby clung to life, the people of the Iron Triangle gathered to pray for his survival,
06:47and to wonder how this could have happened.
06:49The Richmond police knew exactly who they were looking for.
07:08The next day, they picked up the three boys.
07:10How you guys doing?
07:15Captain Ray Howard headed the investigation.
07:18We weren't prepared. Nothing had prepared us for anything like this, because it never had occurred.
07:23We had no idea exactly how we were going to handle this thing.
07:29We knew what we had, but how do you handle it when it involves a suspect or suspects this young?
07:35The police videotaped their interrogation of the boys.
07:44This is the first time those tapes have been seen.
07:47Detective Daryl Jackson started with the eight-year-old twins.
07:51They were giving different stories, or minimizing their involvement in the incident itself.
07:58One child initially told us that he never went inside.
08:05Another stated that they just took the bike and he left.
08:10And then one of them put everything off on the other.
08:15So you walked into the bedroom?
08:17Yeah.
08:19Okay, so you did go in the bedroom.
08:20You talk to one kid.
08:21You may or may not believe everything he is telling you.
08:25But you take it and you set them down off and then you go back with the rest of them.
08:30And you bring someone else in.
08:32Listen what that person has to say.
08:34And you say, well, so-and-so just told me this.
08:37Your brother told us earlier today that you were actually standing in the room with him when all this was happening.
08:45I wasn't in the room.
08:47Your brother said you were.
08:49You can't forget what you're involved in.
08:51You're still on a fact-finding mission.
08:53And as police officers, you have hearts.
08:58Some things you see you want to break down and cry, but you can't.
09:01Because you have a job to do.
09:02And if you don't do your job, it doesn't get done.
09:05I'm not going to talk to you again.
09:08Huh?
09:10I'm not going to talk to you again.
09:12I'm going to give you one chance to tell the truth.
09:13And when you walk out that door, that's going to be your last chance.
09:17The twins finally confessed that they were in the apartment, but said it was the six-year-old who had beaten the baby.
09:23Look at me.
09:25Are you telling me the truth, Orla?
09:27The truth?
09:29I don't believe you.
09:30I want you to tell me the truth, okay?
09:32He looked like a six-year-old.
09:33He didn't look like and didn't act like a child who could commit this kind of an act.
09:44He looked like a kid who I might have taught in a Sunday school class, you know?
09:47How many times did you kick the baby?
09:50Kicked the baby around the head four times?
09:53Did you punch the baby, too?
09:55How many times did you punch the baby?
09:58About seven times?
10:00He tried to state that he just thought I was a doll.
10:02She didn't believe that it was actually a baby.
10:04Whether I believe that or not, I don't know.
10:06Can you show me how you kicked the baby?
10:08Show me.
10:10Just two times?
10:12Show me again.
10:13Show me how you did it.
10:15I'm still not convinced that these kids knew the gravity of what they were doing.
10:28To this day, I still don't believe they knew how they did it.
10:34I'm still not convinced that these kids knew the gravity of what they were doing.
10:39To this day, I still don't believe they knew how bad the situation was in terms of what they did to that infant and what they did to themselves.
10:51This six-year-old boy invaded basically another person's house and mercilessly beat an infant.
10:58And we have a responsibility in the interest of public safety to try to do something about that.
11:04And that's what we're trying to do here.
11:06Yes.
11:07The prosecutor, Harold Jewett, decided to charge the six-year-old with attempted murder.
11:13It doesn't matter whether you're six or you're 106.
11:16If you do something that hurts somebody else with knowledge of the wrongfulness of it, you're responsible for it, period.
11:22Bring your brother inside.
11:24Did he do it?
11:25I knew a different kid than I heard about in the news, where he was portrayed as being a sort of a menace to society or a danger because of his, you know, they were worried about his impact on society, which I just found incredible.
11:37Um, that wasn't the kid that I knew.
11:40Are you a monitor?
11:42Marco Gonzalez is principal of Lincoln Elementary School, where the six-year-old attended kindergarten.
11:47What is going on between the two of you?
11:48Look, he got my brother like this and squares his neck and tomb down.
12:03I've seen other kids who kind of show a more, sort of a little more mean streak in them, a little more apt to react strongly to somebody else.
12:10You know, if somebody pushes me, I'm going to turn and hit him.
12:13In fact, I didn't see him hit you, but I saw you hit him. You hit him right in the jaw just now.
12:18But that wasn't his nature as I knew it. He wouldn't necessarily turn around and say, was that an accident?
12:23But he wouldn't turn around and slug you just because you might have run into him.
12:28I guess I thought of him as a normal kid.
12:30Hyperactive, a little bit, uh, a little bit over energetic.
12:34He liked to draw attention to himself, kind of goofing around, being a little bit of a class clown.
12:40Come on, you guys, go playin' around.
12:42But the boy did have some problems at school.
12:44Tests showed that he was mildly retarded and had to repeat kindergarten.
12:49Room seven. You're the point person. The monitor.
12:53I don't believe a six-year-old understands the concept of life and death like we as adults know it.
12:59So I don't think that a six-year-old in this particular one understood that what he did could lead to the death of a child.
13:09Did he believe he was able to, maybe able to shut the kid up because the kid started crying?
13:14Because the baby bassinet was apparently knocked over?
13:15And now there was a tip-off that they were in the house that they didn't belong in, looking for a tricycle or Hot Wheels?
13:23Yeah, you know, I could believe that.
13:26But that he went in there with an intention to kill a baby?
13:29No way. I just, I just don't think it's possible. I don't believe that that's what happened.
13:37In the Iron Triangle, most of the neighbors agreed with Gonzalez.
13:47He was a nice kid, happy, you know, always looking for something to do, always looking for somebody to play with, you know. Average.
13:57But there were signs of trouble.
14:03All the kids used to play during the day and stuff, and sometime when it came to evening time, when all the kids, you know, the doors were closing up and down the block, kids were being called in for dinner, he would kind of be, kind of left out.
14:16But he would just walk on along, probably to the next house or the next block, because I'm quite sure he had more friends than just on this block. But later in the evening, when the kids did go in, he would be, just continue his journey.
14:31One evening, just days before the beating, the six-year-old showed up at the Bermuda's apartment.
14:36One day he came to the house, it would have been around 8 or 8.30 at night, with a stick in his hand, like this. There were all of us talking in the living room. He knocked on the door, so he opened the door, and he got in like this, and went running with a stick in his hand, saying, the police, and I'm going to kill him.
15:00It was a boy playing, of course, right? And I told him, boy, go home.
15:07This is a child who is presently in kindergarten, and this is on his second time in kindergarten, and he has had testing that suggested he is a kid that is in need of a lot of help.
15:19John Burris, a noted civil rights attorney, offered to represent the six-year-old pro bono.
15:25What it was like to have a six-year-old child as a client was the most challenging experience I have ever had, because the hallmark of representation is the ability to communicate with the client,
15:43the ability to get some understanding of what the case is, the ability to talk to you about it.
15:50And the challenge we had here is that we had a six-year-old that we couldn't talk to.
15:55I never got an account of what happened. Not that I didn't try. I tried. Every session, in some way, was designed to get back to the event.
16:07I was on the floor with him. He was in my lap, and I read to him, played toys with him. I did all those things, but not successfully.
16:19What's the truth? I want to know the truth.
16:22The boy's mother was present during some of the questioning.
16:24Look, look. Stop lying right now. Do you understand that? Stop lying right now. What happened?
16:32Lisa was 26, a single mother, and a part-time childcare worker.
16:37Look at me and tell me the truth right now. Did you hear the baby crying?
16:42Court records would report that the boy had been neglected, and characterized the mother as a well-intentioned but inadequate parent.
16:49Why did you knock the baby crib over? You did it on purpose, didn't you?
16:54My instincts were that this was a decent lady who was trying to do the best she could with what she had,
17:02and that she wasn't a woman who maybe was abusive, a drug addict, et cetera, et cetera.
17:09That what happened, happened, but it wasn't a function of this boy not having a mother.
17:13The six-year-old never knew his father, a drug dealer from another part of Richmond.
17:27When the boy was four, his father was murdered on the street, shot six times in the head.
17:33And the issue was, how much of that information did the kid know?
17:37And the kid did know that his father had died violently, but the kid also fantasized about it.
17:43He thought that he was present, and that he had seen it.
17:46One truth of the matter is he had not seen anything about the kid's, the father's death.
17:50And that was symbolic of this child's state of mind.
17:55He played fire, you know, the Transformers and the Mutant Ninja Turtles and hitting with sticks.
18:06I used to watch it. He could do this for hours and hours and hours, and I think this was, whatever you want to call it, rage.
18:12You know, loved sticks, loved hitting. Not people, not animals, things.
18:18He'd pound on this brick until it was, you know, pulp.
18:23Archie Anderson is the boy's great uncle.
18:27He had to get totally exhausted.
18:29But like he was angry that way.
18:30Oh, very angry. Got every reason he wanted to be.
18:32If he ain't angry, then he ain't paying attention.
18:35Yeah, he's very angry.
18:38My grandnephew should have been seeing a shrink the day he was born.
18:46The boy lived here in this house with his mother and grandmother.
18:50A house where crack was plentiful.
18:53You know, you had some situations where my nephew, they'd be over there getting ready to get high, and he'd be in the house, and they'd say, go outside and play.
19:00Man, it's 9 o'clock at night.
19:01Play with what?
19:039 p.m.
19:04It's a school night.
19:05This kid's standing outside on the sidewalk, don't know what to do.
19:07The six-year-old always called Anderson Uncle Skeets.
19:13He says the boy's grandmother, his own sister Phyllis, was a crack dealer with a violent temper.
19:19His grandmother, Phyllis, was off the hook, as they say out here.
19:22He'd yell and scream over anything.
19:24Ah, violent.
19:26No shit.
19:27You motherfuckers will get out there.
19:29You know, no cut right to the bone arguing with you.
19:33You know, no holds back.
19:34You know how you don't want to say, you just, you know, none of that.
19:37She just sliced you right up.
19:39Uncle Skeets says the boy's mother, Lisa, didn't use drugs, but she brought a series of violent boyfriends into the house.
19:49Brandon role modeled himself after Lisa's boyfriends, who all split her lip, put her in battered women's homes, you know, choked her, you know, threw glass at Brandon, you know, yelled at him, you know, tied him up.
20:05And all this, Lisa didn't either believe was happening or wasn't aware of what was happening until after the man would be out of the scene.
20:14I can't, I can't tell you how many men that Sam, her brother, touch him again, I'm going to kill you.
20:26Skeets says that given all the drugs and all the violence, it was inevitable that his nephew would get in some kind of trouble.
20:33The number one rule of the game in Richmond is, ain't no rule.
20:38It's the number one rule. There are no rules.
20:41I don't have to do anything for y'all to have to, you don't have to trust me.
20:44I can lie, cheat and steal and that's okay.
20:47And that's how it works out here.
20:49And that's what my nephew, that's what my nephew got exposed to from a diaper.
20:54We're learning more and more about what produces violence in children.
21:04Typically there would be, the child himself would have witnessed violence.
21:09The mother might have been beaten herself and the child would have seen this.
21:13Or that somebody would have beaten the child, whether it's the mother or the father or a live-in boyfriend who would have beaten the child.
21:22And this sets an example for the child. The child models their own behavior on this.
21:27See you later. Bye.
21:28Fox Butterfield is a national correspondent for the New York Times.
21:34He specializes in the criminal justice system.
21:37Another thing which produces violence in kids, which is somewhat surprising to us, is if a child has a father who's in prison.
21:46This too can be a kind of powerful, if perverse, example.
21:51And the child starts to fantasize about the father, even the absent father, and wants to emulate him.
21:58And we know that that now can influence the child.
22:03In fact, about half of all kids who are locked up in juvenile reformatories around the country today,
22:09have fathers or other close relatives who have been previously incarcerated.
22:16Criminologists like to talk about risk factors.
22:19The more risk factors that you have, the greater the probability of something going wrong in your own life.
22:26And this boy seems to have had virtually all of them.
22:30People from the Bay Area were shocked by the six-year-old's brutal assault on the baby.
22:42But it was not the first time they were confronted with the horror of childhood violence.
22:4625 years earlier in San Francisco, in a basement in the Fillmore District, police had discovered the battered body of a 20-month-old baby boy.
23:02The body was found on a crucifix. The feet and the hands and the neck were tied.
23:08The boards were not joined at the intersection, but it has the appearance of a crucifixion type of a homicide.
23:14When the body was found, the baby had already been missing for five days.
23:21Police discovered that the baby was last seen with two young boys.
23:25The boys were brothers, seven and ten, and they soon confessed to what came to be known as the crucifixion murder.
23:33There was some play going on according to them. The infant was struck accidentally with a brick.
23:45We believe that the boys panicked, struck him again repeatedly and to stop his crying,
23:51kept their hands over his mouth until, what they described, he stopped breathing.
23:58They then took him over to another end of the sub-basement, removed his clothing and tied and wired him to a wooden cross.
24:07And then put a rope around his neck and tightened it.
24:14It gets hard when I have to, you know, talk about it or, or that the thoughts or images come to me.
24:31It's, it gets really hard to put those away.
24:34But they're still there. I mean, I'll, they'll, they'll be there for the rest of my life.
24:40This man we call Bobby was a ten-year-old killer in the crucifixion murder.
24:46To protect his privacy, we have altered his appearance.
24:49Bobby still remembers the day 25 years ago when he and his younger brother Billy were playing in the park.
24:56I saw this kid playing by himself and went over and, and played with him for a little while and, and then we asked him where his mom was and didn't quite get an answer.
25:13So we took him by the hand and started walking around and we asked a few people and nobody knew.
25:18About a block and a half away we had a little spot that me and Billy had been to a couple of times.
25:27It was a, underneath a building. It was kind of like a fort area, I guess.
25:35The baby started crying and, and we tried all the ways that I could think of to try to get it to stop crying.
25:45And I think eventually I just started to get mad that it wouldn't stop crying.
25:51I tried to use physical violence to make it be quiet. I think I slapped it and it got worse.
26:00I started getting more physical and more violent.
26:05And where was Billy while this was happening and how was he reacting to this?
26:11I think he didn't know what to think really at first and I think seeing his big brother doing this probably felt like this was the thing to do and, and joined in.
26:30At that point when I saw a bruised baby and it wasn't moving and the only thing that I can think of was, you know, I really didn't mean to do this.
26:45I didn't want this to happen. And I don't remember being very religious, but I, I felt like this was the only thing to do.
26:54And it was along the lines of resurrecting. You know, I wanted, I wanted it to be undone.
27:01I wanted that the baby back alive. I wasn't absolutely sure it was dead, but it wasn't moving and it wasn't bruised.
27:09So I put it in a cross formation and what I hoped.
27:18I hoped the baby would come alive.
27:21Yeah.
27:22Despite the horror of the crime, the baby's mother said she forgave the young killers and hoped they would receive the therapy they needed.
27:3425 years ago, the public's mood was equally forgiving, but a lot has changed.
27:39Society has definitely become more punitive over the past 25 years with kids in particular.
27:47We are trying more children as adults in adult criminal courts. We are giving them longer sentences.
27:54We are faced with more and more very violent children and we're uncertain how to deal with them.
28:02We have not found very good answers and it's profoundly scary.
28:07How to do it, you can't hide! We charge you with genocide!
28:12How to do it, you can't hide! We charge you with genocide!
28:16In 1996, the prosecutor's decision to charge the six-year-old with attempted murder set off a public protest.
28:25Harold, do it! You can't! Harold!
28:29The attempted murder charge also ignited a debate among legal and mental health professionals
28:35about what to do with the six-year-old.
28:37From the prosecutor's point of view, he wanted what we consider to be a finding,
28:42a determination in the criminal side of the juvenile justice system that this boy had committed a crime.
28:49That's what he wanted. And he wanted to be able to do that and to use it in a political way
28:55to show that he was tough on crime and regardless of the age of the person, they were going to be punished in his court.
29:04I felt it was important that the other kids in his neighborhood or wherever he is living be protected from him.
29:10He has a complete lack of remorse, at least he did during this time, and a history that suggests that there's no impediment to his re-offending.
29:20And it was clear that something had to be done before somebody else got hurt.
29:25We had a kid in trouble. That meant to me that you don't punish the kid in trouble like he's a criminal.
29:32What you then do is how can we address ourselves to that need.
29:37We're here because we need to find out the truth. We don't want to hear any more lies. We hear lies every day.
29:42As the case proceeded, the performance of the police also came under scrutiny.
29:47When the videotapes were brought to my office and I had an opportunity to review them,
29:53and review them in the context of legal significance, I was really shocked.
29:58Shocked in the sense that this young boy was being interrogated by seasoned police officers as if he was a 20-year-old.
30:08There was no real effort made by the police agency to give due recognition that they were really talking about a six-year-old.
30:17Are you going to want to tell me the truth? Good. Before I do, I need to tell you some things, okay?
30:22He was not being overbearing in any way. It was not my impression at all that he was trying to intimidate or otherwise coerce in some sense of the word any information from the kids.
30:36And I thought they did a great job.
30:40Do you know what a lawyer is?
30:43That's somebody who will help you and represent you in court and things like that.
30:48And your mom knows what a lawyer is, and since she's here, I'll tell her too.
30:52That you have the right to have a lawyer with you before and during any questioning.
30:55We all recognize that one of the most sacred principles that we have here is called the Miranda warnings, that a person cannot be compelled to give testimony or even talk without a clear understanding of his legal rights.
31:08Well, Miranda requires that it's a voluntary waiver and a clear understanding of what those rights are.
31:14There is no way in a snowballing hell that this six-year-old ever understood what his legal rights were.
31:21And at any point, anything, he would only nod when the weight and the presence of the law was on him.
31:28Do you want to tell me the truth? Can you say yes or no? With your mouth instead of your head?
31:34The central question in the case would become whether the boy was competent to stand trial.
31:41The juvenile court judge decided to appoint three mental health experts to answer that question.
31:47One of them was Dr. Martin Blender, a forensic psychiatrist who reviewed the police videotapes and spent an hour with the boy at Juvenile Hall.
31:57I must say, in truth, I was surprised after I completed my assessment to find a six-year-old competent.
32:05My bias going in was, this is ridiculous. How can a six-year-old be competent to stand trial?
32:11How could he have even understood what he was doing, no less, what a trial is all about?
32:15But the kids watch television, they watch the cop shows, they watch the lawyer shows.
32:22They may not watch them like they watch Sesame Street, but kids are tremendously aware these days.
32:28So this kid certainly was aware that he was in deep trouble and that there were certain procedures that were likely to befall him.
32:36The other experts, including Dr. Edward Hyman, a child psychologist, disagreed.
32:44There's a real question in my mind, not in terms of soft, humane factors, but rather just in terms of what developmental studies tell us about children.
32:56Whether a six-year-old should even be involved at any level in juvenile justice system.
33:04To elucidate that, I turned to a gifted six-year-old and asked him what might happen to him if he had done something very, very wrong.
33:16He said, you mean like killing somebody? I said, yes.
33:18I said, yes. And he turned to me and he said, I'd have to go to the principal's office for a really long time.
33:28Even when we turned to a very gifted child, a child in understanding this understood that it was wrong,
33:37but really didn't have the specific understanding of the magnitude of transgression
33:44or how we as a society react to something that we call attempted murder.
33:51He understood that society considered what he had done wrong, which is why he's being locked up in juvenile hall.
33:57He knew the judge's task. He knew his lawyer was there to help him.
34:02He knew the prosecutor was going to gather the evidence against him.
34:05And he understood that if things didn't go his way, he might not go home to see his mommy for a long, long time.
34:13So despite his juvenility, I felt that he grasped the essentials of what a trial proceeding was,
34:21why he was going to be tried, and what the penalties might be.
34:25He attributed a level of communications with the boy, and even about me, that was preposterous.
34:34It was a flat lie.
34:36Because, and to be kind, what he did was suggested all the answers.
34:41And the kid undoubtedly had to nod, and then he put it in the news, in the report, seemingly.
34:47And I could say this because I said it in court.
34:49The kid did not have a conversation about who I am and that I was going to take care of him,
34:55that I was looking out for his rights, all the things that I said in court, because it didn't happen.
35:00To that day, as I told the court, the kid referred to me as Mrs. Burris.
35:04He didn't have a clue that men are Mr. and women are Mrs.,
35:09and he had no clue that Mrs. Burris, as he referred to me, was a lawyer.
35:14So how could he say he was looking out for him?
35:17And so, for this person to come back with a report that suggested that he was competent,
35:24really offended any notions of professionality.
35:28And I said so.
35:31What's up, Paul?
35:35While the experts argued about what should be done with the six-year-old,
35:39he remained locked up in a juvenile hall unit with 19 other offenders, most of them teenagers.
35:45Walt!
35:46Guard Walt Parker took a shine to the boy.
35:50Most of the time, the six-year-old, most of the time, he would call me Mr. Walt,
35:54or he would, every once in a while, the kids called me Swamp Dog.
35:58He couldn't really say Swamp Dog. He would say, hey, dog, hey, dog.
36:02In the exercise yard, the six-year-old liked to play catch with Swamp Dog.
36:09If you started throwing a football with him, you had to throw it mostly for 30 or 20 minutes without stopping
36:14because he wanted to show you that he can catch every pass you throw to him.
36:18He enjoyed that.
36:20We were always surprised, frankly, how happy he was.
36:24But it was a very strange signal. I mean, most kids who are 15, 16, they go to Juvenile Hall,
36:29they're like whining and crying if they're the first time out of the box.
36:33But not him. Not him.
36:37My opposition to Juvenile Hall, though, was rooted in the fact that he was the youngest kid there by six or seven years,
36:45and that he was there with older kids and learning about things that older kids are talking about.
36:52He really got into the genre of teenage kids liking each other and girls and boys,
36:58and God knows what else he was learning there.
37:05But there was one thing the six-year-old didn't like.
37:08At 10.30 each night, he would be locked up in his cell until the next morning.
37:14He hated it. He hated it.
37:17I couldn't see myself locking him up and knowing that he was going to cry.
37:21But once, like, after about two weeks, he got kind of used to it,
37:25and every once in a while, what we would do, we'd pull the door,
37:28and we wouldn't lock it all the way, and he would open the door and look out and say,
37:31you didn't lock my door. He wants to play with you.
37:33And then we'd kind of lock it a little bit and tell him it's time to go to bed now.
37:37He was a likable little man. I kind of took him out there, and he was my son.
37:42The boy remained locked up for two months, while the experts argued over the proper diagnosis for his mental condition.
37:49He had a somewhat ominous track record even before he committed this.
37:57He was something of a bully back at school, fascinated with guns.
38:02He drowned the family cat, set some fires, had some bed-wetting problems.
38:07All characteristics of individuals who later on, at the age of 18, 19, 20, commit a series of crimes,
38:14finally get to the scrutiny of folks like me, and then are definitively diagnosed anti-social personality.
38:21Can you tell me why you punched the baby and why you kicked the baby?
38:28Because I decided to.
38:30He injured the child simply because, quote, I decided to.
38:35It's the Himalayas. It's Mount McKinley. I did it because it was there.
38:39Can you show me how you put the baby on the floor?
38:42I felt that he was a psychopath in the making.
38:47I certainly have never used that term before.
38:50But this young man was so evidently suffused with all of the findings that, when they fully blossom later in life,
38:58would call for this diagnosis that I was comfortable in talking about him having a nascent sociopathic personality,
39:06or a psychopath in the making.
39:09I was able to make the diagnosis here because I had seen so many sociopaths over the years.
39:14I can almost smell them.
39:16Did you decide to because somebody had hurt you?
39:21One element that emerged in this case was the suggestion that a six-year-old could be diagnosed as a psychopath.
39:31And from the perspective of science, this is one of the most ludicrous assertions that we can contend with.
39:40Not only is this a determination for a child absolutely forbidden by all the research,
39:49contraindicated by all the research in development,
39:54but forensically, to think that this could be generated by an hour-long or even a two-hour-long interview is the height of abuse.
40:08What do you do with a six-year-old like this?
40:12One thing that works is you sequester them so that they no longer have a society to attack.
40:20There are obviously a variety of ethical and moral and psychological reasons why this may not be a good or permanent solution.
40:29But it's very tempting to make sure that they don't have the opportunity to do the kind of damage that we know they will be capable of.
40:37There's no doubt in my mind that we can effectively influence the life of any six-year-old, the most violent six-year-old included.
40:48And to desist from this, to reject that challenge, to turn away from that child is, I believe, very, very abusive.
41:02Can very young and very violent children be helped? Can they change?
41:08Like the six-year-old in Richmond, Bobby and Billy grew up in a tough neighborhood.
41:13They, too, were physically abused and neglected.
41:16After the crucifixion murder, the brothers received two years of therapy and were then returned to the custody of their mother.
41:23Bobby is now 36 years old.
41:26People change. People with the right direction can change in the right direction over time.
41:36I'm a productive citizen. I'm doing well as a father. I'm doing well as a worker. I make a living for myself and my family.
41:48I, I stayed out of trouble with the law. I know that I've, I've got control of myself enough and I know myself well enough to, to know that I would never harm anybody like that again.
42:07A thorough search of the record confirmed that Bobby has been a law-abiding citizen since the murder.
42:13But his younger brother, Billy, was a different story.
42:16Billy had appeared in juvenile court repeatedly on a variety of charges.
42:21As an adult, Billy committed four felonies.
42:24Two of them were for the physical abuse of children, including his own three-month-old son.
42:30Billy spent two years in prison where he sought treatment for drug and alcohol problems.
42:36Billy's a, he's a good person. I mean, the core of him is a good person.
42:43Um, he's just headed down some wrong roads here and there.
42:51Um, I can't really say what's really different about our lives.
42:58As far as, as far as, as far as how he handled the past, I know it probably had a, a deeper effect.
43:13Is it, well, it definitely had a different effect on him when he was younger.
43:17But our environments were similar enough.
43:21Uh, what's, that's the hard question.
43:25I really don't know how to, to say why.
43:29I think Bobby and Billy represent where we are.
43:34Which is that, I mean, there's, some can be changed and some children obviously can be saved.
43:39And that's the wonderful hope. And some it's very difficult to save.
43:43And we still don't know precisely why.
43:46Can you show me how you kick the baby?
43:49Show me.
43:52Generally, as a, as a rule of thumb, the earlier the kid starts,
43:56and the more, uh, violent the, the, the offenses that the kid commits at that early age,
44:02the more difficult it's going to be to change them.
44:05And the more offenses they're likely to commit later.
44:09He was not ever going to get the kind of help he was going to get.
44:12And probably the, probably one of the things that maybe there is a God in the spirit world.
44:16Because it, and God forgive me, I'm very sorry what happened to that, that, that kid, that baby.
44:22I mean, it, it, it, for the life of me, I'd give my right arm for all this not to have happened.
44:27But you know something? The positive is, it got that kid out of this community,
44:31and it might have saved a whole family's life one day when he was 16
44:34and decided to climb through somebody's window.
44:37Us two, and three are five.
44:39Uncle Skeet says he wasn't surprised by his nephew's brutal attack on the baby.
44:43He says it was not a question of if, but when the boy would turn violent.
44:48Every adult male member of my family has a police record for assault.
44:53And then when he caught his beef at six years old, I said, oh my God.
44:57This covers every adult, every male in my family from 80 to six.
45:01Every one of us have at one point in our lives assaulted somebody.
45:05We have done GBH, GBH to somebody, great bodily injury, GBI.
45:10Every male member of your family from the age of 80 to down to six years old,
45:17has shot or stabbed or assaulted somebody, including me.
45:21The problem, for me, stems from my conviction that this sort of character disorder,
45:31and certainly a character disorder of this early severity,
45:35is probably largely genetic.
45:38What's this?
45:40There is something to be said for the phrase natural born killer.
45:44It's my view that most of what I found was predestined by his genetic endowment.
45:54He was born that way.
45:57I believe he was born that way, yes.
46:00I don't believe there's any scientific evidence that there is a genetic basis for violence,
46:05that there is such a thing as a natural born killer.
46:08Perhaps someday science will get there, but we're certainly not there yet.
46:13However, there is some evidence that biology as opposed to genetics may play a role.
46:21You showed me earlier that you punched her face.
46:24Is that where you punched her all three times?
46:26Right here.
46:27For example, a boy like this boy, watching his mother be beaten or himself being beaten,
46:35that that kind of environmental stress can actually produce a biological change in the boy,
46:41can have some effect on a child's brain.
46:45So it's not nature versus nurture.
46:48It's not one or the other, it's a combination of the two.
46:53The boy's mother and family friends came to court for this crucial ruling
46:57on whether the six-year-old is competent to stand trial for assault.
47:03After two months of psychiatric debate and legal maneuvering,
47:07the judge finally ruled in the case of the six-year-old.
47:11He said the boy was not competent to stand trial and suspended the criminal charges indefinitely.
47:17But he also ruled that the boy should be removed from the custody of his mother
47:21on the grounds that she had provided inadequate supervision.
47:25The boy was transferred to a group home for disturbed children to receive intensive therapy.
47:30You know, I'm glad that he's getting help that he needed and he's not, you know, locked up like a criminal,
47:37which he isn't, you know.
47:39And, you know, get the help that he needs so he'll be able to come home soon, you know, when he gets better.
47:46But the prosecutor said he would still press charges if the boy were later judged competent.
47:52We are not looking to just, you know, separate this child from his mother out of some base desire to hurt him or something.
47:59We want to help him.
48:01But I'm persuaded based upon everything that I've read that it's counterproductive to return him back to home
48:09when he so desperately needs a professional assessment and influence in his life
48:18that apparently he didn't get or didn't want while he was still living at home.
48:24And I don't think you can do that overnight.
48:25I think it's a long, slow, brick by brick process that will take years.
48:31And if years go by and we see progress, and it may be at that point, we'll say,
48:35OK, there's no further good that can come out of continuing this criminal prosecution.
48:41And justice dictates that we let it go.
48:44But it's going to take years before we reach that point in my mind.
48:50It doesn't end the case, but it does give me what I want to get done,
48:54and that is that he gets treatment, he gets help, and sort of away from the glare of the publicity,
49:01away from everyone asking questions about it, and for the treatment to go forward.
49:06And that's what's happening now.
49:08Bundled in a blanket, fast asleep in his mother's arms,
49:12two-month-old Ignacio Bermudez Jr. left Children's Hospital in Oakland today.
49:17Doctors say the baby's condition is stable enough to allow Ignacio's parents to take care of him.
49:23The areas that have been damaged are permanently damaged, and he has had a severe brain injury,
49:29and multiple areas of his brain on both sides of the brain have been injured.
49:32A year later, the baby's condition hasn't improved.
49:40He still can't sit up and suffers from seizures.
49:44The doctors fear he may never learn to walk or talk.
49:51Maybe he's going to be like that all his life, you know.
49:58It's going to be sad for him like it would be for us.
50:03And sometimes it makes me want to cry.
50:06And I cry, see.
50:07But there's nothing you can do.
50:09It's total sadness.
50:11Despite the tragedy, Mr. Bermudez says he forgives the six-year-old boy who beat his son.
50:23He doesn't want the boy prosecuted and hopes he receives the therapy he needs.
50:28My wife and I were already suffering more than enough with our son.
50:36I don't want to see anyone suffer for their son.
50:39Even the son who hit my child, I don't want him or his mother suffering,
50:44because I think that what we were already suffering was enough.
50:49The prognosis for the six-year-old is also guarded.
51:00After nine months of intensive treatment,
51:03therapists report he is only now beginning to talk about the physical abuse he suffered.
51:08And so far, they say, he hasn't responded well to therapy.
51:12Given the severity of his disorder, I tend to be pessimistic that we're going to make enough of a change
51:23to substantially improve his chances of leading a productive life.
51:33I think the kid can be saved.
51:35I'm confident that we can put him on the right track so that he can be a good citizen as he grows up.
51:41But we know it's a long process. The kid has suffered a lot.
51:46Suffered in ways that probably are unimaginable for us to think.
51:51And so we have to undo that.
51:55I continue to hold hope for Brandon T., just like I was holding hope for Ignacio Bermudez.
52:02That he will come around.
52:04And I don't want to contend him by saying, no matter what we do, he will kill again.
52:09Time will tell, I guess.
52:20Check out Frontline's website and join the discussion on kids' violence and crime.
52:25Find resources there for parents and families.
52:28There's a Q&A forum with national experts about what puts a child at risk.
52:33And can a violent child be saved?
52:36Read the interview with the psychiatrist of the six-year-old.
52:39Profile of a treatment center handling troubled children.
52:42Explore Frontline online at www.pbs.org.
52:54The mailbag was full after our program, The Fixers.
52:57A report on influence peddling and shady fundraising by an Asian-American couple on behalf of the Democratic Party.
53:04Here's a sample.
53:05Dear Frontline.
53:06As a lifelong Democrat, I am ashamed of my party for resorting to the tactics inscribed in your broadcast.
53:12Unfortunately, there is no mention of similar tactics used by the Republicans in the same election.
53:18Frank Heber.
53:19Another Democrat was offended enough to complain to the President, and he sent us a copy of that letter.
53:24Dear Mr. President.
53:25Here's an excerpt.
53:26But there were a few comments like this one.
53:40Dear Frontline.
53:41Whatever the lumps did, or any other donator for that matter, does not change the fact that this country is fortunate that Mr. Clinton is again our President.
53:50Please give him the credit he deserves for all the hard work he has done to pull this country out of the pit we fell into before its presidency.
53:58Jana Shree.
53:59And then there were some viewers who felt the program unfairly targeted Asian-Americans.
54:03Dear Frontline.
54:04This one-sided racist skateboarding must stop.
54:06The trash you broadcast tonight's disguise as, quote, journalism, unquote, was just another in the endless stories which single out Asian-Americans for scrutiny not enjoyed by the major campaign contributors who truly do influence policy in this country.
54:19Let us know what you thought about tonight's program.
54:21Let us know what you thought about tonight's program.
54:22Well, we loved it.
54:23Let's go.
54:24Let's go.
54:25Let's go.
54:26This comes.
54:27Give us a hug.
55:57For videocassette information about this program, please call this toll-free number, 1-800-328-PBS1.
56:08This is PBS.
Recommended
38:20
|
Up next
1:24:47
4:40
47:03
1:57:58
57:55
1:27:42
57:56
57:45
56:50
56:45
56:48
56:46
56:43
55:54