- Essex police and school officials warned the mother to cancel the party after rumors spread that revelers were going to ruin it, but the mother insisted she would keep an eye out for trouble.
The stupid - it hurts. 15th birthday. Yolo. Facebook. It's liek the devils trifecta. And for what sensationalist reason does anyone need the full name of the girl/affected family?
Well is sounds that, the girl, and the mom, were calling for it. I mean how normal could it be to receive a call from the police, that people are going to your party, just to trash your house.
"Yes excuse me ma'am. There is a tornado headed your way. Just thought we'd let you know." "Oh I'll be fine, I have a fan to blow the other direction." "Whatever you say ma'am."
Well, I think there is the belief that "It'll never happen to me" that affects people's decision process. How often do you hear about 100's of people showing up and trashing a birthday party of. 15 year old? Although the police calling should have warned her, the insurance not covering it seems like a low blow.
There was a similar event last year in the Netherlands, called Project X Haren (Google Translate link).
A girl left an invitation open on Facebook. 250.000 people invited each other, and 30.000 people said they'd come. Eventually the visitors, mostly soccer hooligans, destroyed everything in the small town's center, and special forces had to control the visitors. If you'd look at the imagery on the news and on the web — it looked awful, almost, but not quite like a war.
I seriously can't comprehend people like that.
I saw a few parties go out of control in high school. A carefully crafted model train set collapsed on the ground and the revelers stood on it to get a better view of the band. A computer also hit the basement floor that night, computers were a lot more valuable back in the early 90's.
All stupidity aside, I hate the fact that other people would do that to someone's house. I would hope that many people wouldn't even think of trashing someone's place like that. Although, I suppose the Bystander Effect probably played a part here.