Barefoot Bandit: Folk hero or crook?
____________________________________________________________________
Ashley Fantz and Gabriel Falcon
CNN
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/03/18/colton.facebook.jpg
caption="A Facebook fan page for Colton Harris-Moore. He is suspected of stealing planes, boats, and luxury automobiles."]
The Barefoot Bandit has more than 80,000 Facebook fans who see him as a folk hero, a modern-day Jesse James. But police say Colton Harris-Moore is a brazen 19-year-old criminal, pure and simple.
The beginning and end of Harris-Moore's two-year run as a wanted fugitive is the stuff of Hollywood. Indeed, one studio has optioned his story. But police and some of his victims don't think he should be glamorized as he makes his first court appearance Tuesday.
"They can never imprison a mind like yours Colton," wrote one admirer on Harris-Moore's Facebook fan page Monday, a day after he was captured during a high-speed boat chase in the Bahamas.
Follow the Falcon File on Twitter @FalconCNN
|
|
Filed under: 360° Radar • Crime & Punishment • Gabe Falcon |
About this Show:
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°
Subscribe to the podcast
On Twitter
Search the AC360 blog
Those 8000 who call him a hero are probably the ones who create the need for laws in the first place.
He targeted the very WEALTHY not "average" people. That's why he's a folk hero...lived in the woods for years? Had the guts and fly airplanes learning from the internet? IQ near einstein? All barefoot and was on the run for 2 years? PURE GENIUS. No one was killed nor hurt. Murders and rape happen everyday and some never get solved. He took from the rich and injured no one. "Could of" still means DIDN'T. This guy rocks. These people have insurance get over it..
Brian said it all. The 80,000 need quit wading in the shallow end of the gene pool. Bonnie & Clyde looked like heros to a few misguided souls. Not to the people they robbed or murdered. Oh, and you might want to Google them to see how their folk hero lives ended.
He is a criminal who needs to pay for his crimes. If found guilty, he should be sentenced to work at any job at all, with his wages garnished to compensate the people whose property he stole.
I am tired of his family using his "difficult upbringing" as an excuse for his crimes.
Lots of people have "difficult upbringings," but they don't go stealing other people's cars, planes and boats. He is 19 years old; certainly old enough to know that stealing is wrong.
Of course, his mother encouraged his lawless behavior, hoping that he would continue to flee. Guess we know where he got his attitude; great job, Ma – NOT!
There is nothing admirable about this creep or his whole messed-up family.
I don't understand how people can admire this individual as I don't see what there is to admire. Perhaps these individuals admire his living in the woods...perhaps they should go camping for a month. Perhaps it's the breaking into other peoples vacation houses in order to get a shower and something to eat. And speaking of eating perhaps they think it glitzy to steal from small store owners; or perhaps they just have never experienced the fun of being robbed. Either way, it's obvious that there are at least 80,000 people that don't have a clue. And I actually feel sorry for this child who, I would guess, may very well have never truely experienced love, friendship, and all the other things we take for granted...how lonely it must truly be to have no friends then gaze down upon a page of admirers and know that none of them know the first thing about you.
Definitely a Crook. He needs to be put away.