High School Trouble Maker

I can not believe what this article told me. There was a 16 year old boy, that was seen by witnesses, riding his bike away from the start of a brush fire in Yucaipa. This boy is suspected of a dozen wildfires that have arrived in the past three years and he is only 16. Reporters say that this is the second arrest of a juvenile, at a high profile level, for arson. They also did some research and found out that about 50% of arsonists arrested are juveniles and 3% are under the age of 10. This was a big discovery and a very necessary discovery because the one fire they matched him with also connected to the 11 or so other fires that were believed to be started by the same person. Arsonists think they have the great idea of starting a fire and continue to do the same thing for every fire they start. There will obviously be a connection if they do this.

I think that this is a stupid thing for a 16 year old boy to be doing on his spare time. When I was 16 I was thinking about getting my license and playing sports not starting massive fires for my personal enjoyment. This makes me wonder where he could get the ideas from. Could it be the parenting that played a part in this? Did his parents get him interested in destructive fires? Did they just not care for him so he became this way? These are all different ideas to consider. My thought is that his parents some way or another got him interested in fires which led to this major destruction. Whether it be his parents teaching him how to start them intentionally or it accidentally came up. That is my opinion. What is yours? You can check out this article for yourself at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boy-arsonist25-2009sep25,0,4837132.story