How to punish the youth of Red Sox Nation

October 23rd, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

As the Red Sox get more and more used to October triumph instead of soul-crushing and horrible failure, the Boston police task force is all the more on it. Apparently, things got a bit of control around Fenway Park back in 2004 and the team and Boston’s cops aren’t looking for that to happen again. So, what did they do with seven teenagers who were arrested for disorderly conduct after Boston’s Game 7 win Sunday night? They made them write essays. (Via Fark.)

Seventeen teenagers, most of them college students, were arraigned in front of Judge Edward Redd on disorderly conduct charges after they allegedly refused to obey orders from Boston police officers. Police wanted to clear the crowd to avoid a repeat of the melee that broke out after the Red Sox clinched the ALCS title in 2004, a tragedy that left 21-year-old Emerson College student Victoria Snelgrove dead, accidentally killed by a pepper pellet fired by a cop.

Seven of yesterday’s suspects were ordered by Redd to write a “five-page essay detailing what they have each learned from the experience of getting arrested and that they provide the court with written verification that their parents are aware that they have been arrested and charged in connection with this incident,” said Suffolk District Attorney’s Office spokesman Jake Wark.

Redd also ordered that they stay away from Fenway Park for the duration of the World Series and told them their parents had to sign the essays for his approval at their next court date in November.

OK, if some of these kids are in college, is making them write an essay really the best course of action here? I mean, after all, I’m sure they are in the thick of it with their classwork now and probably just polished off their mid-term papers on industrial socialism (did I just make that up?) or something. And five pages? I hope they get to double space this sucker and use 20 point font, because really, what did they learn here?

Sorry officer, we won’t cheer for our team after a game anymore. Really, it was terrible judgment. For this, we are sorry.