Rabid Ranger
2 is better than one
Maybe. I think he'll be somewhat insulated. Just to be clear, I'm not condoning what he did. I'm just trying to envision what typically happens with pro athletes.
RD Mitchell Miller - Tri-City Storm, USHL (2020, 111th, ARI, rights renounced)
- Thread starter Pavel Buchnevich
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Maybe. I think he'll be somewhat insulated. Just to be clear, I'm not condoning what he did. I'm just trying to envision what typically happens with pro athletes.
SCampo98
Registered User
I would've never touched this guy with a ten foot pole. In the past or not, at 14 years old he was well aware of what he was doing, and anyone who does something like that has no place on a team that cares about the character of its players. Shame on the Coyotes for picking a poor excuse of a human being.
LeafChief
Matthew Knies Enthusiast
Absolutely disgusting behavioral issues. 'Boys will be boys' does not extend to sticking a push pop in a urinal and forcing a disabled child to eat it.
Anyone who defends this person as a human has far deeper issues than they would like to admit. Pathetic.
Anyone who defends this person as a human has far deeper issues than they would like to admit. Pathetic.
I feel bad adding to this thread and this debate, but since it looks like it's not going to end I'll throw in my 2 cents. Won't be engaging in ongoing debate - DM if you have a point you want me to answer.
There's a difference between defending what he did and defending the idea that people (esp. a 14 year old) should get a second chance. Having seen both the media and the courts get things very wrong sometimes I think it is also important for outsiders to also have a little bit of humility before indulging in public moral judgments.
In my view it is "pathetic" -- a form of bullying even -- to condemning people for having a reasonable difference of opinion. We should all agree with you, because not only is he immutably a monster for what he did, anyone who doesn't think that is necessarily the case is also a monster?
Nobody here is championing what he did. We live in a society (in Canada) where someone who literally cut another living human being's head off and began eating parts of it was acquitted and rehabilitated (schizophrenia) to be free without restrictions less than 10 years later (Google Tim McLean, the victim). This is a tough one, but I can see the logic in it. We understand that while what he did was unimaginably awful, it doesn't represent who he actually is. It would be wrong to track that guy down and insist that he answer for what he did every moment of his life, he likely feels a remorse we can't begin to imagine. Not the same thing, of course, we don't have a diagnosed mental condition for 14 yr old Mitchell Miller, but his behavior didn't come from nowhere, nor are 14 year olds anything like fully formed human beings. Why shouldn't he have the chance to better himself? No doubt this will follow him, he'll have to answer for it periodically along the way, and he will be on a shorter leash than others because if it. That all seems fair.
Nobody needs to cheer for him or to like him -- people dislike athletes for far less. But smearing anyone who would "defend this person as a human" is quite disturbing. I think the impulse of those of us who feel the need to push back against the outrage here is based in discomfort with the notion that punishment for a crime can become effectively infinite in a social media age -- with no room for doubt, compassion or forgiveness. We'd do well not to let the mob decide who is irredeemable and who isn't, if that means you think I have "deeper issues" than I'd like to admit, so be it. I'm proud to stand up and say that the 111th draft pick shouldn't be generating some of the most conversation on this forum because of something he did as a 14 yr old, that was dealt with by the local system at the time. The moral grandstanding about it doesn't seem admirable or constructive to me.
I'd gladly defend the possibility that he may have developed as a person since then. That would of course require further investigation before I'd draft him, but we can't say that he didn't change and that Arizona didn't verify it, it's unknown to us.
Do you have any further comment on my deeper issues?
SCampo98
Registered User
Regardless of if he has changed or not, he did it at a time when he was fully capable of understanding of what he was doing. I wouldn't care if he's changed or not, he's an awful example of a human being. If he was willing to do what he did at 14, who knows what he'd do in the future.
I'm nothing like who I was at 14.
Some people never develop empathetic skills, some people develop them late. We don't know which category Miller is in. We don't have anything to say about it here.
SCampo98
Registered User
All I know at 14 I knew enough not to ever consider doing anything like he did. Nonetheless, he was drafted, here's hoping he doesn't do anything similar again. I know for sure there will be a lot of people out there really mad at his success (if he finds any) and rightfully so if his victim is still feeling the effects. The same case with what Casey Cizikas did, many teachers at my school who were there at the time couldn't stand watching him make it and play in the NHL.
If Arizona didn't bother to investigate his character and find out if he is a different person now then I would be upset about that. But we don't know what they did. There's nothing to say about it.
Cizikas is a little different isn't he? He didn't intentionally kill a guy.
SCampo98
Registered User
Cizikas didn't intentionally kill him, just a fluke accident but one that could've been prevented. The comparison was just that people will not enjoy his success.
Ah, I see what you're saying. That seems really mean-spirited by those people though, wanting him to suffer for something that was a complete accident and that I'm sure he's still torn up about. People have died playing football, people have died playing hockey. It's rare but it's always a possibility. It's not like Cizikas was driving drunk (ie an activity he knew was completely careless).
I mean, the guy bullied the same kid from Grade 2 till the incident. That's a span of 6-7 years. It wasn't something that just happened out of nowhere because of poor judgement in that exact moment. It was 6+ years of constant bullying. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing.
Then, to finish it off, he has the wherewithal to actually plan out his next attack like he's some evil mastermind getting pleasure out of a disabled kid not knowing any better.
Who the hell knows what his next attack would've been had he not been caught that time. It likely would've been something worse.
Sorry that some of us think that piece of s*** is a piece of s***
Then, to finish it off, he has the wherewithal to actually plan out his next attack like he's some evil mastermind getting pleasure out of a disabled kid not knowing any better.
Who the hell knows what his next attack would've been had he not been caught that time. It likely would've been something worse.
Sorry that some of us think that piece of s*** is a piece of s***
SCampo98
Registered User
Couldn't agree more with everything you said. Hard to believe any team would pick a person like him, I guess they hope people forget about it. I certainly won't, I think he's a disgrace to the NHL and all of its stand-up players.
He force fed a developmentally challenged child a piss soaked push pop. He bullied/tortured this poor kid for years and years. Stop defending this complete piece of shit.
I'm not defending who he was then or what he did. I'm absolutely disgusted by what I read. I would never draft someone like that unless I'm sure he had become a very good and very different person, which is perhaps unlikely. Perhaps Arizona believed that he was not the same person or perhaps they don't know and drafted him anyways, in which case I think they f'ed up. But either way, we don't know, we're not acquainted with the kid and know nothing of his conduct in the last few years.
AlternateSideParking
Registered User
- Dec 11, 2005
- 21,639
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Take it easy. Not a soul in this entire thread is “defending” his actions.
He will suffer beyond his control. Doesn’t mean his life should end. Jesus Christ, didnt you see The Breakfast Club?
King'sPawn
Enjoy the chaos
- Jul 1, 2003
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As someone who was bullied as a kid (even getting taunted when I was suffering from severe depression), I acknowledge people grow up and people change. I hope Mitchell Miller does, if anything, because I don't want to imagine the behavior continuing anymore.
But it's ghoulish the lengths people are going to defend him and his behavior. "Making broad remarks" about strangers you don't know, because they cast judgment on a stranger they don't know, is hypocritical.
I HAVE had fear and social anxiety, partially as a result of being bullied (I'd be lying if I didn't own up to my own responsibility).
This story is about bullying and the lack of compassion and empathy.
There is a degree of compassion which CAN be afforded to an 18 year-old who did repugnant things as a 14 year-old. It can be done while showing greater empathy to the innocent victim terrorized.
I just hope Miller learned from this. So far, though, there is little to no evidence to suggest he has. The longer it goes unaddressed, the further from Humanity he seems to be and the less understanding I am.
I am disappointed in the antagonistic behavior exhibited by some, particularly those who either excuse it as "being 14" or remark that others can't have a reaction or opinion about this because "we all make mistakes." While it's all true, the degree of mistakes vary. If we are not allowed to comment because of mistakes made, we might as well shut down the message boards.
I can't explain or understand why the behavior of a 14 year-old stranger terrorizing a kid is more defensible than strangers judging said behavior. It is possible to call the bullying disgusting while hoping the person grows up and reforms.
But it's ghoulish the lengths people are going to defend him and his behavior. "Making broad remarks" about strangers you don't know, because they cast judgment on a stranger they don't know, is hypocritical.
I HAVE had fear and social anxiety, partially as a result of being bullied (I'd be lying if I didn't own up to my own responsibility).
This story is about bullying and the lack of compassion and empathy.
There is a degree of compassion which CAN be afforded to an 18 year-old who did repugnant things as a 14 year-old. It can be done while showing greater empathy to the innocent victim terrorized.
I just hope Miller learned from this. So far, though, there is little to no evidence to suggest he has. The longer it goes unaddressed, the further from Humanity he seems to be and the less understanding I am.
I am disappointed in the antagonistic behavior exhibited by some, particularly those who either excuse it as "being 14" or remark that others can't have a reaction or opinion about this because "we all make mistakes." While it's all true, the degree of mistakes vary. If we are not allowed to comment because of mistakes made, we might as well shut down the message boards.
I can't explain or understand why the behavior of a 14 year-old stranger terrorizing a kid is more defensible than strangers judging said behavior. It is possible to call the bullying disgusting while hoping the person grows up and reforms.
rt
Clean Hits on Substack
I think you are projecting. We don't know what happened beyond the bullet points. There's never a "good" reason that could explain away these bullet points. But they lack the context to help us gain any understanding of the situation. Only our own personal bias steers our large leap in conclusions, here. The boys will be boys crowd is going off half-cocked without enough information to possibly dismiss this as simple adolescent shenanigans. But that's also true of those on the flip-side of the extreme view. It could be the worst or best case scenario, or it could be anything in-between. We just don't know. And we probably will never know.
rt
Clean Hits on Substack
There are plausible scenarios that could have occurred that would certainly make you reverse this wildly hasty damnation. I'm not going to go into them because I won't victim blame via speculation, or say anything speculative about the other boy implicated in the abuse. But I imagine that if you try hard enough, you could come up with some reasonable contextual elements that would ease the degree to which you're feeling this intense wrath. You're already using your imagination to fill in the details that align with the narrative that have led you to these feelings of pure hatred. Try filling in the details in the opposite way. Either scenario could be true. Most likely neither scenario is. But we don't know the truth. We weren't there and we weren't given all of the details.
SCampo98
Registered User
Rabid Ranger
2 is better than one
Good article on Miller being drafted by the Coyotes: Mitchell Miller, a Coyotes' draft pick, bullied Black, disabled teen
ViewsFromThe6ix
Zachary on the Attackary
This is actually worse than I imagined, and that’s pretty freaking hard.
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