The depths of human depravity

Humans never cease to amaze me. I just wish that they amazed me more in a good way. The other night when I probably should have been doing homework I was surfing the news channel just checking to see what was going on in the world when I came across a story that is so heinous that I had to calm down before I could write about it. While I was surfing somewhere up in the 40's (the news channels) I stopped long enough to read a headline that went something like "Attendants attack disabled patient". I'm sure that wasn't the complete headline. I remember thinking to myself "Oh, I can't watch this", and I changed the channel.

As some of you know I do respite/PCA care for two disabled brothers. They are 14 and 16 and the sweetest kids (well most of the time- they are teenage boys after all) that you could ever hope to come into contact with. Something like the above news story is my absolute biggest nightmare. These kids are defenseless - their mom and I talk about it all the time. They depend on other people completely for their safety - and once again people have proven that they cannot be depended on.

Finally after taking a few deep breaths I went back to the channel that had this story. It turns out it was a nursing home type of situation and there was a woman who was completely disabled who was turning up with all kinds of strange bruises. So the director of the home put a hidden camera in her room. What she found was that two of the attendants (CNA's or PCA's I'm not sure) were beating this woman AND robbing her at night. They would repeatedly hit her and slap her and then if she made any noise they would hit her again - mostly in the head. Now here is where it gets even worse. The director saw this was going on and instead of stopping it immediately she left the camera in the room for a week or so to make sure they had enough evidence. WHAT? One incident wasn't enough? What is wrong with this woman? She should lose her job immediately and go to jail for aiding the assault. I'm not sure what happened to her but I know that they arrested the two people (a man and a woman) who were doing the actual physical assaulting of the woman.

I'm at a complete loss. I just don't understand it at all. What happens to a person or what goes on in a persons brain that makes this OK for them? I wish scientifically they could map out that thought process to see how those synapses fire and to see if there is anyway to change it.


Sometimes it just as unscientific as this: people suck.