My question- why did she have to park in a lot on the strip? The strip is a small part of LV. It's an area to cater to tourists. Just like a beach, they are not going to let you sleep in a car, it scares the tourists and makes the area look seedy. Why not go to the airport or a local walmart and park and sleep, if you are that desperate for sleep? It was 6:30 at night, why so sleepy then?
If she had a federal job with the forestry, why doesn't she have it now? Most people who get these jobs, unless they move up in the world, keep them for life (said a current federal employee) or they get an issue, like alcohol or drugs and lose the job.
If you are this broke, why go for a name change? It has to cost something.
She posts photos of the Eiffel tower at Paris hotel in 2013, tries to change her name to Paris, then does this in front of the same hotel. what's up with that? Someone she know work there? She got some big dreams about Paris???
I also have something to say about the 'she had no options/no family assistance/there should have programs to help her'.
The gov't is not our baby sitter nor our mama. Pick your self up and make life happen. As long as you sit, no lay, and cry for someone to do it for you, you are not living. And for God's sake, don't bring a child into your misery, it's definitely not fair for that child. Nobody's life is perfect, and effort is required.
All MOO and thoughts.
Reasonably safe (!) did a quick spell check !
Now that is what I call "tough love".
I felt compelled to say it again - not condoning her behavior, but it is easy for media to talk a lot about "motivation" when they have no clue what the disenfranchised life experiences are.
I do , I worked with them clinically. The system designed to give them a boost so they can try to get out of the water to avoid drowning (which is exactly what poverty is like - quicksand) was designed by legislation that are clueless about how "undo able" the help is
We can say some do - great!
That is also a uniformed conclusion - the majority cant. Some people can make it to the Summit - most cant.
A homeless 18 year old , with little education and support, has few skills to care for herself much less an infant. No money to abort if she wanted to.
Homeless, with an infant in high school, is a pretty steep mountain
and if we look at her specifically she did tremendous - she did get up and moving lets not forget that.
and then something occurred (I keep speculating incest, cause of the cops use of the word "uncomfortable" with releasing a piece of info.
That can be a pretty traumatic trigger, if it occurred, for relapse. Reporting it requires contact with LE, possibly being afraid of perp (if this is a reality here) ...did the only thing she could thought she could do- get her loved one from harm and fled.
Not all that thought out .now in Los Vegas, now what do I do.
If we look at her, she lived in a valley, climbed a mountain, stayed on the mountain for a period of time, and a boulder rolled her back down - at 24 with a three year old.
What productive comes out of the media just hating on her. Same thing happens over and over - focus on the person that fell down, with rage, instead of trying to figure out what obviously failed in terms of a scoety.
Am I saying I condone murder - of course not. Am I not acknowledging the victims, of course not.
As a professional I found the system exhausting for me to navigate to try to help my folks access a "way up and out" of devastating poverty.
We all start out as babies. Babies grow up. Children living without food, a place to sleep, nurturing and guidance, violence, drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, little education, living in an environ where that is all they see and know does mold the choices and options they see ahead.
Children need a predicatable surrounding Poverty is hardly so. Never knowing if there is food , power, clothes , running water, heat or AC, gun shots in the neighborhood.
Children displace negative feeling states by acting out - it is the only way they know how to do it. That escalates the whole mess.
It has been wildly reported about her driving without a license and insurance. Like a blame. I am confident in stating that she had neither because she had no money or gas to get them . Period. That is not a "bad" person. That is a person that can not afford to obtain.
Then that escalates everything - ticket - no money- fine - no money - how does one get to work to try to get some money when one is breaking a law doing that.
I am assuming she was caught driving without a liscense trying to go to work (an assumption I know). But how is someone supposed to get up and out if they cant drive , to get somewhere, to make some money, to try to have it , to obtain a license and insurance? It is an impossibility.
IMO, its way to easy for reporters, and members of society who are driving to the office in a Mercedes, after closing the stocked refrigerator, stopping by Starbucks for $7.89 cup of coffee, and running by the dry cleaners on thier way into there rewarding career that compensates well to have a clue what poverty truly is.
I grew up in an affluent setting, college educated professional parents. I personally, for the first 4 years of my career, lived with this population, and attempted to facilitate navigating the system with them, so I am sharing from first person knowledge of her plight. Her story is pretty identical (except for the part that she did get moving)and similar to the many I was involved in.
Its easy for talking heads to villainize while in their $898 pair of slacks.
Any human being reaches a point of hopelessness, I would suspect hers was more intense because she had gotten herself "up" from the floor.
It hurts a lot more if you fall while standing up as opposed to getting knocked over while sitting.
Do I empathise with the victims ,indeed, do I empathise with her, totaly. As humans they do not have to be mutally exclusive.
There is a reason why it known as "the cycle of poverty".......................... imo
