AZ - Timothy Romans, 39, & Vincent Romero, 29, slain, St Johns, 5 Nov 2008 - #1

[Trino]

It isn't child neglect. I don't agree with this post and please don't presume to speak for me in the future.

It is very common for children this age to own and use guns. The whole world isn't raised in an apartment complex.

In MN childen as young as 10 yr old may legally hunt with a parent present. Obviously, a kid doesn't turn 10, then get a gun. I would guess a MN kid has been firing (or owning) since age 8.

No state permit is required to possess a shotgun, rifle or handgun in AZ, although tt is unlawful to sell or give to a minor, without written consent of the minor’s parent or legal guardian, a firearm or ammunition. We can assume the grandmother gave the gun to her son who then gave it to the boy. Nothing the father did was illegal.

 

[twinkiesmom]

It isn't child neglect. I don't agree with this post and please don't presume to speak for me in the future.

It is very common for children this age to own and use guns. The whole world isn't raised in an apartment complex.

8-year old gun owners are not common or normal, even in rural areas.

The folks I know who hunt only allow their children access to the weapons under adult supervision. The kids are carefully trained, and the guns stay locked up when they're not hunting.

 

[Kymistry35]

8-year old gun owners are not common or normal, even in rural areas.

The folks I know who hunt only allow their children access to the weapons under adult supervision. The kids are carefully trained, and the guns stay locked up when they're not hunting.

It's normal where I live. All of my little cousins (even the girls) have guns and go hunting. Most of them have been shooting since they were 5.

 

[MsPooh]

"There is a request that you be detained in the juvenile detention facility, down on Main Street, during the remainder of these proceedings. The hearing today is to determine whether or not it is reasonable to believe you did what you are charged with - not sufficient proof to hold you responsible, but reason to believe and be concerned that you have done what you are charged with." When Rocca asked the young defendant if he understood what he had just heard, the boy indicated he did."
(from above article posted by Trino)
http://www.wmicentral.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20190155&BRD=2264&PAG=461&dept_id=505965&rfi=6

I don't see how an 8 year old can understand all that. It's a lot to process especially when asked right away..

I'm a grown woman and I had to read this twice...how in the world do they expect a 3rd/4th grader to understand all that? I hope his attorney is kid friendly.

 

[MeoW333]

It's normal where I live. All of my little cousins (even the girls) have guns and go hunting. Most of them have been shooting since they were 5.

The gun didn't kill anyone the boy did. Most children who have grown up shooting guns don't kill people.
There is a lot of information i wish we were privy to as to why the boy would do this. Being that he had a hunter background; he knew what death was and that he could cause it.
What would lead him to do such a drastic thing?

 

[MeoW333]

I'm a grown woman and I had to read this twice...how in the world do they expect a 3rd/4th grader to understand all that? I hope his attorney is kid friendly.

I had to read it twice myself; for an 8 year old child to hear it it's got to be very hard to understand everything word for word; no matter how articulate he may be.

 

[Linda7NJ]

I think 5 swats for an 8 year old forgetting papers is extreme...forgetting is a normal part of being a child and can be disciplined effectively by taking away tv/video game time.

If this is the punishment for forgetting papers, what happened when he got caught doing something serious?

This child doesn't have a discipline record at school because he probably was disciplined at home to "perfection".

Since he didn't shoot the stepmom, it seems more apparent to me that this was about living with his biomom....he probably didn't know she wouldn't take him.

IMO tv & video games should be used on a VERY limited basis anyway. While I myself would never spank my kid for the above, I don't have a problem with another parent doing so.

 

[Linda7NJ]

What if he was made to drop his pants?

Again, I wouldn't do it.....but it's within his father's legal rights to do so.

I disagree with the father's decision to not do it himself. As his father, it was HIS job to dole out any punishment he thought the kid had coming

 

[Linda7NJ]

It isn't child neglect. I don't agree with this post and please don't presume to speak for me in the future.

It is very common for children this age to own and use guns. The whole world isn't raised in an apartment complex.

Agree 100%

 

[OrdinaryLife]

I will still wait for someone to prove to me that an 8 year old has the capability to plan a murder and understand the the cost of such a plan. Grown adults aren't this good when it comes to such a crime.

There is more to this. I will not convict a child given what has been shared regarding this story.

 

[southcitymom]

So very sad that in this country...an 8 year old can be tried as an adult for murder. Why is it that in these cases it can be viewed as an adult decision and punished accordingly. But as for anything else in this life, why is it that, up until a certain age ...15-16 to drive..18 to use tobacco...21 to drink..16 "age of consent"..and many other age milestones, before we are considered mature enough to handle adult situations? Maybe I am just overthinking this.

I sure don't think you are overthinking this.

An 8 year old is a very young child and should, under no circumstances, be charged as an adult.

 

[southcitymom]

http://www.kpho.com/news/17946277/detail.html

snip:
Additionally, the attorneys said nobody has stepped forward to take custody of the boy.

"We've got an 8 year-old client who is sitting in a detention facility who needs someone to take him home, and we haven't found that person," Wood said. "The stepmother didn't want to take custody of him. His mother hasn't taken custody of him.

That's the saddest thing I've read in a long long time.

 

[Salem]

I can not believe an 8-year old child would do something like this out of the blue. There has got to be more to the story. And if there is not, it is going to shake up my whole way of thinking.

Many children are taught to hunt and even to use firearms as sport and they don't kill people. This case is especially puzzleing because of the shooting of the renter. The boy did not have to call him inside. The boy could have gone out the back door. It does not sound as if the renter heard the shots although I am not positive about that. We don't know everything he said to his wife on his way into the house.

Yes a gag order is only going to frustrate me in getting details. I want to know exactly what is going on with the biomom. If she has started a custody change and is now backing off, I want to know why. I want to know exactly where she was at the time of the shooting and I want to know everything she said to this child when she was out there to visit him. I have a feeling she plays a big part in all of this.

Salem

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Again, I wouldn't do it.....but it's within his father's legal rights to do so.

I disagree with the father's decision to not do it himself. As his father, it was HIS job to dole out any punishment he thought the kid had coming

I don't agree with that, Linda. When two people come together in marriage both should have the right to discipline the child if needed. If not it leads to the step parent being excluded as a part of the family. It should never be "his child" or "her child" imo.

When I married by husband I had three children and he had two. We both were intricate parts of their upbringing and raising. While neither one of us spanked our children very often we both did discipline them and both of us had on occasion spanked one of the children if it was warranted. We did not just do this with our own bio children but all of our children and they all learned there was no exclusions in our family and each was treated the same by both parents.

Maybe the father knew he was too upset to spank the child at that time so the stepmother did.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I can not believe an 8-year old child would do something like this out of the blue. There has got to be more to the story. And if there is not, it is going to shake up my whole way of thinking.

Many children are taught to hunt and even to use firearms as sport and they don't kill people. This case is especially puzzling because of the shooting of the renter. The boy did not have to call him inside. The boy could have gone out the back door. It does not sound as if the renter heard the shots although I am not positive about that. We don't know everything he said to his wife on his way into the house.

Yes a gag order is only going to frustrate me in getting details. I want to know exactly what is going on with the biomom. If she has started a custody change and is now backing off, I want to know why. I want to know exactly where she was at the time of the shooting and I want to know everything she said to this child when she was out there to visit him. I have a feeling she plays a big part in all of this.

Salem

They did mention that somewhere but I have forgotten where now. But it seems the father was murdered upstairs near or on the stairway and the door was closed at that time then the boy opened the door and began to call the coworker of his dad's to come in the home. From the article that I remember reading they said the gunshots would have been muffled inside the home.

I do believe the neighbors heard the gunshots though when the coworker was shot and murdered on the porch close to the front door.

imoo

 

[colette]

“I don’t believe he did this,” said the mother, Erin Bloomfield, 26, who has shared custody of her son with his father, Vincent Romero, 29, since the couple divorced six years ago. She said she talked to the boy every week and visited an average of once a month, driving the 20 hours to St. Johns from her home in Mississippi.

Then she goes on to say her son is normal except she noticed a distance lately...

Whenever she spoke with her son, Ms. Bloomfield said, “I had to go through Tiffany,” a reference to his stepmother, Tiffany Romero. “Tiffany would always sit there while he talked to me on the phone, and after a while, he became more and more distant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/13child.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=us

Someone mentioned why didn't he wait and kill his stepmother... Well maybe that was part of the plan. Since he had to shoot the roomer outside the house instead of inside and he could not move the body, plans changed.

 

[MeoW333]

“Tiffany would always sit there while he talked to me on the phone, and after a while, he became more and more distant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/13child.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=us

Dang his step mother could have been a lot more obliging and gave him some privacy to talk on the phone to his mother.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

“I don’t believe he did this,” said the mother, Erin Bloomfield, 26, who has shared custody of her son with his father, Vincent Romero, 29, since the couple divorced six years ago. She said she talked to the boy every week and visited an average of once a month, driving the 20 hours to St. Johns from her home in Mississippi.

Then she goes on to say her son is normal except she noticed a distance lately...

Whenever she spoke with her son, Ms. Bloomfield said, “I had to go through Tiffany,” a reference to his stepmother, Tiffany Romero. “Tiffany would always sit there while he talked to me on the phone, and after a while, he became more and more distant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/13child.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=us

Someone mentioned why didn't he wait and kill his stepmother... Well maybe that was part of the plan. Since he had to shoot the roomer outside the house instead of inside and he could not move the body, plans changed.

So his father had been the custodial parent of him for 6 years. He sure waited a long time to remarry.

I don't see anything wrong with her remaining in the room. My step girls use to talk to their mom and my kids talked with their dad on the phone. If we were in the room we didn't leave, we just went about our business doing whatever we were doing in the room before the phone call.

imoo

 

[oceanblueeyes]

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/...11108-divorce-details-2x-murde.1a37a0964.html


Now 3TV sheds new light on the love this father had for his little boy. The papers show that the father fought in court to keep custody of his son. He also fought to make sure his son went to church and was not exposed to things like second-hand smoke. He writes that his son was a “preemie” with underdeveloped lungs and every time he visits his mom he comes home hacking.

Romero also writes about how she allowed a total stranger to blow smoke in his ear thinking it would cure an undiagnosed ear ache and he writes that for a year and a half his ex-wife lived in Mississippi and saw her son a total of about two weeks.

Romero complains she lived in a travel trailer without plumbing and she "shacked up" with her boyfriend in Springerville. The papers are dated two years ago but since the deadly shooting six days ago the mother has been at her son's side in St. Johns, a tiny rural eastern Arizona town taken by storm.

One resident says, "My heart breaks for the child because I don't believe that he realized the consequences of his actions and he probably took the life of maybe somebody who loved him most and most dearly."

 

[colette]

“Tiffany would always sit there while he talked to me on the phone, and after a while, he became more and more distant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/13child.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=us

Dang his step mother could have been a lot more obliging and gave him some privacy to talk on the phone to his mother.

We only have the mother's story on that...besides she thinks he didn't kill anyone too.
(And she thinks blowing smoke in the kid's ear cures earaches.)