“They were great kids; I’m not even sure what they were thinking” said a close friend of the three Colfax boys who threw rocks at a car over an overpass.

After three Colfax teens were arrested for seriously injured a man by throwing a rocks off an overpass, they are being charged as adults and more. But do the teens really deserve this severe of punishment?

“I just felt pain in my mouth” he said “then I started bleeding.” The victim, Jose Palomera, 48, was driving on the Interstate 80 near the Mink Creak area of Colfax when a rock crashed through his windshield that was dropped from the Canyon Way overpass. He was seriously injured and required to have his mouth wired shut and could not work resulting in losing his job.

Palomera is recovering, but still has recurring nightmares of the incident.

The teens, Hunter Owens 16, Samue1 Edward Quinlan, 16, and Sean Edwin Steele, 17, were throwing rocks and debris over the overpass around 2:30 am on July 26^th. It started with gravel, then a metal barricade sign, and then large rocks. The sign hit a passing truck and glanced off but the rock hit Palomera windshield and broke through. It was said that the boys had snuck out and were under the influence of alcohol that night.

The boys were caught from witness accounts and were promptly arrested. They are being charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of battery causing serious bodily injury, three counts of assault with use of a deadly weapon and three counts of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily harm. They are also being charged as adults and can face hard time in prison.

Do they really deserve this?

Yes they do. In the recent years it appears people, especially teens, are lacking the ability to take responsibility for their actions. The kids did the crime, they must now do the time.

Even if the teens didn’t have the intent to injure the drivers, they still did. It is impossible that they had no idea that their actions could cause dangerous reactions and should have used more common sense. They could of killed the man, you can’t walk away free from those mistakes. Personality or anything of that sort has nothing to do with it.

Even more so, it is obvious the boys understood their actions, they gathered bigger material to be thrown, and even timed their throws to hit cars.

John Myers, A juvenile teacher in Sacramento, thinks the boys knew exactly what they were doing.

“If it had been one rock that just happened to hit somebody, it would have been a different story,” Myers said. “They kept going after bigger ammunition. That showed mens rea (a guilty mind) and an awareness of what they were doing.”
          With all that said, very close friends of one of the teens have a more personal opinion on the boys.

“I don’t think they should be charged as adults, they are only 16.” Maddi Wiesner and Vini Mutto were good friends with Quinlan. Mutto says she was very close to the family too and knew Sam since he was a baby.

They claim the boys grew up in a nice family and it obviously wasn’t the parent’s fault.

“Sam and his friends always do dumb stuff, they are boys, just not to this extent,” Wiesner and Mutto said “they are so nice, they probably had no intent to hurt anyone.”

“Their lives were football, but now everything is changed” Wiesner also said that the boys will defiantly be greatly affected for their whole lives and so will the school and community for some time.

Mutto had intense emotions and clearly was distraught. “They will definitely learn from this.” she said. “They made a decision and now they have to deal with it, no matter what good of kids they were.”

These teens had made the biggest mistake in their life, but the community of Colfax or Colfax High School should not be to blame.

Sympathy goes out to the driver and to the kids also. One action can change your life.

The lesson to learn in this situation, and is probably the most important for teens and young adults, is that everything you do has a reaction, either it be positive or negative, you should think before you act.

“They could have killed someone,” Jose Palomera says “they deserved to be punished. This is no joke.”