The Halloway house party and the parents who enabled it

Brian Halloway is a retired football player that lives in Florida now, but still has a house in upstate New York.  Over Labor Day his house was broken into and approximately 300 teens thoroughly trashed it.  Being teenagers they posted photos from the event which alerted him to the Halloway house party.  It’s easy to blame the teens, who are ultimately to blame; however, the behavior of the teen’s parents is even more appalling. 

Halloway found about 200 names of people in the social media conversations who he’s determined were at the party.  A couple of weeks after that, Brian held a clean up where he invited/encouraged any of the teens who attended the Halloway house party.  Only 4 teens showed despite massive regional media attention and growing national and international attention.

Brian stressed that all of the teens would be held accountable, but wanted a chance to talk to them first.  He created a website called Help Me Save 300, where he’s posting pictures and videos of the break-in.  Yeah, I’m calling it a break-in and not a house party.  When the owner is home it’s a house party, when they’re not home it’s breaking and entering.

The response from some of the parents whose child’s identity was outed on Halloway’s web site was to threaten legal action.  That is the part of the story that makes my boil.

It’s almost understandable for teenagers to think that breaking into an abandoned house in an upper middle class neighborhood won’t result in any punishment.  However, the parent’s actions when said photos were published are endemic as to how the youth acted.

Supposedly the parents were concerned about the listing of their child’s names and negative photos affecting college acceptance.  The long tail of the internet is cruel, yes and employers, possibly even colleges will do searches on applicants.

My other thought is that why did only 4 students and parents show up?  Did the parents of the other 296 students not know that their child was involved?

Just in case, here is a list of the schools in the region that had students that might have attended the Halloway house party.

• Berlin Central
• New Lebanon High School
• Tamarac High School
• Christian Brothers Academy
• Shaker High School
• Waterford High School
• Averill Park High School
• Columbia High School
• Utica College.

If you’re a parent in the upper New York state area do you know where your teen age kid was that night?

Ricky Nelson was one of the 4 kids who showed up at Halloway’s house after the party to help clean up.  However, if you’re the parent of Emily King, Maddie Kennedy, Chris Warren, Phil Derrico, Ricky Roden, Meghan Loiselle, Bobby Herrick, Stephen Feathers, Eddie Moss, Juan Santana or Amanda Briell among others they were there too. The long tail of the internet is cruel.  Help Me Save 300 lists all of the names that he could locate, as well as, dozens of photos on the $20,000 in damage.

It’s since come out that Halloway’s house is in foreclosure and has a balance of just over 1.3 million.  However, the house was in good condition and didn’t look like a typical eyesore.  I’m also rolling my eyes about the fact that he’s accepting donations on the website.

However, my anger isn’t because the house was owned by an ex-NFL player.  It’s targeted solely at the teens and parents who are shielding them from punishment of this crime.  Yes, it’s a crime and Halloway is being far kinder than I would if I had the names and pictures of people that trashed my house.

If I had done something like that when I was a child I would’ve been punished.  If our children to anything like this they will be punished.  It’ll start out with I love you and what you did was incredibly stupid and cruel.  You’ll pay for it financially and in other ways too.

It’s my same frustration when I hear parents of kids who committed a major felony.  “They were such a good kid, I can’t believe they did it”, the parent naively says.  I’m not equating the Halloway house party brats to murderers, but the knee jerk defense of their children is weak parenting and will produce spoiled, consequence free adults.