There is a horrific story out of Michigan where a couple, Scott and Jennifer Petkov, are accused of a cruel campaign targeting a seven-year-old girl, Kathleen Edwards who is dying from Huntington’s disease. The Petkov’s allegedly posted pictures showing Kathleen’s mother (Laura Edwards, who died of the disease last year at the age of 24) in the arms of the grim reaper and photo shopped a picture of Kathleen with her face above a set of crossed bones. The story (which has gone viral internationally) raises questions over the possible civil and criminal liability for such actions.
Jennifer Petkov is accused of some of the most outrageous acts and raises the same social and legal questions surrounding Lori Drew in the case of Megan Meier.
Reports allege that the Petkovs began a campaign of harassment after they asked if their children could come over to a birthday party for Kathleen. When there was no immediate response, according to the Rose family, the Petkovs turned nasty and started saying horrible things about the dying girl.
In addition to the pictures, the Petkovs allegedly drove their truck named the “Death Machine” up and down their street honking their horn. They later left the truck festooned with coffins in front of the Rose house (though they insisted it is just a Halloween decoration).
Witnesses say that the couple routinely laughed at Laura and her daughter for the neurological disease that causes involuntary writhing movements.
One of most upsetting statements attributed to the Petkovs was their telling Kathleen directly “I can’t wait until you die.” Jennifer Petkov is quoted as admitting that she continued the campaign for “personal satisfaction” and “because it burns Rebecca Rose’s ass raw.” Rebecca Rose is the mother of Laura and grandmother of Kathleen.
Kathleen’s father reportedly begged the Petkovs to stop, asking them ” ‘Just leave us alone; that’s all we want. Don’t make any more comments about our daughter.”
Scott Petkov and his wife have now apologized. Scott Petkov described how his wife’s “brutal honesty” has caused his family to “not get along with a lot of people.” For her part, she now admits “What I did was ignorant and wrong.” Scott Petkov said that, after they posted the pictures on Facebook, he was suspended with pay from his job as a forklift repairman.
They cannot apologize in person because at the height of the harassment, the Rose secured a restraining order against them.
Here is Jennifer Petkov before she decided contrition as opposed to taunting was the proper response to public outrage:
The question is what criminal or civil liability the Petkovs could face. They have a constitutional right to be horrible people. However, their first amendment rights are limited in cases of harassment, stalking, and other crimes. The most obvious criminal charge would be any violation of the restraining order. Such orders generally do not include limitations on speech such as Facebook sites and public statements. The truck could be an issue if parked within the protected zone. I do not believe Michigan has a cyber-bullying statute. What I am unclear about is why the police did not pursue this as a child abuse case, if it is true that the Petkovs confronted the little girl. If that account is false, there remains the campaign directly against the little girl as a possible abuse or stalking case.
The most obvious course for the Rose family would be a civil lawsuit for intentional infliction of emotional distress. There is probably not an action for privacy violations here, such as intrusion upon seclusion or public disclosure of embarrassing private acts. Likewise, words alone are generally insufficient for assault. However, what is fascinating about the case is Jennifer Petkov’s admission that she wanted to harm the Rose family in taking these actions.
In the end, either criminal or civil claims run into the first amendment and the right of the Petkovs to say despicable things, even allegedly to and about a dying seven-year-old girl. This is strikingly similar to the claims in the pending Westboro case before the Supreme Court. Indeed, this drama was unfolding in Michigan at the very time that the justices were hearing arguments on the right of an extremist and homophobic church to say hateful things at funerals for fallen soldiers. I believe that the Westboro Church does have first amendment rights guaranteeing such protests as a general principle. The Westboro church appears to have complied with orders to confine their protest to a certain area that was separated from the family’s church and funeral functions.
The Petkov case could be different if they crossed the line in harassing this child and confronting the family directly. While Jennifer Petkov has been called “the Devil on Detroit Street” the devil will be in the details in whether she would be able to cloak herself in the first amendment to protect her hateful speech. We simply need to confirm the specific acts in the case to determine the viability of criminal or tort liability in the case.
Source: Daily Mail
Jonathan Turley
I just realized that post was garbled. Someone kept talking when I was writing it and there is no edit option. How does this sound?
What do you think about a statute that would allow anyone for any reason to post that they don’t want that particular person on their property and/or that they don’t want that particular person to interact with their minor children.
Of course there is still the issue of what happens when someone wants to get a restraining order against a police officer or a child protective services employee.
I think I would go along with a statute that would allow neighbors to file for restraining orders that would be extremely limited in scope. If you had a really limited and clear order that involved basically giving up no rights at all, since you don’t have a right to trespass and you don’t have a right to interact with other people’s children, an extremely limited statute might work. It could be a simple registration form with no need to enter adverse character evidence at all. What do you think?
Jan,
Now aren’t you glad you posted their contact information?
I’m usualy not prone to such emotional outbursts…but FUCK THESE PEOPLE! It is my personal OPINION that these ignorant cock suckers need to be painfuly publicly slowly EXECUTED! How could you use ANY excuse to torment a terminaly ill child who has lost her mother from the same disease the child has? Give me a knife, hot coals, alchohol and a suture kit and ill put on one helluva show!BURN IN HELL YOU VERMINOUS PERISITIC MOTHER FUCKS! Apology or not you are the reason our children cant play in the streets in our neighborhoods. You are the reason we cant feel safe in our own back yards! If the law would allow i would creatively execute you and all the motherfuckers like you on cable and broadcast tv! Evil Breeds Evil! You reep what you sow! email me at brad_scott_1985 at hot mail dot com if you have anything to say to me. untill then. DIE!!!….slowly. The preceding has been an excersise in the first amendment. My personal opinion may not reflect the viewpoints of any one person or coorporation. For those that do not appreciate the kind of hate bred by evil human beings it is my opinion that you can all fuck off and die too.
I am thinking Jennifer Petkov might have paranoid personality disorder.
http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/paranoidpd.htm
One of the signs of paranoid personality disorder is:
5) persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
She is most likely paranoid. Paranoid people are also prone to anger and are very resentful.
sorry I made a mistake above. I was forced to sell the land to the city council president for $1 not $100.
In some states taunting is a crime. That would make it a crime whether it was on the Internet or not. It sounds like they were hoping the girl’s dad would come over for a fight. If he did go to their door to request them to leave the daughter alone, he would be on their property and they probably could have come out with a weapon.
As someone who has been a victim of a wrongful restraining order, I hate to see people advocate restraining orders on neighbors. In Colorado in order for there to be a restraining order there has to be an intimate relationship. Even then the orders are often abused. The one on me was obtained by a divorce lawyer. I heard that divorce lawyers frequently advise wives to totally fake being hit — hit themselves to create an injury they can attribute to their husband — so that they can get better financial settlements. I heard that this lawyer advised a wife to try to make her husband late for work so that he would hit her.
In Colorado if there is not an intimate relationship there is not supposed to be any abbreviated procedure in an application for a restraining order. In my case I was denied a lawyer and only given three days advance notice and then perjury was presented and I was not allowed to introduce the zoning regulations in evidence to show that the reason that Jane Bennett wanted a restraining order was to allow her to build two extra buildings that violated the zoning and 10 years later aren’t even on the Routt County Property Tax Rolls. When I complained to the city manager he wrote a letter to the city council ordering that the city not compare the volume and construction of the extra buildings to the laws because we were, he claimed, “having a feud”. Jane Bennett filed a police report claiming that she followed me through a store trying to take my picture to prove that she was near me and therefore I should be put in jail. She also tried to have me thrown in jail because she saw me in my own yard minding my own business when she walked by. After getting the restraining order she went out of her way to interact with me by parking next to my driveway instead of in her own driveway.
Previous to that my neighbors blocked off the last 60 feet of Princeton Ave. When I put my trash out I was threatened and my neighbor’s lawyer wrote a letter to me threatening my business if I complained about it. Blockade of a road or a passageway is a crime in Colorado with a $300 per day potential fine. My neighbors blockaded the road for 9 years and then they forced me to sell my right to it to them for $100 by threatening me with prosecution in municipal court for trimming without a trimming permit even though they city has no trimming permits and never issued one to anyone else and my neighbor’s contractor trimmed the same tree the same week as my landscaper did — an old willow tree with hanging branches interfering with automobiles. My neighbor was on the city council. The city said it was OK for my neighbor to have a fence 60 feet from his property and to put his dog house and other items on city property and to threaten us if we went on the street because we were “having a neighborhood feud”.
I complained to the police in Steamboat Springs about taunting but they did nothing. My neighbor went in my back yard and looked in my windows and when my 15 year old son came out he jumped up and down on my flowers while yelling insults. My husband signed a police report saying my neighbor crept up behind him so close that he could feel his breath. There was a bullet hole through our window but the police refused to even ask the neighbors about it even though he sometimes carried a gun with him and was a convicted felon with a NCIC record. I even got an email that said that a man with the same name threatened to shoot the young children of a prospective buyer of our property.
If there was a taunting law, then if there was probable cause for a criminal prosecution then the prosecutor could request a restraining order that would last until the end of the criminal proceedings. At least that way a government lawyer would have to detail the offensive actions and the reporting party could be prosecuted if they made a false report. Then at least there is a government purpose since if a fight had actually resulted the public would have been endangered. In my case the prosecutor didn’t write any description of probable cause that I committed a crime.
Bakersfield:
how are you? Good to see you back. In fighting form I hope. Where are Spamheed and your buddy Rhubarb with and without the Q?
“Normally I’m all for procedural remedy, but there’s nothing wrong with the Petkovs that a good old fashioned country ass whooping wouldn’t cure.”
All in the name of justice I presume as we all know Bud doesnt go in for acts of revenge.
this must be a slip of the ol’ tongue
Mrs. Petrov with her neck contorting a mile a minute is somewhere in the pre-adolescent stage of life. Maybe the feedback she is getting will help her to grow up so she will be more able to be a responsible parent and neighbor. Something is terribly wrong here… She appears to have mental health problems so maybe she won’t grow up no matter what. Very sad.
There is a rather broad line between ‘brutal honesty’ and heartless, abusive crualty. The bitch is apparently too dim or self-absorbed to see it.
I agree with Buddha. I also believe that there isn’t room in what is supposed to be a “civil society” for any sort of vigilante “justice.” Vigilante “justice” isn’t justice at all.
This mess should be worked out within the framework of the legal system. I wouldn’t socialize with the Petkovs, but what good will come of mistreating them. It’s the old “two wrongs” thing. (And with regard to “social shunning”, there’s still a line that shouldn’t be crossed, no matter how despicable these people are.)
Byron: Please read my other comment/s in this thread.
not only that…why do to them what you condemn them for? It’s like a giant permission slip to the lowest uncommon denominator……btw Byron….I tried nasty on for size way back when and all I got for my trouble was a pair of shoes I could never wear again and singed shins…..oh yeah…and the neighbors thought I was ‘adorable’. But that was ‘mischief night’ and I was blessed to grow up in a mellow neighborhood in good times…wish it could be so for everyone now….
i don’t believe there needs to be a national retaliation against the Jakov’s (excuse me, the Petkov’s). It sounds like their neighbors can handle this on their own.
Jan,
I have to agree with Buckeye. There is a long standing tradition here of posting contact information for bad acting public officials as they do indeed work for “us”.
But posting that information for private citizens, no matter what kind of cretinous douche bags they may be and the Petkovs certainly qualify for that moniker, is indeed over the line and asking for trouble.
Buckeye well said
Jan
Venting is fine. Listing phone numbers and addresses goes over the line, as far as I’m concerned. Some kook out there will act, they often do, and the situation will only escalate, it often does.
This is what leads to people flying planes into office buildings and shooting up a Holocaust Museum.
anon nurse:
“The comments on this thread have taken a decidedly ugly turn.”
you mean calling a turd a turd is not politically correct? Or taking a moral stand is a bad idea? Most have said the parents should be shunned, that is ugly?
So you would just say hey I am OK you are OK, whatever floats your boat, there is no concept of morality or of decency? No standards of behaviour to adhere to, anything goes as long as you think it is OK?
it’s been three days and nothing serious, maybe the internet vigilantes found something shiny to play with
I hope nothing happens to that vile woman’s kids
The comments on this thread have taken a decidedly ugly turn.