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Menlo Park: Shots fired at vehicle occupied by young juveniles, mother

Original post made on Nov 25, 2013

Shots were fired Sunday afternoon at a parked vehicle in Menlo Park that was occupied by two young juveniles and their mother.

Read the full story here Web Link posted Sunday, November 24, 2013, 5:50 PM

Comments (3)

Posted by Srini
a resident of another community
on Nov 25, 2013 at 12:37 pm

2 young juveniles......is that as opposed to old juveniles? Glad nobody was hurt. It will be good when they find out who did it, to see if it was random or targeted.


Posted by juveniles?
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Nov 25, 2013 at 5:18 pm

I'm wondering why the Almanac is describing them as "juveniles" as opposed to "children" or "teens"- it strikes me as a really loaded term. I've been thinking about it all day, and I am troubled by it. I cannot help but wonder what the Almanac is trying to signal by using the term "juvenile" which in most uses these days is followed by either "offender" or "delinquent"- is the Almanac suggesting that the people in the car somehow provoked the shooting? Is the Almanac trying to suggest to the reader that the people in the car were people of color? I'm trying to figure out why the Almanac chose to describe the passengers in the car in that manner.

Editor's note: The police described the occupants of the vehicle as "young juveniles." We changed it to "children." We just learned that their ages are 4 and 5, so we added that.


Posted by interpretation
a resident of Menlo Park: Downtown
on Nov 25, 2013 at 5:27 pm

Juvenile sounds like a police term to me. Vs toddler, preschooler, student, teen -- the words the rest of us would use. I assume they are called "young juveniles" to negate any speculation that they are old enough to be gang members, since many gang members are minor teens.

We do seem to see this police-speak in these kinds of incidents. Usually, when there's an accident in Belle Haven, for example, they just provide the ages and sexes of the people involved without any code words just as "juvenile."


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