Hockey Dad gets 6-10!

1/25/02 | WABC News Radio

[chriservative]

Thomas Junta sentenced 6 to 10 years. Breaking . . .

[Orangedog]

It's a sad day when a man beats another man to death in front of the kids and then the animal gets a sentence that will put him back on the streets in a year and a half. And all of this happened because of a hockey game. Send this animal to GTMO with the animals that were just flown in from Afganistan.

[Clemenza]

Nothing against the tens of millions of Irish Americans who have suceeded in this great country. Unfortunately, a minority of the Irish population never made it out of the shanty, particularly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the former which is perfectly represented by Teddy the Red Nose Son of a criminal.

[DoughtyOne]

One of the few witenesses I saw was his son. I noted that the son provided nothing of importance in his testimoney which lead me to the same conclusion. What dad would put his son through this? By including the kid as a witness, the father could have instilled a since of guilt in his son, for not being able to or not doing enough to save his dad. It bothered me too.

[Lancey Howard]

Once again it is important to note that Junta pushed the rink manager in order to get to the deceased.

You make some very good points, and I surely believe that Junta is far from blameless. I just wanted to stress that regardless of the liberal, anti-sports, media spin, this incident had less to do with hockey than with two psychos dissing each other. "Hockey Dad".... (puke).

I wonder what could have compelled Junta to return to the rink the way he did, shoving a rink manager out of the way? Costin must have really peed him off.

[Lancey Howard]

It is true that the deceased man had a sordid past. You and I do not approve of that. But that past has no bearing on this case. Junta wasn't aware of that past

I do take issue with this one point. Their kids were friends, and Costin had been to prison seven times. I would bet that Junta was at least somewhat aware of Costin's past, and very likely aware that he was an ex-con. If so, this may have upped the ante for them both.

[MJM59]

I don't care who started the fight. There is NO justification for beating a man TO DEATH ove such a stupid situation as a childrens hockey game. It cannot be justified at all. People on this planet have been getting into fights since time began. But most civilized people do not beat another person to death. Get a freaking grip.

[DoughtyOne]

The "hockey dad" syndrome isn't isolated to that sport. I've seen it for about 40 years. It occurs in soccer, baseball, football and other sports I'm sure. It's existed as long as childhood sports programs have existed, I would imagine. Still, it seems to have taken a violent turn of late. But then I'm not altogether sure about that either. The presence of 24 hour news channels has proliferated the desimination of stories that would never have been aired before. For this reason many stories or trends appear "new", when they really aren't.

I personally think that the perp didn't want to face returning to the rink the next week without a more clear "victory" on the day in question. I would suggest that was related to how he felt his image had been damaged in the eyes of other parents and attendees, by the deceased. Unfortunately, resolving this image problem turned fatal.

[DoughtyOne]

The way I termed my arguement, your response is fitting. The perp may have had prior knowledge of the deceased man's criminal background. But does that matter?

The fight would never have taken place if the perp would not have rushed back in. And then there's the issue of going beyond what is necessary to stop a threat. The perp went through at least three barriers to kill the deceased.

1. He came back inside
2. He pushed aside the rink manager bruising her
3. He continued to beat the deceased even after he was down and subdued.

[keepinitreal]

If a sewing kit is considered by our newly adapted airport security to be a potential weapon I think it might be safe in saying that an idiot weilding a skate with lots of points and edges (knife) might be considered a weapon, what do you think sparky?

[tsomer]

I don't know what to think.

Waiting for a decent investigative write up on this.

[The Game Hen]

For the last time! The skates were on Costins feet not in his hands! The skates hindered his ability to defend himself. He could not run away from this goon and was forced to try to defend himself.

Also Junta beat his wife and assaulted a police officer, Not Costin. Costin had problems in his past, but it sounds like he had straightened out during his last two years. If he had not, why would he have gained custody of his four kids just before his death?

[FreeTally]

Why do you insist on continuing to distort this story? HE DID NOT HAVE A SKATE IN HIS HAND!! OK, do you get it yet??? Read the damn transcript from the trial - hell, even read newspaper stories. NO ONE TESTIFIED TO THIS, NOT EVEN THE DEFENSE.

[FreeTally]

The way I termed my arguement, your response is fitting. The perp may have had prior knowledge of the deceased man's criminal background. But does that matter?

I don't know about you, but I have NO IDEA where people have gotten the idea that the victim's past is a mitigating factor in the sentencing phase. Its totally irrelevant. You can learn this simply by watching "Court Room Dramas", and need not have any legal knowledge(although it could help).

[DoughtyOne]

I agree.

[Theodore R.]

This sound like a very lenient sentence to me. I wouldn't be surprise if this is not set aside on appeal. People in MA never met a criminal with whom they did not sympathize, including their icons, EMK and "President" bILLclinton.

[Bush2000]

Good! The moron deserves more time than that. He literally had the other guy on the ground -- he outweighed him by a hundred pounds -- pounding his head against the floor. There's no way anyone could argue that this was an accident.

[Bush2000]

Junta was defending himself against an attacker, with a skate in his hand. He went a little to far and a man got killed, but what did this idiot expect attacking a 270 lb man. I'm sorry but if someone came at me with skate in his hand, I wouldn't kill him but he'd sure have a mess on his hands.

Give me a break. There was witness testimony that showed Junta had the other guy down on the ground beating the crap out of him -- even when it was clear that the other guy could no longer pose a threat to him. Those are not the actions of a reasonable guy. Junta was a ticking time-bomb. He deserves to get put away for longer than he got.

[Hemlock]

So the precedent here is that if you're a loud-mouthed obnoxious runt, you can get away with anything and never have your behavior questioned?

Never, ever get into a fight with a big-mouthed runt. If you get the crap kicked out of you, you look like a wuss. If you kick the crap out of him, you look like a bully.

Junta shouldn't have gone back into the rink. He let pride get the better of him. A smart man would have found a way to get that punk-a$$-b*tch Costin fired.

[Hemlock]

These Junta defenders are creepy! Does Junta have several brothers and cousins with the brains to operate a computer? That's the only explanation I can think of.

Give it a rest. Although Junta was guilty of involuntary manslaughter, his actions were as understandable as they were unjustifiable. When I was nineteen, a punk who was about two-thirds my size told me that he would kill me if I didn't give him my wallet. I had a fender-bender with this jerk. It was my fault, and I opened my door to resolve the accident. After consulting with his girlfriend, the guy came back to my car and made the threat. I partially rolled up my power window while the guy went ape-sh!t on my door (ruining the window in the process). ADRENILINE TOOK OVER. A FLIGHT OR FIGHT REACTION OCCURRED. I immediately accelerated and slammed on my brakes, throwing the punk twenty feet in the process. I then tried to run him over as he barely made it back to his car. I got his license number and reported it to the cops (it turned out that the guy was wanted). Some might argue that I should have driven off as soon as the guy was thrown from my vehicle, but I was in a fight mode brought on by the guy's violent threat. Now, my situation was not analogous to Junta's. Once Junta left the building, he was no longer under any kind of threat. However, we don't know if Costin said and/or did anything to provoke Junta after he re-entered the building. My guess is that he did. Lesson for the Costins of the world: don't screw with people, especially big guys who can easily hurt you. Some of them won't care that you're a girly-man with a complex. Lesson for the Juntas of the world: if you kill someone while defending yourself, make sure the guy fits into the public's misguided understanding of what constitutes a "fair fight."

[The Game Hen]

I'm sorry. I should have said creepy and pathetic.