Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: What's Victoria's Secret?

I am going to be really politically incorrect today. I have been reading up on all the sympathy oozing everywhere on the Internet and in the media for the 16-year-old Victoria Lindsay, the girl who got her butt kicked by six of her friends. Yes, those girls were mean and nasty and deserved to get a jail term. But, for some reason - well, for a pretty good reason - I just don't feel that sorry for Victoria.

Why? First of all, these were her friends - not strangers and not some bullies from school she had tried her best to avoid. Friends - as in these are the girls I hang out with and live with. Water seeks its own level and I wonder that Victoria - were another girl being targeted - wouldn't have gone along with the group melee and thrown some punches herself.

Secondly, why were all these girls so ticked off at Victoria? It is said she talked smack on MySpace, saying some really vicious stuff and saying she was going to fight them. So, she flamed these girls publicly, possibly embarrassing them and humiliating them. Then she said she would fight them. Seems like they brought the fight to her and she turned out to be all bark and no bite; she didn't even throw one punch. She wimped out, took the beating, and begged them to let her go. She wasn't as tough as she tried to pretend to be.

But, regardless of her behaviors, because Victoria ended up the unhappy loser of this girl bashing, she is being made out to be a totally innocent lamb. I am guessing the trash talk she put on MySpace was just the tip of the iceberg for this girl's past behaviors. Apparently, she isn't living at home and her father states in an interview that she has had her share of problems. She clearly admits to her friends during the assault that she had been drunk (during one of the times the girls found whatever she did offensive) and said she had grown up since then.

Hey, this girl is barely sixteen. She has a problem with drinking and she isn't living with her parents. Apparently, Victoria's parents want to blame MySpace instead of their lack of parenting that surely contributed to Victoria ending up as a punching bag.

I bet we will find out there is more behind this story than we have seen on the video. Victoria and her girl pals seem to me to be a bunch of brats who have been left without decent parental guidance long enough to become the female version of Lord of the Flies. They are a pretty good example of the rising, antisocial and violent teens we are seeing more and more of today in the United States.

Victoria may have suffered a good deal of fear and pain during this slap down but, if she were my kid, the first thing I would have asked her is "Did you deserve it?" And if she did, I would have told her I hope she learned her lesson.

I hope Victoria learned hers.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown