Fire-starting boy a "good kid"

Neighbor: Fire-starting boy a 'good kid' By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press WriterThu Nov 1, 11:36 PM ET When arson investigators went looking for the person who set a blaze that scorched 60 square miles and destroyed 21 homes, Linda Conner says she knew right where to send them. Minutes after the fire broke out, Conner said, she had raced up a hill toward the source of the flames. At the top, she saw a stunned-looking 10-year-old boy and his parents frantically trying to beat the flames down with towels. "There's no reason to talk to other people," Conner, a horse trainer at the ranch where the fire started, recalled telling arson investigators. "You need to go straight up the road and talk to that boy." The 10-year-old quickly admitted he had been playing with matches. On Thursday, as authorities considered whether to file criminal charges, neighbors gave conflicting accounts of the boy's behavior. Denise Tomey, who runs the Carousel Ranch where the boy lived in a small trailer with his family, described him as a quiet child who often played outside with his brother and the family's small white and tan dog, Spike. "From what I know, he's a good kid," said Tomey, executive director of the ranch, which provides riding lessons to developmentally disabled children. The boy's father tends horses there and the boy attends a nearby school. "He's a child and I certainly believe that he had no malice, and I absolutely believe it was accidental," Tomey said. Some neighbors, though, called the 10-year-old a troublesome child. Linny Martin, who lives across the road, said she often caught him throwing rocks at her horses. When she yelled at him to stop, she said, he would run up the hill to his family's trailer. "He's got a lot of problems," Martin said. The boy's name is being withheld. Legal experts say arson charges against him are unlikely, given that he may have been too young to understand how much damage his match-play could cause. The fire he admitted starting was one of more than 15 that roared across a wide swath of Southern California last week, blackening 809 square miles from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border and destroying more than 2,000 homes. Causes have ranged from arson to downed power lines to sparks set off by construction work. The Santa Clarita fire, which started Oct. 21, was traced to an area just outside the boy's hilltop trailer home. Neither the home nor the ranch was damaged. The boy attended a nearby school. Tomey said she never saw him bring classmates home or play with any of the children on the ranch. Authorities originally gave his age as 12, but a Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman said Thursday that was an error. Prosecutors said they would review evidence submitted by investigators before deciding whether to bring charges. In the meantime, the boy and his mother have left the ranch, Tomey said. "Obviously I feel terrible for the people who are affected by the fire, and I know the child felt terrible about it," Tomey said. The fire is believed to have started about 50 yards behind the family's trailer, where a vast triangle of blackened brush dips into a shallow canyon before disappearing over a ridge. Wilted cacti and charred, brittle bushes litter the landscape behind the white mobile home, where Tomey said the family lived for less than a year. It is fronted by potted plants, and a vegetable garden around the back is surrounded by a white picket fence. The blaze was reported by an employee who called 911, Tomey said. Some legal experts say serious criminal charges are unlikely. To win an arson conviction, prosecutors would have to prove the boy intended to cause harm, which would be difficult given that they seem to have accepted his explanation that the fire was an accident, said Cyn Yamashiro, who directs Loyola Law School's Center for Juvenile Law and Policy. The prosecutor's office was "not sure whether they'll bring any charges, given that it was an accidental fire," Los Angeles County fire Capt. Michael Brown said Wednesday. In a news conference Wednesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he did not think the child meant any harm. The boy could be incarcerated for three years if found guilty of a lesser charge of unlawfully starting a fire. For that count, prosecutors would have to prove only that he understood the risks of his actions, but Yamashiro said winning a conviction on even that charge could be difficult. "They'd have to prove that at 10 years old he really appreciated what the risk of playing with matches would have been," Yamashiro said. "It's difficult to prosecute him under that theory." If the boy is convicted, state law requires that the court seek monetary damages as restitution for the millions of dollars lost by victims and spent on firefighting, Yamashiro said. His parents, however, wouldn't face criminal charges. Carousel Ranch sits on a canyon road that winds between brush-covered hillsides studded sparsely with homes, many of them one-story clapboard houses with abandoned cars and weathered swingsets out front. Some residents still aren't sure how to react to news that a 10-year-old playing with matches devastated the area. "What do you do? It was a kid," said Peter Kaulbach, 49, who lost his home on his family's Santa Clarita pumpkin farm. "It's almost like I don't have time to think about that issue right now." ___ Associated Press writer Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

A reputation is a great opportunity !

Most teenagers know more than adults and until they have children then they realize how little they really do know!

Something that does not cost much but is very valuable and once it is damaged is hard to repair is a reputation! We must emphasize starting at a very young age with every child that their reputation is very important. That reputation is not important to being cool with the right crowd, or the local gang or giving into peer pressure but is one of not doing anything that would damage the reputation which would keep one from pursuing goals in the future. I asked a student this past school year why he cheated on the test in the previous class and he said, "...because I thought I could...!" He had never considered the implications of his actions! We must help children and adolescents to see the opportunity that they have of a good name! Read below the article of Harvey Mckay. He is in many newspapers with a weekly column and you can get on his list to have his weekly article sent to you through email.

Reputation is much easier kept than recovered Jay Leno, comedian and host of the Tonight Show, says that when he was eight years old and living in a New York City suburb, he had a moment of clarity that changed his life forever. According to his piece "Why I walked away," in O: The Oprah Magazine, he was hanging out with an older, rougher gang of kids one day when one of the kids pulled out what was purported to be some pornography. One of the kids in the group, Leno noticed, was spinning a small pocketknife around in his hand. While Leno admits he was no angel at that point in his life, he says suddenly he stepped back from the group, which was collectively lurching forward to look at the pictures. He says in that moment he knew that he might possibly be starting down a path that would lead him nowhere in life. And so he turned and walked away. Leno says that every decision he has made in life since, in part, was based on that early decision to walk away from the crowd. He likes to think about the repercussions his actions will have on his reputation. It was a small moment, he says, one in which he learned how to make a conscious, moral decision for himself. My own father always used to tell me, "You spend your whole lifetime building a good name and reputation, and one foolish act can destroy it." Nowhere is that more true than in building a successful business. If you don't have a positive reputation, it will be difficult to be successful. I remember reading the results of a USA Today survey in March 2005 in which respondents were asked to rate the credibility of CEOs in various countries. Brazil led the way with 57 percent favorable, followed by China and Japan. CEOs in the United States were rated 25 percent. That's only one-fourth of the American people who felt CEOs were credible. I'm sure that what happened at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and several other highly publicized cases had a lot to do with this poor opinion of CEOs. Reputation is one of the few assets that your competition cannot undersell or destroy. You can't put a price on a good reputation. A good name is like a second inheritance. Life is for one generation; however, a good name is forever. A good name is more valuable than riches. When I purchased an insolvent envelope company many years ago, I ran it under its previous name for a few years until I was sure I would be successful. Only then did I put the Mackay name on it. That's how important I regard a company's name and reputation. It is imperative in any activity to protect one's good name. And sometimes, of course, that is difficult. A frontier judge in Texas had just sentenced a notorious outlaw who had been caught stealing horses. As was his custom, the Judge asked the condemned man if he had any last words for the court. In his reply the outlaw said, "Judge, I've heard from everybody in this town how fair you are. A man devoted to justice under the law. A family man of good character. A kind man who is always ready to give someone a second chance. Everybody thinks you're wonderful. "But I gotta be honest with you, Judge. With this sentence, you done gone and ruined your reputation with me." Abraham Lincoln had a stellar reputation. When he was practicing law, a client asked him if a certain gentleman was a man of means. "Well, I reckon he ought to be," said Abe. "In fact, he's about the meanest man in town." Lincoln also was responsible for this gem: "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." Mackay's Moral: The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.

For more Mackay Material: www.harveymackay.com/columns/default.htm

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation.Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

John Wooden , Past UCLA National Championship Basketball Coach

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