‘Barefoot Bandit’ Deported to the U.S.

[depakid]

Source: NY Times

Colton A. Harris-Moore, the teenager known as the “Barefoot Bandit,” was deported to the United States Tuesday evening, just hours after pleading guilty to a single count of illegally landing an airplane in this island nation, a State Department official confirmed Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because authorities did not want Mr. Harris-Moore’s arrival time in the United States disclosed.

Mr. Harris-Moore’s two-year spree, which allegedly included stealing planes and boats and made him an Internet anti-hero, ended with a shootout and a boat chase here on Sunday night. Authorities had threatened to charge him with several crimes, including illegal possession of a firearm, but in the end, he faced just one minor charge and was ordered to pay a $300 fine. Earlier, his lawyer had said the American embassy would pay the fine. Mr. Harris-Moore potentially faces many more serious charges in the United States.

Wearing a clean pair of white sneakers, a “Bahamas” T-shirt and several fresh mosquito bites, Mr. Harris-Moore, 19, had been met with bemused approval by the crowd at the courthouse here. Some spectators said he was “a smart young man” and urged him to hold his head up high rather than ducking it to avoid facing a gauntlet of news cameras.

A courtroom orderly said in an interview that he had asked Mr. Harris-Moore how he taught himself to pilot the planes and boats that he reportedly stole during an escapade that took him from the Pacific Northwest to this Carribean island. Mr. Harris-Moore said he had known how since he was young, said the orderly, who was not authorized to talk to the press.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/us/14barefoot.html

[RandomThoughts]

1. LOL.

Luckily everything isn't about me, I think most of that stuff is about rules applied back.

Note the paradox :)

[maxsolomon]

2. O Happy Day! Now Vengeance will be ours!

What liberal will be the 1st to wish him gang-raped in prison?

Who will contend that crimes against property are equivalent to violence?

What state will impose the harshest judgement?

[Archae]

5. I don't want him gang-raped.

But he is nothing but a petty little punk, who sure as hell doesn't deserve anything from now on except to serve his sentence in jail. That's all.

After?

That's up to him.

[maxsolomon]

11. do you know what the term "punk" originally meant?

it meant a man who is regularly raped in prison.

[IrishBuckeye]

9. Seems to me crashing a plane could put the public at risk

And when you steal a car how do you know the person who owns it doesn't have a medical condition and might need it in an emergency? This punk went around and only thought of himself.

[maxsolomon]

10. but it DIDN'T hurt anyone

that is the point. sure, charge him with reckless endangerment, but you can't charge him with assault.

i'd recommend you read up on him before you say he "thought only of himself" - the Outside and Rolling Stone articles are insightful. the kid, and he is most definitely a kid, is trying to save his mom from herself. a fool's errand, but it's not 100% self-absorbed teenage selfishness.

[Paladin]

3. Incoming Polanski Whiners In Three...Two...One.... (n/t)

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Paladin]

6. Prove It. (n/t)

[proteus_lives]

7. You already did in my previous OP.

[AlphaCentauri]

8. some one will make a movie about him n/t