Man killed for watching World Cup instead of a Gospel Show

[Srelex]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9GD3QD00

JOHANNESBURG — Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.

"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,'" police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. "That is when the argument came about.

"In that argument, they started assaulting him."

Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.

Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.

"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."

All three were arrested Sunday night, but Lebogang was released on $200 bail Tuesday, Malefo said. The other two are still being held in custody.

Malefo said the mother and son will reappear in the local Seshego Magistrates Court on July 27.

"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral."

The World Cup, being played in Africa for the first time, started Friday and runs through July 11. Although most the tickets for the 64-game tournament have been sold, many in South Africa are too poor to attend matches.

[kouchpotato]

Maybe they were just sick of the vuvuzelas?

[General Mung Beans]

Was this religious fanaticism or a case of various festering tensions in the family that led to an outbreak of violence over a relatively minor squabble?

[Stuart]

Just for once I sympathize with the gospelites. I get heartily sick of people who think they have a god-given right to take over the television because there's "sport" or "the game" on. I'd guess this guy did just that, took over the television to watch sport no matter what anybody else wanted and his family finally cracked. Frankly, he got what was coming to him.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Just for once I sympathize with the gospelites. I get heartily sick of people who think they have a god-given right to take over the television because there's "sport" or "the game" on. I'd guess this guy did just that, took over the television to watch sport no matter what anybody else wanted and his family finally cracked. Frankly, he got what was coming to him.

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

[Spekio]

Just for once I sympathize with the gospelites. I get heartily sick of people who think they have a god-given right to take over the television because there's "sport" or "the game" on. I'd guess this guy did just that, took over the television to watch sport no matter what anybody else wanted and his family finally cracked. Frankly, he got what was coming to him.

Really? He got what was coming for wanting to change the channel on the television?

[Lonestar]

Piss off enough people enough times expect to get pushed back.

[ehenders]

Piss off enough people enough times expect to get pushed back.

Pushed, not killed. I find it ironic that they wanted to watch a gospel show too. "Thou shalt not kill", the whole peaceful message and all that...perhaps they should have watched that.

TRH

[Stuart]

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

No. I'm serious about being fed up with the arrogance and conceit of sports fans who think they can commandeer the television set just because a sports program is on regardless of the wishes of anybody else. I'm also fed up with schedulers who pre-empt programs because some wretched football or whatever match is on. Now, I will admit that killing this guy was going a bit far but it was probably accidental. However, I have no doubt there was a constant pattern of him demanding to watch sport and he finally pushed his family too far.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

No. I'm serious about being fed up with the arrogance and conceit of sports fans who think they can commandeer the television set just because a sports program is on regardless of the wishes of anybody else. I'm also fed up with schedulers who pre-empt programs because some wretched football or whatever match is on. Now, I will admit that killing this guy was going a bit far but it was probably accidental. However, I have no doubt there was a constant pattern of him demanding to watch sport and he finally pushed his family too far.

Then you're a tough-guy moron at best, and an inhumane asshole with severely fucked up priorities at worst.

It's a fucking TV set, no one needs it. If you're so emotionally unstable that someone taking over the TV will push you over the edge, you have severe problems that need to be addressed. There is nothing about this situation that deserves praise, he did not 'have it coming', there is no valid excuse for them to come to physical violence over something as stupid as who gets to watch the picture-box, let alone actually beating a human to death over it.

If there are other problems leading up to this, and the TV incident was the 'straw that broke the camel's back', my point still holds. The TV itself is an unimportant luxury, the operation and 'ownership' (in terms of who's holding the remote) of which never justifies actual physical violence. These are problems that should have been addressed long ago, and if they were to this point, these people desperately need psychiatric help. I reiterate: Anyone who seriously thinks someone deserves physical violence, let alone being beaten to death, over how much of an asshole they are with the TV really needs to re-examine their priorities in life.

[fgalkin]

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

No. I'm serious about being fed up with the arrogance and conceit of sports fans who think they can commandeer the television set just because a sports program is on regardless of the wishes of anybody else. I'm also fed up with schedulers who pre-empt programs because some wretched football or whatever match is on. Now, I will admit that killing this guy was going a bit far but it was probably accidental. However, I have no doubt there was a constant pattern of him demanding to watch sport and he finally pushed his family too far.

Do you have a problem with other scheduled events like live concerts and the State of the Union speech, or do you just single out sports fans?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Norade]

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

No. I'm serious about being fed up with the arrogance and conceit of sports fans who think they can commandeer the television set just because a sports program is on regardless of the wishes of anybody else. I'm also fed up with schedulers who pre-empt programs because some wretched football or whatever match is on. Now, I will admit that killing this guy was going a bit far but it was probably accidental. However, I have no doubt there was a constant pattern of him demanding to watch sport and he finally pushed his family too far.

Go fuck yourself you worthless shit stain. Besides chances are that guy bought that TV, paid for the power, and pays rent on the house. So he can damn well watch whatever he chooses to. Hell when a game I want to watch is on I ask my roomies to be quiet and I have total control of the TV until it's done. It's my TV in my house so they don't complain and the world goes round just fine.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I wonder what other casual impolitenesses one need commit, even if repeatedly, for Stuart's British manners' lethal logic to kick in. I mean wow, the cavalier attitude about the snap killing of a 61-year old man by his wife and children (the latter of which are his apparently 36-year old son, and 23 year-old daughter) really defies description.

[Flagg]

I'm not buying it. This is some elaborate prank unless Stuart gets in deep shit.

[PeZook]

"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."

Accidental my ass.

I dislike sports too, but come on! Even if he was an asshole about it, his own family banged his head against the wall.

I find the thought absolutely horrifying. Not to mention that I can understand why a sports fan would like to see an important game live during a damn world championship, much like a sci-fi fan would like to see a premiere of a new show, or a movie fan would like to watch the oscars. It's a source of potential conflict, but not something to resolve with violence.

[thejester]

You're trolling, right? I'd like to rebut, but it's so damn easy that red flags are going up and I have to ask this before I go any further.

No. I'm serious about being fed up with the arrogance and conceit of sports fans who think they can commandeer the television set just because a sports program is on regardless of the wishes of anybody else. I'm also fed up with schedulers who pre-empt programs because some wretched football or whatever match is on. Now, I will admit that killing this guy was going a bit far but it was probably accidental. However, I have no doubt there was a constant pattern of him demanding to watch sport and he finally pushed his family too far.

Quite apart from the ridiculousness of saying that it's somehow understandable that control of the TV is resolved by violence - even if this guy was a total sports nut, that'd mean he'd choose what was on TV for what, 2 or 3 nights of the week? That doesn't really strike me as unreasonable in a 4 person house, particularly given that this particular event (World Cup) only happens every four years.

[UnderAGreySky]

Is Stuart married? If so, I suspect he left his computer logged in to SDN and his wife came across it....

[PeZook]

Is Stuart married? If so, I suspect he left his computer logged in to SDN and his wife came across it....

Well, if this is indeed the case, I guess he'll be a lot nicer about watching sports from now on

[Flagg]

Hey, maybe we should start killing writers of really bad fanfiction, too.

[Thanas]

Alright guys, that's enough. Mods will discuss this thread and deal with it.

[TimothyC]

I understand the family's reaction, and Stuart's. Why? Because I've had a TV remote ripped out of my had while I was on lunch break because the salespeople I worked with didn't want to watch Blade Runner, they wanted to watch the football pregame show that was on over 100 TVs on the sales floor. It didn't matter that I was in the break room first, Sports were on, or were going to be on, and courtesy went out the window. Extrapolate that attitude day after day for years, and yes, I understand why the family attacked the man.

[MKSheppard]

Same here -- I absolutely hate the mindless idiots who cheer like crazy over some trivial fucking sports game while at a bar in a restaurant; making it near impossible for anyone to fucking hold a conversation elsewhere in the restauraunt -- you have to literally stop talking for 10 seconds or so until the idiots stop cheering.

Double Plus Annoyance Points if you're Hard of Hearing Like me, and any noise shuts you down even harder.

But anyway; the man forgot RULE NUMBER ONE of being married:

The Woman Is Always Right.

Sure bitch a bit over the gospel show after you try to change the channel, but instead of trying to change it physically on the TV itself, just go out the door cursing to a bar or public gathering where there's a TV set up.

[Twigler]

I've contemplated violence against my dad on many occasions when he switched the channel to yet another damn football match that he absolutely had to watch, but FFS you don't actually do anything with those thoughts. Or at least something constructive, like in my case getting a holiday job to buy my own TV.

I wonder if they all sat down for a nice "Hallelujah, we can praise the Lord-ah again" afterwards.

[Stuart]

I think most of you are still missing the point I was trying to get at. I doubt if this was an isolated event; it probably represents the culmination of a long trend of this guy comandeering the television set for his sports programs regardless of what the rest of the family wanted to watch. Eventually he pushed too far, there was a fight and he got killed. Obviously (I thought it was so obvious that it didn't need stating but I was wrong on that) killing him was an over-the-top reaction but his behavior was, at the very least, a contributory factor to the tragedy. As others have remarked, if somebody pushes long enough and hard enough, eventually others will push back and that seems to be what happened here.

The connection with gospel singing is something of a red herring here. If my feeling that this was the culmination of a dispute that had been brewing up for years is right, then the nature of the television program is irrelevent. It could have been an installment of any television program - or indeed anything else. The actual dispute was over one person who believed that he could override the wishes of the rest of his family and did so often enough to cause a head of steam to build up. My original comment was aimed at the presumption the whole affair blew up with "gospel singing" as a cause not as the result of clashes between personalities and habits that had little to do with the actual nature of the television programs in question/

Living in a family is a matter of compromises; nobody gets what they want all the time. Problems like this arise when one member forgets that and resentment within the family circle builds up until there is an explosion. From observation over the years, I've noted its sports fanatics who seem to be most prone to ignoring the compromise principle and demanding that their personal priorities take precedence over everybody else. I think there are likely to be other factors as well here; one might suspect a small house where other people don't get the chance to be away from things they dislike and so have them forced into their attention and a "hot-house" atmosphere where financial and personal problems have already reached critical point. One can't justify killing him but one can understand the environment in which the event took place. In fact, it is quite likely that television really had little to do with this; it was simply the spark that set the explosion off. It could have been almost anything. As our resident LEOs will doubtless confirm, domestic disputes are usually fired by an initial event that is trivial but actually represent the culmination of a long-standing conflict.

[SVPD]

As our resident LEOs will doubtless confirm, domestic disputes are usually fired by an initial event that is trivial but actually represent the culmination of a long-standing conflict.

There's a great deal of truth to that. When you don't already have a history of violence and an otherwise peaceful household blows up, you can bet it isn't because an otherwise nonviolent person suddenly turned into an abusive nut for no reason. It's generally because they got pushed too far. You see this frequently in couples that are on the verge of separating or getting a divorce; they're already pushing each other and if they don't either physically separate or reconcile, one of them is going to provoke the other one just a little too far, eventually.

I'd also be interested to know if any of those involved in this incident were drinking, and how much.